There’s a moment in any band’s life when someone brings a song to rehearsal and the room falls quiet. Like, really quiet, in a special way.
Not awkward, not confused. Out of a collective respect and recognition.
That’s what happened, says Iain ‘Spanish’ Mackay, when Willie Campbell first played the song Hello God to his bandmates in The Tumbling Souls.
“As soon as I heard it, I went: yeah, that lands,” says Iain, from his home on Lewis. “I got it straight away. I just got it. Because I was brought up in a similar way to Willie, you know, religious folks, Sunday school, the whole carry-on.
“You can hear in the lyrics how that sort of faith, some element of faith, was trying to help Willie get through a particular time in his life. It’s just that sort of conversation, the one you end up having with yourself, or whatever’s up there, when things are hard.”
The song is written by Campbell, the band’s frontman, main songwriter, and, as Iain tells with clear affection, the “engine” behind everything The Tumbling Souls do. A founding member of hit band Astrid, Willie has since poured his heart and soul into making music that matters. Hello God is living proof of that.
“I think Willie was a wee bit dubious about putting it out,” admits Iain. “He knows how the band might have reacted, we’re a fairly free-thinking bunch, we speak our minds. But I was like: I don’t know what you’re worried about. Be brave. Be bold. Let’s just put it out. Because I think it will resonate with a lot more people than he might expect.”
That’s not to say the Souls have gone all Bible thumping. Far from it. For those on an isle steeped in religious traditions that many feel are being slowly eroded, Hello God refuses to be simply devotional.
Instead it carries well-reasoned complaints alongside its heart-on-sleeve gratitude. It says thank you in one subtle breath and screams loud for more help in the next, something many people may recognise.
“I think it’s a very transposable song. It doesn’t matter if you’re religious or not. It could be about any relationship. That sort of, we’re having bad fights right now, but I love you, you know what I mean?” Ian says.
“There’s that sort of inner struggle, almost that fight within one’s soul. You know, both sides of a coin at the same time. Anybody who’s ever been in a difficult situation and needed something to hold on to, I think that’s who this song is for.”
Like all The Tumbling Souls songs, Hello God was shaped and crafted collectively in the rehearsal room. Willie generally arrives with a song, maybe as a voice note, sometimes with no warning at all, and the band builds around it.
“He would turn up to practice and go: right, I’ve got a song. We’re like: wicked, let’s hear it,” says Iain. “And we figure out the chord patterns, play it through very roughly, and then it’s: okay, pull the bridge out and come back in there. The bass isn’t coming in until through the first rush. Drop the acoustics. What if Stephen does this? What if we try this here?
“It’s very much everybody putting their own thing in. Lyrically, nothing really changes from what Willie’s written. But the song becomes the band’s, you know?”
It’s a process, he says, that has not so much changed but evolved the band’s songs in ways that can’t always be planned for.
“Accidents on stage become part of the song. And I love that, that whole thing where a song develops its own life, its own vibe. Once these songs are gigged heavily, they create their own persona. And I think that’s really important.”
In the studio, he confesses, recording Hello God felt a little different from some of the band’s other sessions. “Some songs you feel more than others,” he says. “And for me, I felt this one a little bit more.
“Usually you get so caught up in the technical stuff, am I playing too hard, too open, watching the dynamic. But for that song I think I listened more. I was just more in it. Does that make sense?”
Although everyone has served their time as musicians on the circuit, The Tumbling Souls are still a relatively young band and their following is growing steadily. As a Lewis band through and through, that Hebridean context matters to how Hello God will land.
“Especially on the islands,” says Iain, “and especially with the culture that they are, I think this will absolutely connect with people. Because in more difficult times, everybody is looking for an answer somewhere, whatever they are and wherever they’re going to find it.
“And I think this song speaks to every side of that. It’s going to resonate with people on every side of the bridge.”
He is also, it’s clear, proud of what the song says about Willie’s own journey. “Look at him now,” he says simply. “He came through all of that incredibly. And I think it’s an important thing, especially from Willie’s perspective, to put himself out there and say: this is where I was, and this is part of what helped me through.”
Hello God was released on May Day, ahead of a busy summer for the band, including a slot at HebCelt Festival, and a second album that is, in Iain’s words, very close to finished. He is excited, they have waited a long time, and he knows the wait has been worth it.
“I am absolutely proud of it,” he says of the new work. “There’s not one song where I think: aye, that’s okay. Every one of them is like: no, this is great. And I think it’s taken this long to get there because of life. Everybody got married, had kids around the same time, all the rest of it.
“But now it feels like we’ve all put everything back into it again. And Willie’s been putting in absolute bangers.”
For anyone yet to see the band live, HebCelt is shaping to the highlight of their summer, and potentially with the new album launch too.
Spanish has a simple message. “If you haven’t come to see us, that’s where you’ll find us at our best,” he says. “We say it every time before we go on: let’s smash it, let’s give them everything. But once we’re on the stage, it’s easy. We don’t have to bring it. It’s natural. It’s not a fake place.
“And that’s what I want from a band. I want to be in the band I would have been a fan of. I want people to enjoy it every single bit as much as we do. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
Hello God might just be the song that answers those prayers.
The Tumbling Souls return to HebCelt on festival Friday, 17 July.
