So this special Folk Album of the Year award episode of Folk on Foot is celebrating the amazing album, All Smiles Tonight by Poor Creature.

And the band are joining me now online, Cormac, Ruth and John. Great to have you,

and congratulations on your nomination for Folk Album of the Year. Let's just hear the history of the

trio of you, because you've all got commitments to other bands. I mean, Ruth, you're in Landless

and Cormac and John, you play with Lankham.

So how did the three of you come together as a unit?

I suppose me and Cormac live together and are married.

So we were playing music in our living room, basically,

which we played a bit together anyway but then when

the pandemic started it just left us with a lot more time to experiment and try out some new

instruments and new arrangements and so we were kind of tipping away on that to a few online things

when that was still the practice.

And then as we kind of came out of it, we had a few gigs lined up.

And then we decided that we really needed John to join us.

And thankfully, John said yes.

He was obliged to, though, because you're related to us.

They'd have to join a bubble of some kind or, you know, some strange COVID regulation or anything like that in order to get the band together. No. It was well after that. Yeah, I mean, it was the two of us initially and then it was only afterwards that we got to, can I play properly together. Like, our first gig is a benefit for a Greyhound. And John, fair play to him, like, hadn't played with us once at all, but got up and did a stormy. You know, we did two, like three or four tracks and that it was great, you know what I mean? Did you say a benefit for a greyhound? Yes. Yes. What was wrong with the greyhound? He needed a new knee. A new knee. And so you did a gig to raise the money to have the operation? Yeah. Ourselves and a bunch of other bands, it was lovely. Really nice turnout for the dog. He was very good. Yeah. And John, had you ever, so you just kind of threw yourself into it. You'd never rehearsed with them. Look, if there's a benefit for a dog, I'm dare. That's kind of the creative arts. No, because like, obviously me and Cormick would have been, you know, we were playing with Lankham, but we're brothers and we've always been knocking ideas back and forth about what might be fun. And I think, like, in the early iterations of the Lancom thing,

I wouldn't have been that busy in the songs.

It was very minimal.

And I've no doubt that I was probably vocal about,

oh, this is great, but I'd love to be doing more.

And I think with Cause and Root, they think as their kind of arrangements are coalescing, I think for them there was the sense that yeah, there was room for another voice in that. To be all the air and I am back forward to leave you You place beyond

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