NEW band Red Sky July sees a new role for long-time Texas guitarist Ally McErlaine who with his wife Shelly Poole and friend Charity Hair make up the core of the line-up.
Long one of the main lynch pins of the Texas sound with singer Sharleen Spiteri, it seems some things don’t change much.
"It’s even worse with the two of them – I only had one in Texas," laughed Ally.
"I end up carrying all the bags, Shelly always brings a really heavy bag, even if there’s one night. So I end up carrying her bag and my bag.
"I’m like the carthorse of the band."
But with the addition of another male to balance things out, it’s the four-piece version of the band Inverness will be seeing.
Ally said: "Mark Neary, who’s coming to Inverness with us will be playing pedal steel and double bass."
Yet as he talks about the new band – which has just released the self-titled debut album – you remember that two years ago a brain aneurysm meant Ally was on the critical list.
Now that he’s better and the plan from 2009 to form Red Sky July has belatedly come alive, Ally admitted that it has changed some things.
"I think I’m the same, but I do appreciate simple things like walking down the street because I can do that.
"And I couldn’t do it at all when I was bedridden for a year and in hospital.
"When it was all happening, I was thinking ‘when will I be able to get back and play guitar’.
"So now I’m enjoying working in my garden again and just enjoying things like that.
"Even getting to do that again is great.
"So I’m quite happy."
Though the sound of Red Sky July with its definite country twang may seem a world away from the later guise of Texas, Ally pointed out it’s more of a question of going back to the roots of Texas.
"For me I am doing what I have always done.
"In the early days of Texas, the sound was quite country and bluesy and then it moved away from that. That was always what I wanted most.
"So as soon as I had the chance, I went back to doing that.
"A lot of the music I listen to – and the girls – is alt country, people like Bonnie Prince Billy and Gram Parsons and that was what this album was all about. I wouldn’t call our sound straight country, it’s like country with folk and something a bit more leftfireld too.
"Shelley is very English and Charity is quite southern country, so it’s a combination of quite quirky country – and I am whatever I am!"
But there’s a change from the big record company machine that Texas enjoy.
Red Sky July are going back to a more homespun approach to get word of their new album out there.
Ally explained: "Proper Records is an independent distribution label that also has a label themselves and we are signed to that.
"They are the only company that still has a sales team going round in cars with boxes of CDs going to record shops.
"We are doing homemade things. So we are just recording acoustic things and putting them up on YouTube – which is what you do unless you’re Lady Gaga and you’re on MTV every 10 minutes!"
And unlike the Texas tour, there isn’t going to be a tour bus.
Ally laughed: "We’re just driving ourselves.
"I like that better.
"It feels quite free to sit down and do a gig with just a guitar and no big entourage and crew.
"Just as long as people come along to see us, which I hope they do.
"I think it’s that word of mouth thing. People hear something and Google it and they tell their friends. "It’s like going back to when we started for me – no budget!
"We love it, it’s good fun."
Ross Travail he did the pix on the album sleeve.
The name of the band came surprisingly easily for a moniker that makes a good fit for the sound which Ally dubs "country with folk and more leftfield elements to it".
Ally said: "Shelley just said the name out of the blue.
"So we just said ‘If we can remember it in the morning, we will call it that!’."
Though Ally has lived in London for 15 years, he revealed that every year there’s a holiday in Scotland every year.
"We go walking because we love it up there."
And there’s even an Inverness influence in the way Red Sky July looks.
"The pictures on the album sleeve have been done by my friend, the photographer Ross Trevail who comes from Inverness originally."
Red Sky July play Mad Hatters, Inverness, on Wednesday.
