As part of a folk dynasty, Rose Kemp has spent much of her life on the road - but she's happier in a scuzzy van than a nice hotel if it means she can make the music she wants, she tells Tony Clayton-Lea
'Making ends meet? It's been a struggle, I have to admit. I remember when I was touring with my mum. We'd be booked into nice hotels, and we'd have people treat us wonderfully everywhere we went. We had a lovely van to tour in, with sound men and a road crew. Yet I think of what I have now and it's great - I'm so much happier. I walk into a horrible, scuzzy box of a van stuck together with gaffer tape, and I breathe a sigh of relief because it's the natural home of me and my music. That's what it's about - being able to do the music I want to do. It's everything to me."
The name Rose Kemp might not be familiar to most people, even to those who feel they have their eight flexible fingers on the various pulses of what is and what is not happening in the strange but wonderful world of pop music and popular culture. Even when you mention her name in the context of UK folk-rock, you'd be hard pressed to come up with a connection. Yet Kemp is the daughter of Maddy Prior and Rick Kemp, two of the primary figures of the pioneering British folk-rock group, Steeleye Span. Known more for their two (often parodied) hit singles, Gaudete (1973) and All Around My Hat (1975), the band forged a singular path in the folk circles of the 1970s. So singular (some might say odd), in fact, that the band attracted the likes of a post-Ziggy Stardust David Bowie as an admirer and one-time musical collaborator.
Still doing the folk-rock rounds (indeed, they are as popular as ever), Steeleye Span, says Rose Kemp, have not been an albatross around her neck.
"No, not at all, but to a certain extent, when I was growing up, the folk establishment was not always entirely supportive," she says. "They momentarily forgot, perhaps, that Steeleye Span were a very pioneering band. I didn't really want to learn the fiddle and be done with it, and they didn't really understand why I didn't want to fully uphold the tradition and dedicate my whole life to it.
"It seems my time as a teenager was very much looked upon as a rite of passage, a view that I didn't always agree with."
Nonetheless, Kemp started life in music performing with her mother and father, and going on the road with them. At 16, she contributed to her mother's album, Bib and Tuck, while a year later her debut solo record, Glance, was released to less than a fanfare.
Around this time, Kemp joined the Oysterband, a modern UK folk-rock act that saw her trading in an acoustic guitar for an electric one. A creative itch needed to be scratched, however, and before long she began to write songs for a second solo effort. By this stage, she was weary (and wary) of what perceptions there might be from staunch UK folk traditionalists.
"The people in the folk world, and folk fans, have been hearing some odd stuff from me for some time now," she says. "I think the folk press is quite separate from the mainstream press - usually when I talk to them, if I'm at my mum's gigs, they don't know that I'm doing anything musically. They just haven't noticed. Some of them come to my gigs and say it's the best loud gig they've heard in a long time. And some of them come along and don't like it. Which is fine. I'm finding my own audience at the moment, like it should be.
"I think some people forget that Steeleye Span were a very innovative, groundbreaking band, and indeed a very loud band. Some of these people expect me to sit on the floor and sing songs that are 200 years old, and I don't really know how they can expect me to do that. I find that type of attitude quite puzzling."
On that basis, does she like to shatter preconceived notions? Her sturdy, intriguing new album, A Hand Full of Hurricanes, is undoubtedly more PJ Harvey than Sandy Denny.
"I just like to make experimental music," she says. "My passion has always been the music, the production and the writing of songs. I spend all day and all night on these elements, and have been doing that for some years. What comes out is just what comes out. It's not me trying to deliberately shock people or anything like that. It's just my music. I'm a do-it-yourself musician and songwriter, basically on my own. If there wasn't a record company around, I'd still be doing it. Admittedly, it's great that someone is behind me, helping me make records, but really, I'd be doing this if they weren't there."
• A Hand Full of Hurricanes is released on One Little Indian/Pinnacle on Feb 2