Johnny Campbell and I crossed paths for the first time at the Right to Roam festival in the Fish Factory in Penryn. I was interviewing another folk singer at the time, but had made sure to look up Johnny earlier on, as he was the headliner. So when we did end up speaking at the bar, I knew who he was from his picture, but had forgotten his name, much to my embarrassment. Despite this, we ended up having an interesting conversation about interviews, riot folk and the Right to Roam movement, which ultimately led to this interview.
When I got to watch Johnny perform, his music was passionate and enthusiastic, and he managed to cultivate an energy where everybody around him joined in loudly and excitably. It was unlike any of the softer, more solemn folk music at the festival. His music was angry, but also energetic and humorous.
By the time we arranged an interview, Johnny was all the way up North, so it had to be on Zoom. The actual Zoom call was crackly and quiet, but after lots of adjustments and a bit of a panic on my part, I was able to find out all about his involvement in the Right to Roam movement and his relationship with English folk music.
When did you first become interested in history?
With folk music there are a lot of historical references and old traditional stories. It’s a good way of spreading a message and putting a different context in a song.
Why is it so important that it’s carried through a modern age?
It has to be relevant today for people to resonate with it, or it would just be a documentation for no particular reason.
Have you always been passionate about the ‘Right to Roam’ and land access?
I mean, I’ve always been interested in walking since I was a teenager, and when I first went up to Scotland, I looked at the the ordinance survey maps of Scotland, and I was like, why are there no paths on the maps? It was really weird. And for years, I thought you weren’t allowed to walk places in Scotland, because there weren’t public rights of way in the same way.
Scotland is different in terms of land access. Lots of European countries share what they have in Scotland, which is pretty much a full right to roam, where you’re able to walk, camp, swim, cycle, pretty much whatever you want. And it goes back right to William the Conqueror, which was almost 1000 years ago, where he essentially privatised the land. It’s only been since the year 2000 where only, like 80% of England has been opened up to walk in so but not for camping or anything like in Scotland.
I think the movement itself has kind of like really grown since the pandemic. And a lot of people recognised the first time that they when they went outside. So they were encouraged to get their daily walk in or stay in that area. They couldn’t travel outside to Dartmoor or to the Lake District and stuff. And then people start to recognise that they they couldn’t walk in a lot of places.
I remember at your concert, you said, ‘the kings and queens are not British history; They’re one fucking family.’ I feel like a lot of people feel ashamed of English history, but you don’t seem to shy away from the topic. Do negative associations ever affect the way you write English folk?
Years ago I did a lot of Irish-influenced folk. Back then, doing English folk music was not a good thing. If you were doing English folk music, it would be looked down upon, or it would be seen as kind of nationalistic, so, and Irish folk is known and acceptable to do, but There was strong change around the early 2000s with bands like Mumford and Sons, who aren’t an Irish folk band or anything like that, but they kind of made English folk a little bit more acceptable
And I think, I think post Brexit, we’ve had to recalibrate our own identities. I’ve kind of noticed and seen that there’s always been a strong Yorkshire identity thing. You know, more people in Yorkshire identify themselves as Yorkshire, rather than English or British. In the North, you just see a lot more flags of the regional counties now. And I definitely see that in Cornwall, where people always refer to themselves as Cornish.
Have you found it quite easy to reach people, or do you find that a lot of people are disagreeing with what you’re saying in your music?
I think a lot of people aren’t aware of certain things, especially with land access; it’s not a thing that’s particularly thought about. So it’s mostly just presenting it on a kind of fresh slate, really.
Although there was one particular gig, where I was staying at a BNB. And a man came along to the gig, who very much hated it. He wanted to stay up for the rest of the night talking to me about politics. That was his BNB, so it’s not often you get that.
I think we have to stand with whatever we’re doing, whether it’s art, poetry, writing, songs, it’s gotta have a feeling to it, and it’s gotta have something that makes us think. If it’s just there to make people just feel nice, then that’s not particularly art.