Emma Fisk

I joined The Rye when I was just 16. I was studying at Peterlee College at the time. The band’s original line up included my brother Thomas Fisk on bass, Billy Nicholson on lead vocals (who is now my husband), Stephen Hunter on guitar, and Basil Rice on drums. All of us at one time or other had or were at the College. Three of us were from Peterlee, while Billy was from Shotton Colliery, and Basil lived in Easington.

I was born in January 1973 and lived on Eastdene Way. My parents moved there in 1971. They were amongst the first private houses to be built in Peterlee. Before that my parents rented a house in Dart Road, where the snow came in according to my mother!

I started violin lessons when I was at Dene House Primary School. I’d have been about 10 years old. As they still are today, lessons were provided through the Durham Music Service, although back then, before they offered you the opportunity to learn an instrument, you first had to pass a test to determine who had an ear for music. Three of us were summoned to the headmasters’ office and asked if we’d like to take violin lessons. I was the only one to take up the offer. The other two were boys and they probably thought it was a bit ‘sissy’. You weren’t given a choice as to which instrument you could learn. It simply came down to which area you went to school. Had they given me a choice, I’d have gone for the trombone, because they looked amazing when I’d gone to see my older brother Thomas playing in Easington Youth Brass Band. That’s also where Basil Rice, the drummer in The Rye learned to play the drums.

Because I was taking violin lessons, you had to join the Durham Music Service ensembles. It wasn’t optional. Gradually, I worked my way up through the ranks, starting with Easington Beginners, then Easington District Youth Orchestra, the Regional Youth Orchestra South (there was also a North), and finally Durham County Youth Orchestra. I was doing lots of other things too. I was going to night classes at Peterlee College when I was 14 and went to see Stephane Grappelli play in Sunderland around this sort of time. I got to meet him after the gig. He’s become one of my biggest musical influences, particularly the work he did Django Reinhart. First with Djangology and then more recently with Hot Club du Nord, I’ve spent the past couple of decades playing and recording the music they made together.

Around the time that I started playing with The Rye in 1989, the band got involved with Jimmy McKenna who ran Durham Street Recording Studios in Hartlepool. He was organising a school’s tour. These were The Rye’s first proper gigs. It was a strange time for me in some ways. In the evening I was playing showcase gigs for record labels, and next morning back to doing my A levels. Sony Music showed interest in signing us, though this cooled off after we set up an ill-conceived showcase gig at The Crypt in Middlesbrough Town Hall. Put it down to inexperience, both amongst the band and our management.

Shortly after finishing my A levels, The Rye were booked as support for Status Quo’s tour of Ireland and from there we started touring across Britain as headliners. We also set up our own independent label, BVC Records and released a series of albums. Through a contact with an agent, we also did three tours of Germany between 1994 and 1996. On the ’deadtime’ tour in 1996 we played 22 dates between ^4th May and ^29th June, crisscrossing the border between East Germany and West Germany. Alex Morris, the sound engineer we’d met though Durham Street Recording Studios joined us on most of our tours.

The bands line up changed more than once after this period. On ‘chance of a lifetime’, The Rye’s final album released in 2000, we had Dave Cave on bass, Philip Sloan on guitar, and Adam Burgess on keyboards. From the original line up, only myself, Billy and Basil played on that record.

The Rye didn’t break up, so much as petered out. We each became absorbed with other projects. In 1997/98 Billy and myself were offered some teaching at Peterlee College. Unlike Billy, who stuck with it, teaching wasn’t something I wanted to dedicate all my time to. I therefore made the decision to do a Music Degree and MMus at Newcastle University between 1999-2003. The Rye still did the occasional gig. As well as teaching, Billy also had a
side project going on around this time called ‘Blackbird State’.

I was doing all sorts of stuff after this. Playing strings on Field Music’s early albums, Hot Jazz from the 1920’s with Keith Nichols’ Midnight in Mayfair, my own thing with Djangology and more besides. In 2016 I decided to take focus, which is when I formed my current band Emma Fisk’s Hot Club du Nord.