Content area
Full Text
ROSS Ainslie is having to get used to a new job description. As a talented tunesmith and skilled and in-demand player of various bagpipes, whistles and cittern over the past 10 years and more, Ainslie, if he'd thought of himself in such terms, would have answered to musician and composer. Now with his new album Remembering, he's added singer-songwriter to his list of credits.
Remembering, as well as carrying memories of friends Ainslie has lost at a too young age, is about looking forward. It's also the product of a new Ainslie. Three years ago, the Perthshire-born musician decided to stop drinking. He'd seen the destructive side of alcohol and, in a music business where sitting in a pub can be the easiest way of filling in time and drinking can become an occupational hazard, he'd been able, in older musicians, to see himself 20 years hence - and he didn't like the view.
"The first year after I stopped was hard," says Ainslie, who works regularly with trance-trad band Treacherous Orchestra and has an acclaimed partnership with fellow piper Jarlath Henderson. "A lot of my friends are big drinkers and the whole social side of being a touring musician revolves around drink. So the first thing...