Beerjacket is the musical title of Glasgow alt-folk singer-songwriter, Peter Kelly but don’t give him credit for writing the songs.   “I never actually sit down to write songs. I just get a feeling for a while. I won’t touch a guitar, I’ll just go about with a song in my head, or a word, or a picture. The songs obviously sit in the subconscious for years, so, when they come out, you almost hardly recognise them. If it’s any sort of craft, it’s almost witchcraft. It’s like a spell.”   Since beginning Beerjacket in 2004, Kelly has shared the stage with many great musicians such as The National, Kristin Hersh, Feist, Arab Strap, Sean Lennon, Ron Sexsmith, St. Vincent, Mogwai, Rilo Kiley, Frightened Rabbit, British Sea Power, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Bat For Lashes, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, Guillemots, Joan As Police Woman, Mark Eitzel, and Tom Vek (to name a few). The list is almost infinite but name your favourite musicians of the past twenty years and there’s a pretty good chance Beerjacket has opened for them…   Beerjacket has found fans in musicians and critics alike with Matt Berninger of The National describing Kelly as “the new Elliott Smith”. Features have appeared in national press including The Herald, The National and the Daily Record, as well as in international publications such as Rolling Stone. Kristin Hersh toured intimate Scottish venues with Beerjacket, ending each night by duetting with Kelly on her signature song, Your Ghost. Hersh is a long-time supporter of Beerjacket and said of 2011’s The White Feather Trail: “No matter how much music you listen to, you rarely stumble across a musical approach that does not wear its influences on its sleeve. These songs speak in their own language."   Extensive TV, radio and press coverage followed the production of two studio albums, The White Feather Trail and Darling Darkness, recorded by long-time collaborator Stuart MacLeod and featuring vocals from Louise Connell (Reverieme) and Julia Doogan (Julia and the Doogans). A third studio record - Silver Cords - is almost complete and, like its older siblings, this one practically wrote itself. Like magic.

“When you start with nothing, it’s the juxtaposition of having too much possibility and no foundation to build from,” he explains. “The first song to be written for the album was in January 2015, and the lyrical ideas and images that fell into my head for that song did become threads for the rest of the album. I find it interesting that ideas that appear random at the beginning can become the backbone of a body of work.”

“Glorious… one of Scotland’s finest singer-songwriters” (Jim Gellatly)   “Quite simply the finest exponent of this genre around in Scotland (if not the whole of Britain) today.” (Metro)