Billy The Mountain band released their latest album Tides of Mercy in August, and re-released the band’s remastered first album Drifting To Valhalla at the same time, making available a pair of records which feature some of the Scottish writer’s strongest material to date.

“And on both albums there are a least a couple of stand-out tracks written using my treasured Tanglewood which is just the most precious of instruments. It gives me the feel and tones that inspire me to write and to find those special musical moments that make the simplest song ideas come to life. I’ve had all kinds of acoustics throughout my career, but my Tanglewoods have inspired my writing more than any guitar I’ve ever owned.

“If you have a chance to hear the song ‘Love Comes Down’ (aka The Tender Zone) on Drifting To Valhalla you’ll hear a guitar so perfect that it just wrote the song! Jamming ahead of a take, I found the intro lick and the feel for the song right from the guitar itself, and within an hour I’d written and recorded ‘Love Comes Down’.

“The same goes for the song ‘One Love’ which ends the Tides of Mercy album. I was doodling away looking for ideas one night, and within minutes the guitar took over and I had written a lovely acoustic love song the producer insisted we include – and he was convinced my demo actually featured an American-made axe. In fact I tracked all the songs for Tides of Mercy first in the studio on the Tanglewood, laying down the forms and chords of the songs using just the acoustic and my guide vocals…we even deliberately let the warm acoustic sound ‘bleed’ through to the final master on some songs.

“The Tanglewoods are so comfortable and the woods used in their instruments so right for the moods you are looking for – bluesy, rock, foksy – even jazzy; they just respond so well to the right touch and once I fitted Elixir strings – that’s like getting a new guitar every time you replace the set!

“The fact is that when you are writing songs of any kind, the guitar tones you work with can inspire you and the response from the instrument is everything, keeping you comfortable and letting you hear the ideas you are working on loud and clear…even leading you to places you might not otherwise find on some dead old piece of wood!

And Tanglewood guitars really come alive in your hands!

The movie’s ‘official’ soundtrack is already in the capable hands of Glaswegian Kennedy Aitchison who graduated from The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and has been working for over twenty years as a musical director, producer, orchestrator, and arranger in most musical genres. His theatre credits include West End and touring productions of Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats and Saturday Night Fever and he has performed with the RSNO, RPO, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Dionne Warwick, Michael Bolton, John Barrowman, Randy Crawford, The Three Degrees, The Supremes, Shirley Bassey and The Drifters. Recently he conducted the orchestra of the Scottish Opera in a live performance of Nanci Griffith’s album, The Dust Bowl Symphony.

Word is that Kennedy is working on the movie theme and score with the gifted Shetland band Bongshang as well as Shetland’s very own fiddle maestro Aly Bain.

But with all that talent already on the case, one of the movie’s executive producers George Stroud and director Jim Brown heard the early stages of some Tides of Mercy tracks and were impressed enough to suggest we do some music to accompany the film and add to the tapestry of artistic effort driving this fascinating all-Scottish production.

We of course jumped at the offer despite being up to our necks writing our next album and getting our groove-rich Yer Ma alt-indie three-piece off the ground. It was too good an opportunity to miss and our first deadline for the directors is a demo presentation of song ideas on August 21.

The movie itself is set on Isle of Fustra in Shetland. With it’s breath-taking landscape, warm community and a strong sense of tradition, the tiny island was once known as the Jewel of the Shetland Isles, but with it’s population dwindling into single figures, this little jewel has lost it’s sparkle.

But there’s one man – Thomas – who believes it can still shine brightly. A man who remembers a time when laughter and music rang out from these empty cottages, where every Saturday the village hall was jammed with people singing and dancing and on Sunday the church would be fit to burst.

This was the Fustra Thomas knew and loved…the Fustra he longs to get back. When a romantic notion causes Thomas to write a video blog about Fustra, he gets a little carried away. Allowing nostalgia to get the better of him he writes about a community where life is simple, crime free and the rat race a million miles away. As well as writing of a time gone by Thomas inadvertently lets slip that a rare and presumed extinct bird has just passed his window.

Before he knows it people from all over the place start descending on the island, arriving on boats and chartered planes. When the visitors quickly discover that what Thomas promised them isn’t altogether real, Thomas realizes it would have been wise to consider first the incredible power of the Internet…because when Charles Mowat Manningtree, looking for a prime location for his most ambitious development to date, comes across Thomas’s Fustra blog on the net, he realizes he’s struck gold and sets his sights on turning this picturesque island into the ultimate destination for the rich and pampered.

Just as the disillusioned and angry visitors decide to about turn and leave Fustra, the weather closes in and traps everyone, including Charles, on the tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic, and it’s during his stay on Fustra that Charles discovers the isle holds the key to his past, present and future.

He came here to make his fortune, but instead finds he has opened a can of worms that will truly shake his world, making him ask the question: Did he find Fustra or did Fustra find him? Between Weathers is a modern day David and Goliath story set against the stunning and magical backdrop of Shetland, where a disappearing way of life is fought for tooth and nail, against a corporate giant unable to see beyond the dollar signs.

Between Weathers is a heart-warming feel good tale that just goes to prove…money can’t buy you love.

Band frontman Pithie says the 8pp commissioned Tides of Mercy Artwork and new Drifting To Valhalla artwork for the release of the first album are also looking good, crafted and conceived by UK studio The Front Room.

“The band’s last album Drifting To Valhalla did well across the net especially on but the single song Mem Will Dance outsold all the other tracks by a margin of five or six times. And when you think about it, fans often fall in love with just one or two songs so we’re working to give the widest cross section of BTM fans at least one song to like well enough and buy. And once we’ve got the best selling singles qualified and compiled, we can compile them on an album of Greatest Hits one day. ”

The feedback on the new song Wild Water from US radio stations, European producer forums, private showcases and industry pundits has been “phenomenal” frontman Zander Ran said.

“It’s a moving anti-war song inspired by the kids who went to ‘fight’ in Iraq for a government bounty and never came back.” The single is available on and other key retail sites farmed by Tunecore.com.

“Nicolai’s (Kehlet) production and arrangement is once again totally state of the art and his guitar playing and tones surely justify his reputation as one of rock’s best producers working today. And the band just love his studio in Bangkok and the satellite studios like Gann’s Dynamic Studio he uses. The band is blessed to have so many cool people around them and watching out for their final sound and personality,” Ran said.

Bangkok-based jam blues rock band Billy The Mountain have been told by their Stateside management that they have once again topped one of the most important indie charts in America at www.songplanet.com. Their hit single Mem Will Dance from the April 2008 album Drifting To Valhalla sits at Number One again on the Songplanet Top 100 song chart.

Band management speaking from Nashville where the band has just released its latest single Wild Water, said the band – busy in the studio – were ‘ecstatic’ on the news especially since the album was released more than a year ago and was still making major waves in the US market.

“And sales on have been phenomenal with Mem Will Dance leading the way in individual downloads there too. And topping any Songplanet chart is a major achievement and great news for the band, especially ahead of the new album Born On Mars which is being released this year as a series of singles first. The first song, Wild Water – an anti-war song dedicated to the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan – leads the charge and we have very high hopes for this collection of brilliant songs too,” they said.

Billy the Mountain are currently still charting third on one of the Internet’s top Indie sites with their song Mem Will Dance high on the Songplanet chart for nearly a year since the band’s debut album Drifting To Valhalla was released in April 2008. The band, based in Thailand, are currently working on a second album at Paradise Studios in Bangkok.