music
Soulfire
Soulfire are an acoustic rock band from Cape Town, South Africa. Formed in 2005 by Dave Starke and Duncan Breen, the band have gone on to enjoy commercial success with songs on domestic and international radio stations as well as being used for international TV series.
Soulfire were formed when both Dave and Duncan were studying at the University of Cape Town. Duncan had just returned from two years away from South Africa when he travelled in South America and then travelled home on local transport through East and Southern Africa. The formation of the band built on previous efforts including a short lived project with a female lead vocalist. In the two years that they were apart, both Dave and Duncan had been writing songs and so what followed was a process of finding commonality between their respective writing styles.
Their first demo, recorded under the name Dave Starke and Duncan Breen and titled 'The Candlelight Demo' featured six tracks, four of which had been recorded in an evening at friend Karl Haupt's home studio. The demo went on to win the University of Cape Town's student newspaper's music demo competition and was soon followed up by a second demo under the band name Soulfire called 'Rising'. This second demo featured four tracks including a raw version of 'Rwanda' and received radio play on a US campus station.
In 2006, Dave and Duncan recorded their first album with promising young producer Mathew Davison who had recently recorded Plush's 'All That is Should Be' which was enjoying local success. Recorded over four days, Soulfire's first album featured nine songs (four of Dave's and five of Duncan's) and kept largely to the band's live sound of combining two guitars and two voices. The album was recorded in the attic of the Rooftop Recording Studio in St James, Cape Town with its view out over False Bay. From this album, 'Live My Life', featuring improvised percussion and a driving bass line performed on guitar by Matthew, went on to enjoy radio success, and was later used as the theme song for Season Three of 'Cooked in Africa' as shown on BBC's Food Channel. 'Rwanda' also enjoyed success with fans entering it into internet-based competitions. The album 'Soulfire' was not publicly released in CD format and was primarily available for download purchasing and yet performed admirably given the lack of publicity it received.
New developments within the band followed the release of their first album. Dave had studied teaching and took up a post in Eshowe in KwaZulu-Natal. For some time then Duncan played alone, recruiting Cape Town singer-songwriter Gavin Coetzee to perform with him for some live gigs in Cape Town under their own names. In August 2007, Duncan moved to Johannesburg to take up a position at a prominent refugee and immigrant rights organisation. Prior to the move, Gavin and he returned to the Rooftop Recording Studio and recorded three songs: 'Change the World', 'Set Me Free' and 'Like Water'. In December 2007, Duncan and Dave both returned to Cape Town and spent a weekend in the studio recording another eight songs. Duncan and Gavin were back in the studio in September 2008 where they contributed further tracks and finally, Duncan, Dave and Gavin were all in the studio together at various points in 2009 and in early 2010 during which time some of the demos were scrapped whilst others were cleaned up for consideration for the second album. The result was the 15 track album 'The Road Ahead' released in May 2010. The album sees the band continue with their stripped down acoustic style on songs such as 'Goree Island' and 'Place of Ghosts' but sees the introduction of drums and bass guitar on other songs including 'Change the World' featuring Gavin Coetzee on lead guitar.
The album's themes remain similar to those of the first with a strong human rights focus coming through on many of the songs, which contrasts beautifully with tender love songs elsewhere on the album.