Enter the Haggis moves beyond Celtic

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Enter the Haggis Special to the Record-Eagle

January 20, 2012

Canadian band turned to fans to finance album

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS mdrahos@record-eagle.com The Record Eagle Mon Jan 30, 2012, 02:23 PM EST

TRAVERSE CITY — Fans of the Celtic-rock band Enter the Haggis are learning to embrace change.

Take the band's latest album, "Whitelake," for which the musicians employed half a dozen new instruments, giving it an entirely different sound.

"We just wanted to write really good songs and treat them the best way they could be treated, whether that was with mandolin, organ or whatever," said band member Mark Abraham, who added ukulele to his usual repertoire of bass and vocals. "It wasn't necessarily to get away from Celtic music."

Still, Abraham acknowledged that the new record opens up more possibilities for the Toronto-based band to be seen and heard outside the Celtic world, where it's known for combining the traditional sounds of the highland bagpipe and fiddle with a strong rhythm section and vocals.

"Radio programmers, especially in commercial radio, are still scared of the bagpipes," Abraham said. "When they hear 'Celtic rock,' they run the other way."

The high-energy band returns to Traverse City today, Jan. 20, for an 8 p.m. performance at the Dennos Museum Center. The show is not only a chance to hear tunes from the new album, "soft" released in October, but to check out drummer and percussionist Bruce McCarthy, new to area "Haggis Heads" since the group's last appearance at the Dennos in 2008.

Missing will be Kelly Elvin, of Grand Junction, near Kalamazoo, who helped fund the album by paying $1,000 to sing on it.

Elvin, a lawyer-turned-dog-trainer and an amateur singer, got to perform backup vocals on two songs as a 44th birthday present from her husband, Matt.

"We drove 12 hours -- it took two days -- to just outside Ottawa, Canada, and stayed for a day and a half," said Elvin, of the recording experience in a rustic lakeside cabin. "He didn't even tell me where we were going."

The opportunity to play or sing on the album was one of several packages offered in a fan fundraiser to help finance the album after the band parted ways with its New York City-based record label and management company, Abraham said. Others included everything from a signed pre-sale copy of the album to a chance to buy a band member's car.

"We have such a strong and loyal fan base that we wanted to engage them in helping to make the album we wanted to make," said Abraham, of Maine, the only band member who lives stateside. "We ended up raising $40,000 and it funded the entire album."

Elvin, who since has been invited to sing at some of the band's shows, said she became a fan in February after hearing the band on a cruise that featured "singers-songwriters-performers."

"I think we were not the only ones who were unexpectedly delighted with their music," she said. "They were so well received they were given the final concert of the cruise. It's definitely a stand-up-raise-a-glass-sing-at-the-top-of-your-lungs-dance kind of show."

The band evolved over a decade from a wildly popular local group to an established international touring act that performs most often in the U.S. Its credits include top 10 charting positions on Billboard, Amazon, and iTunes; major television appearances on shows like A&E's "Breakfast with the Arts" and "Live with Regis and Kelly"; and its own PBS special.

Abraham, who studied music at Toronto's prestigious Humber College, said the quintet's diverse backgrounds include playing in everything from funk and jazz bands to pipe bands.

"Whitelake" is the band's sixth album and features a dozen original songs, including the topical "Devil's Son" (about Bernie Madoff's son, Mark, who committed suicide) and "The Whistleblower" (about an ex-child soldier returning home).

While first-time listeners might be hard-pressed to identify the band's genre as primarily Celtic-rock, the album has been "well received," Abraham said.

"We didn't know what to expect. It was kind of risky because we've already built up a fan base. But we want to keep pushing the boundaries of what we want to do and not get stuck in just Celtic music," he said.

Tickets for today's show are $25 in advance, at www.dennosmuseum.org or (231) 995-1553, and $28 at the door.