Media Profile

Calum Baird is an independent Scottish singer-songwriter, musician and artist-activist who tours regularly throughout the UK and Europe.

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“A rising Scottish folk star“ – Jim Gellatly, Amazing Radio

“A wonderful songwriter” – Charlie Ashcroft, Amazing Radio USA

“A great, hard-working singer-songwriter with a story tell” – Del Osei-Owusu, Songbird Sessions

Calum Baird is an independent Scottish singer-songwriter and musician playing songs that tie together social, cultural and political ideas and themes in a folk music style influenced by Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Dick Gaughan, Phoebe Bridgers and Phil Ochs amongst others. Calum has been immersed in music from a young age and his songs incorporate a wide selection of instruments which takes his music into the indie-folk/folk-rock genres.

As an artist, Calum is fully engaged in cultural production. He began song-writing as a teenager, drawing on his own experiences and observations to connect with audiences and listeners. His debut album, “No Right Turn,” was released in 2015 and showcased a unique blend of folk, rock, and blues songs. The album features a mix of introspective folk tracks, love songs and rock-infused protest songs, all delivered with honest, emotive lyrics and soulful vocals and guitar playing.

Since then, Calum has continued to release music independently, with each new release displaying his growth and evolution as a songwriter and musician. His music has been featured on radio stations across the UK and internationally, and he has performed at festivals and events throughout the country and into Europe. These performances include Barnasants Festival in Barcelona in 2017, where he was the first Scots person to perform at the festival as well as tours of Germany in 2019 and 2021. Calum was also the first Scots person to play at Festival Musik und Politik in Berlin since the 1980s and he has performed numerous times at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from 2013 to 2022.

Calum’s music is characterized by its honesty and authenticity, with lyrics that are often introspective and personal. Calum has been featured in online media and blogs as well as in national and international press, including being featured in The Scotland on Sunday as their Artist of the Week.

In addition to his music, Calum is also a passionate advocate for social justice and equality. His lyrics often touch on issues such as poverty, inequality, and anti-racism, and he uses his platform to speak out on these issues. Calum continues to write and perform music that speaks directly to audiences.

In addition to touring and writing hisown music, Calum wrote and composed the musical score for the award-winning feature-film Exiles (2021) written by Glasgow poet and writer, Victoria McNulty.

Calum Baird, The Ever Willing Soldier, Live in The Stand Comedy Club, Edinburgh – 2022

Calum Baird, The Stones of Tomorrow – 2022 [Outdoors Acoustic]

Calum Baird Live in Köln – 2021

New song – It’s 4am…

Listen here

It’s 4am… features soulful vocals and honest, reflective lyrics which contemplate and discuss social issues such as anxiety (existential and general), burnout and alienation as well as our collective attitudes towards such matters. In addition, the track expresses a deep concern for our current direction of travel – war, rising far-right politics, austerity and endless cycles of crises. In short, the song is what happens when you slide from pensive moods into a full-blown existential crisis borne out of chewing over the state of play in the world today.

The song is grounded by a colourful, big and resonating piano arrangement which is accompanied by various instruments as the song builds to a crescendo for the final chorus. These include an acoustic guitar, bass guitar, electric guitar, drums, mellotron, strings and glockenspiel. Its 4am… employs a vintage sound to interrogate contemporary issues and invokes the sounds of The 1960s, including slight nods to The Beatles’ Strawberry Fields Forever.

Its 4am… has a ballad-like feel, yet, handles its themes with a candid approach akin to contemporary folk and singer-songwriter styles. It is a song which emerges as a by-product of today’s prevailing conditions and it communicates the frustrations of an artist exhausted by negativity and hostility filling the air, making up news items and setting the agenda by which we all live.

Song Profile

My music has always had a political edge. For this song, I channel that through candid lyrics which reveal of a set of deeply felt thoughts, emotions and ideas. This allows the song to present an intimate and honest insight into aspects of contemporary life.

Its 4am… was originally demoed in 2013 as an acoustic song but was shelved because it was too similar to other music I was writing at the time in terms of lyrics as well as arrangement. This composition was developed in collaboration with my friend and fellow musician, Tobias Thiele, at his studio, Blue Lizard, in Funkenhagen (Germany), back in February 2023. I played the song for Tobias, who then began to build the piano arrangement. I updated the old lyrics from 2013 and, then, sang the vocal line. From there, we worked together to construct the rest of the arrangement. Tobias added the track’s bass line, mellotron, strings, percussion, electric guitar and glockenspiel. The sum of these parts brings the song to life and makes an eclectic addition to my music. Tobias and I worked together on my last three singles, and we recorded several more tracks together during a week of recording which we will release later this year.

For the artwork, I made use of my galaxy projector and my iphone’s live image function to produce a distorted and anxious picture which encapsulates the song’s lyrics, context, moods and exacerbated atmosphere.

The music I have released in recent years has received a high level of praise and publicity across media, radio and blogs. For example, I was named Artist of The Week in December 2020 in the Scotland on Sunday (read here) and, in April 2022, Scottish music journalist, Jim Gellatly, described me as a “rising, Scottish folk star”. Following the release of my single Few and Far Between in January 2023, Charlie Ashcroft at Amazing Radio USA described me as “a wonderful singer-songwriter”. With this song, I want to maintain as much of this momentum as possible, further my music, its themes and its audiences.

Its 4am will be released on 21/04/2023 and will be available for streaming and download on all online stores and platforms.

Other news and upcoming gigs

This year, in addition to recording and releasing new music, I have performed at festivals and events around the UK and into Europe as well.

In January, I performed at the Burns and Beyond Festival in Edinburgh as well as releasing Few and Far Between.

In February, I travelled to Germany where I recorded several new songs which will all be released later this year, the first of which coming in late April. As well as this, I performed two shows in Berlin at Baiz and Artliner’s.

On March 14th, I delivered a talk on the arts and culture in Edinburgh, specifically why it is important that access to art and culture be democratised and how the cultural industries can be made more sustainable. This was a timely discussion given the scale of the crises facing the cultural/creative arts right now and it’s something I am deeply passionate about.

In the Spring, I will be performing shows in London before releasing new music. I will, also, be performing at the Great May Day Cabarets in Edinburgh (April 30th) in The Stand Comedy Club as well as in Glasgow (May 1st) in Oran Mor. I will be playing at the Edinburgh and Lothians Festival on May 6th, too.

This summer, I will be doing a tour of England in early June, culminating in a slot at Glastonwick Festival down on the Sussex coast. I will also be playing at a folk and roots music festival in Hebden Bridge in June before flying out once more to Germany in July to perform at this Year’s Rudolstadt Folk and World Music Festival for the first time. After Rudolstadt, I will embark on a short tour of Germany with German musician, Tobias Thiele, where we will play in Leipzig, Dresden and Berlin before ending the tour in the north-eastern town of Feldberg.

Looking further ahead into 2023, I will be releasing new music in June, September and December as well as continuing to perform around Scotland and the UK. I will perform a run of shows at the year’s Edinburgh Festival including at a very special, one-off show in mid-August, details to follow soon.