Ruby And The Revelators unveil new recording at Festival of Chichester

Olivia Stevens is the Ruby of the title, and she is delighted to be back, after enjoying last year’s very first Festival of Chichester.

“I just loved it last year,” Olivia says. “It was a great opportunity to reach a new audience. The Festival of Chichester is open forum. It was great to be part of it.”

Ruby Tiger is Olivia’s stage name.

“Ruby is a soul/blues diva. She comes all the way from deepest, darkest Epping Forest which is where I was born and brought up. Basically she is me. It is not really a persona. I just found it a really memorable name. It came from an ex-boyfriend that I went mothing with. He was a lepidopterist, and this Ruby Tiger came in. I just thought it was a great name.”

And so Olivia became the Ruby Tiger moth: “I thought moths flying too close to the flame... The flame for me is music!”

On the night, Ruby appears as part of her four-piece band, lining up alongside King Rollo – guitar; Louise Maggs – bass; and Paul Wright – drums. They are promising a great night of

self-penned originals and unique interpretations of rhythm ‘n’ blues, roots and sassy soul.

“The band came together around me and King Rollo. We have been doing gigs together for three years now across the whole of West Sussex. We met in my rabbit-foot pub, The Fountain – rabbit-foot because it is my lucky pub.

“King Rollo is a guitarist. He is a blues troubadour, and I was just extremely lucky. I think I must have been attracted to The Fountain that night by some strange mystical force. I thought ‘I must see this guy’, and it was great. And then I cheekily asked if I could sing a song with him. The poor man has been regretting it ever since! He had never met me before.”

As a four-piece, the band has been gigging regularly, and Olivia’s aim now is to raise its profile by playing more gigs and bigger gigs. She is hoping that the new EP will help them on their way.

“It is my first official recording that I have put out at all. It is very, very exciting. It’s a dream come true. It’s hard work, but I have always been very passionate about recording and about doing my own music. Really it is a natural thing to do, the best way to step it up to the next level. It is really, basically, like a calling card. You want to get the gigs, but it is difficult if you don’t have a product. People ask you what you are like, and it is good to be able to give them something to get them interested.”

The hope is eventually to work towards producing a full album: “That’s the aim within the next couple of years, but an EP is obviously less expensive because you have to spend less time in the studio. They do it per track, and all the technical support with recording is very time-consuming. Six tracks is obviously half the price of 12 tracks, but definitely an album is something that we would like to do one day. It is all about creating hopefully a bigger profile for the gigs and hopefully to get more radio play.”

The Chichester Inn should be a good launch pad: “Really there is nowhere else like it. You just call Nick up and book the band in.”

Support act: Cloe Barrett and Tom Lawson-Baker.

The EP is available from https://rubytiger.bandcamp.com, released on Clapton Waller Records (www.clapton-waller-records.com).