Former member of The Church, All About Eve and The Saints, Marty Willson-Piper embarks on a UK tour next month, revisiting the guitarist’s extensive career-spanning catalogue on acoustic 12-string guitar and violin, with Olivia Willson-Piper.
Says Marty: “After playing together in South America in 2016, Olivia and I set about discovering the possibilities of the 12 string acoustic and the violin, currently interpreting songs from my own back catalogue, and adding a completely new magical layer to tunes that you thought you knew, taking them to new planets, new dimensions and new emotions.”
Best known as a member of Australian luminaries The Church (from its inception in. 1980 through to 2013), Marty Willson-Piper has been writing and performing music for almost four decades. He was also a member of All About Eve and The Saints, and has co-written music with Grace Slick, Aimee Mann, Jules Shear, Susanna Hoffs and Linda Perry, among others. Today he represents one half of Cornish duo Noctorum. Marty is also lead singer and lyricist with Swedish band MOAT and a member of Swedish Prog legends Anekdoten, joining in 2015. Since the mid-1980s, Willson-Piper has maintained a steady solo output as well, with nine releases to date.
Born in a leap year near Cologne with a Polish surname to a Swedish air hostess mother from Västmanland and a German scientist father from “Kraftwerk” city Düsseldorf (who is currently designing bricks for a future moon station), Olivia Willson-Piper started playing the violin when she was nine years old and joined an orchestra at eleven. Playing concerts in Sweden, Russia, Lithuania, Spain and Germany, she became leader of the orchestra at 18. During her Uni years she focused on busking, jam sessions and Jazz violin.
The Willson-Pipers have been featured on Noctorum’s fourth album The Afterlife, are members of Atlantæum Flood and were part of MOAT’s 2021 release Poison Stream (Schoolkids Records).
Wed, 15th March – The Acorn Theatre, Penzance
Thu, 16th March – Crofters Rights, Bristol
Fri, 17th March – The Slaughtered Lamb, London
Sat, 18th March – House Concert, Worcester
Sun, 19th March – Kitchen Garden Café, Birmingham
Mon, 20th March – The Musician, Leicester
Tue, 21st March – Gullivers, Manchester
Wed, 22nd March – Foxlowe Arts Centre, Leek
Thu, 23rd March – Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds
Fri, 24th March – Thornton Hough Village Club, Wirral
Sat, 25th March – Nomad, Liverpool
Sun, 26th March – The Flying Duck, Glasgow
Mon, 27th March – Bannerman’s, Edinburgh
Tickets are on sale here.