28 October 2024
Every Monday I will be bringing you an interview with an independent band, duo or music artist. This week, I caught up with David from Liverpool band The Ragamuffins to find out more…
Who is in the band, how did you meet, where are you from and how did you come up with the name?
David John Jaggs – guitar, vocals, keyboards
Alex Pearson – bass
William Graham – drums and harmonica
Florin Ciurariu – trumpet
Tom Fripp – guitar
Sam Parry – keyboards
I started the prototype version of The Ragamuffins years ago and met the members through word of mouth and scouting out people who could play the instruments I wanted to put on record from around the North West. We were doing ok, had a few support slots with bands who have since done amazing things but gradually people drifted away, and it looked like the band would be consigned to history. Then one of our biggest supporters, a young Liverpudlian called Ed Feery announced he wanted to try releasing music by bands and artists he really liked through mediums like distributors and Bandcamp et al and we began a process akin to finding the gunslingers in The Magnificent Seven or the characters of a heist film which hasn’t ever really stopped! The name stems from a term of casual endearment that my dearly missed Nan would say to me “ahh, you little Ragamuffin!”.
Who were your musical influences when you were growing up and who are your influences now?
Initially The Beatles. Two exiled scousers in my Mum and Dad made sure of that. I loved classic rock n roll sounds as a really young kid learning to play on a terrible Casio Keyboard (we didn’t have space for a piano so had to make do!) and it pained me that these twangy guitars made sounds I couldn’t get close to on a beginner instrument. Video game soundtracks really struck me too, the Zelda games and classic Mario and Nintendo stuff had amazing colour and depth within the music which given the technological limits they must have had is pretty mindblowing! Pokemon is all counterpoint because there’s only 4 note polyphony!
How would you describe your sound?
Varied! We’re very soulful and there’s loads of brass and piano and rhythm which stems from our love of ska and soul, mainly Northern Soul but I love proper vintage guitar tones, tremolo and reverb dripping and that.
What is your latest release called and what was the influence behind it?
King Tiger! It’s a proper energetic little bop, it came from spending pretty much exclusive time with my (then very young) daughter during phase one of the pandemic, her finding my impression of one of the bit-part characters in CBBC’s “Hey Duggee”, namely King Tiger, really funny, and me wanting to write a song about defiance.
What’s your local music scene like?
In some ways we’re not the best to ask. Covid and experiences during Covid has undoubtedly changed us as a band, possibly forever, and partially out of necessity and partially out of sheer dumb luck we’ve been very busy doing some projects through The Ragamuffins that are too good to turn down but not really linked to our artistic journey and progression as a band. They help to pay the bills and actually financially continue making new music, increase the amount of coverage we get exponentially, and allow us to see places we never would have imagined. Also, our drummer Will broke both his wrists in a bad accident back in 2021 which have severely impacted on how often we can play, he has to take it a lot easier nowadays! These things mean we’ve effectively aped The Beatles by playing a very small number of live shows since everything shut down.
That said, there is a thriving pool of artists within Liverpool and undoubtedly an enormously successful music scene, which has seen chart topping acts emerge from grassroots venues with a tiny local label (in the grand scheme of things!) at the heart of it in Modern Sky as well as local bands take on selling out the largest venues in the city the way acts like Red Rum Club and The Cheap Thrills have done but some of the non-pop events like Africa Oye festival and more. There’s been closures of grassroots venues which is heartbreaking in some instances, and if the council want to continue to reap the economic benefits of having events like Jamie Webster bringing 30,000 people together in Sefton Park this summer they need to make sure the venues where the next musical journeys begin in are still there, and given how financially tough times are this is a two pint problem.
What do you have planned for the next 12 months?
We’re going to continue to release the songs from our next album because sadly that is the way the algorithm dictated musical distributors require us to! We’re off to Paris next month and Glastonbury next June again, we’ve got about 4 or 5 additional next album songs to finish before Christmas and we’re continuing to work with Fans Supporting Foodbanks, a movement driving towards a bill for the right to food being enshrined in UK law and helping support their food pantries and incredible work in major cities across the country by recording some daft but hopefully successful football songs which have raised about £15,000 so far!
Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
Oof. To start with Taylor Swift obviously – I love her writing style and the classic Nashville chops shining through. We’ve got a collaboration coming out next year with US Rock and Roll hall of fame member Mr Steve Cropper who wrote with and for Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin amongst others that WAS on a musical bucket list but got ticked off! I’d love to write with Stuart Murdoch of Belle & Sebastian or Tracy-Anne Campbell of Camera Obscura who is low key one of the best songwriters of the past 20 years.
Any funny stories surrounding your live performances?
I booted a European Cup off stage in Norway this summer when trying to volley a beach ball back into the audience and nearly broke my foot, nearly got electrocuted when a cloudburst rainstorm soaked our outdoor stage and we had literally no shelter back in 2019, then had people asking “why aren’t you playing” as sodden we trudged back to the van in the glorious sunshine which followed. We also finished a gig at Liverpool’s The Florrie venue and as we walked offstage two rather large and completely naked except for a German WW1 infantry helmet (complete with spike) and a red and black balloon each walked on stage as some stereotypical oompah music came on. We had no idea what was going on but the balloons were choreographed to cover their, well, you know and were swung about until one hit and wobbled my guitar, stood precariously on it’s stand on stage. Flo our trumpet player looked at me and laughed. I just said “if it gets knocked over and breaks I’ll have a hell of a job convincing the insurance company on Monday morning!”
What is the one thing that you want readers to know about you?
We always try and give 100% to whatever we do. Sam our keys player for much of our life as a band said we deal in side quests and given some of the mad gigs we’ve ended up doing down the years, the wild goose chases and trips and sessions, I know what he means!
You can find out more about The Ragamuffins via Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Spotify, Threads, TikTok, X (Twitter) or YouTube.
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