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The band, in theory, broke up. It reformed a week later. We were just wanting to leave it behind. We came back to Ireland, I got my old job back as a typist. Then we must have ended up back in London, later that year (1970) and met Ian McDonald from King Crimson and we were recording stuff with him. It was fun, it was a great experience. He was a very interesting man. We did the Strangely Strange thing - the tour and the Woods Band came out of that We were young and really wanting to play again and me and Terry had some musicians we wanted to involve. We got a place in the country - in Wiltshire, to live in and it was just so together.
Julia, the manageress (of The Woods Band) got us a (record) deal and a place to rent and then there was myself, Terry, Ed Deane on guitar,Paddy Nash on drums and my brother Austin on various other instruments and that was the band that rehersed and the one that recorded with a few guest people.We went up to London to record it. There was nothing happening in Ireland - you couldn't even get a gig.. What was going on was just show bands going around dressed up in crazy uniforms playing all 50's music. There was no sort of sub-culture. Van Morrison was doing the best he could in the North but nothing for young people.
The album got quite a good response - even in Ireland. We just started to play in Holland a lot because that was such a great place to go with an Irish identity, playing rock music. I don't know how that happened and then we went up to Scandanavia. They were all youth clubs where they drank beer, that's all, there were no spirits, and listened to music. It was just a great rebirth for us at the time. We played a few times in England but England wasn't up for that kind of electric folk. We were just very lucky we got so many other gigs.We had to make a bit of money in Holland just to keep the thing going. I don't think we got a contract to do another album. At the end of that I moved back into my mothers house in Dublin and that was when I started to write songs like there was no tomorrow.
Looking back - I love that track 'Dreams', - the instrumentation on it. Ed Deane is just such a brilliant musician. It was just so way out and I loved it. I suppose I like 'January Snows' also. I'd like to try that again. The Woods Band was male-orientated at that stage. I was just tagging along, not really functioning. I remember I danced at a big gig in Holland, Irish dancing,just off the cuff. I'd maybe had a few beers too many and that went down well.
'The Woods Band 'is of its time and its good - it's still standing up, it's not lame and it's just there in it's rawness. There's no stylised dressing, the platform boots and all that. It's just young people doing new things...a bit like the first Steeleye..
Another one for folk-rock fans. A much respected group. Originals of this album are now rare and sought-after. It combined their own songs with traditional ballads.
Terry Woods had originally been in Sweeney's Men, an Irish folk group and both Gay and Terry were in the original Steeleye Span line-up in January 1970, though they left in April of that year to join Dr. Strangely Strange before forming The Woods Band.
They later recorded albums in the mid-seventies as Gay and Terry Woods.