Hello Julie. The idealised image of the traditional singer is of growing up in a singing family, with songs passed down through generations. Does that describe your upbringing or were you actually dancing about to Bros for most of your childhood?

I don't want to paint an overly romantic picture of what it was like growing up in the Hebrides. The Gaelic and traditional songs sat alongside everything that other teenagers were listening to at that time. Very embarrassing music probably... I'll be completely honest and say New Kids on the Block! It was pretty much like everywhere else except that it was rural and far away, and a bilingual community.

That's not completely like everywhere else really. Most of us grow up without any link to traditional music (or listening to NKOTB).

I suppose. Maybe I take that for granted a little bit too much. But it wasn't fairytale stuff. I don't want to portray an unrealistic image of growing up in the 80s on the islands.

But reading through your biog, it does seem as if you slipped into playing folk music very easily. You studied classical, dumped it for folk and then you're an award winning superstar!

It wasn't as simple as that! When I was at school you didn't have the option of studying traditional music in the same sense as studying classical music. So it wasn't an option for me to play traditional music ever. Don't get me wrong, I love classical music and it was great for me to be able to study that, but I wasn't ever cut out to be a performer of classical music.

But in terms of the traditional music, I was doing that the whole time alongside. Whether that was piping or signing, I always continued my traditional playing. When I finished my university day I would go and play a session with my friends so that kind of music always felt like a release for me. The one thread that has been continuous throughout my life is that affair with music. It just happens to be that now I'm spending all my time doing it.

Having seen you perform live many times, it's always a very powerful experience. Do you know how good you are?

Oh you're joking! You're being very, very kind. Well that's not how I feel on the stage a lot of the time. I get very nervous. But it's just the kind of character I am. I'm always a bit nervy. I'm afraid I'm a terrible perfectionist and I always feel like I'm never good enough.

For anyone outside of the tradition it's quite difficult to explain that you sing ancient songs. Where do you get them from?

I'm quite lucky that I have family and friends and acquaintances from the Hebrides, particularly from North Uist, that pass on specific songs. Or I could be talking to someone back home and out of that conversation may come a snippet of information about something that happened on the island maybe 100 or 300 years ago, and I'll take that away and maybe six months later I'll come across a song and recognise something in that song that was from that conversation. And that'll get my interest to go and learn it. It's a clichéd word but it's a very 'organic' way of picking up songs; from family, friends, old teachers at school... Sometimes I'll go to an archive in Edinburgh and listen to very old recordings, but I only get the chance to do that maybe once or twice a year. Most of the time I'm happy to say that I get the songs from real living people!

There aren't many places in the Britain where that oral tradition of communicating songs still exists, is there?

It's such a shame when that thread is gone. It's like a lifeline but it's a music line that's broken. So we're very lucky. I just did a project with an Irish singer, singing songs that we had in common. We can't date them exactly but we can date them to approximately 800 years ago which is incredible that these songs would still be sung in very rural parts of Ireland and westerly parts of Scotland. It's quite amazing that these songs still exist.

Are there enough traditional Gaelic songs to last you for the rest of your career?

Absolutely. There's hundreds and hundreds. I've not got enough time to learn them all! Scottish music is massive at the moment but people singing songs and speaking in Gaelic language still lags behind. In that sense there's still a lot of work to be done. I think now is a very crucial time for the songs and the language - while the native speakers are still with us and that real connection is still there.

Why is it important to preserve a language so few people speak?

The last census was in 2001 and that recorded 58,000 native speakers. I don't know where we are now but even if there's only 70,000 or 80,000 people speaking it, I think it's so important that an ancient language, something that's part of the fabric of Scotland that's so deeply ingrained in our history and culture and is so much part of who we are can come along with us into the 21st century and be accessible and usable, instead of something that should be in a museum.

I text message in Gaelic which is infinitely harder than texting in English because it never knows any of the words! I think it's really important for those born in this century to have a chance to see the language used in its historic context in terms of the songs and the stories but that they can watch it on television, and watch kids programmes in Gaelic or see popstars introduced in Gaelic by the presenter. If the language is not being used in everyday life then it's not a language at all.

So how do you go about turning The Beatles into Gaelic?

We were invited by Mojo magazine to do that. I sang it in English for a while but it's one of those songs that's been covered a zillion times so we thought we should just do what we do best. I sat for a good while with a great friend of mine from the Isle of Lewis, May Smith, and we took a long time getting the rhythms of the words right so that they worked. You know, sometimes if you translate something from one language to another it's kind of the same but doesn't really read very well. So we spent a lot of the time making sure it worked in Gaelic as it worked in English and that means its not a literal translation of 'Blackbird' at all, it has the same feelings and ideas and roughly means the same thing, but it flows in a completely different way.

Several readers may be troubled by the mention of bagpipes in this interview. Why do some people have a prejudice against them and why are such people wrong?

Um... I suppose people only get to see certain aspects of the music and that tends to be a snapshot of a pipe band, possibly playing badly. But that doesn't go for all pipe bands, there are some amazing pipe bands and I was in one myself. But it's really not what it's all about. Especially now, bagpipes can have a really great role within a band. I think so anyway, but that's because I play them. Used in the right way there's almost nothing more powerful.

Thank you Julie.
And you can see for yourself why we love her so much (with a very real chance you'll hear her prove her theory about bagpipes) at the following concert venue type establishments:

18/10/2008 FAREHAM, Ashcroft Arts Centre
19/10/2008 BRACKNELL, South Hill Park
21/10/2008 BRISTOL, St George's
22/10/2008 LEEDS, City Varieties
23/10/2008 CHICHESTER, The Minerva Chichester Festival Theatre
24/10/2008 LONDON, Union Chapel
25/10/2008 DERBY, The Assembly Rooms
27/10/2008 BRIGHTON, Komedia
29/10/2008 TAUNTON, The Brewhouse
30/10/2008 GLOUCESTER, Guildhall
01/11/2008 BIDDULPH, Biddulph
03/11/2008 MANCHESTER, Royal Northern College of Music

Hear and find out more at www.myspace.com/juliefowlis