Red Sky July release the sec­ond sin­gle, Stones and Bram­bles, from their upcom­ing, fourth album. A gen­tle love song over a fin­ger-pick­ing gui­tar arpeg­gio, Stones and Bram­bles is deeply per­son­al, writ­ten by band mem­ber Shelly Poole in the after­math of gui­tarist – and her hus­band – Ally McErlaine’s brain haem­or­rhage. We’re lov­ing this beau­ti­ful track which is full of warmth and enhanced by beau­ti­ful har­monies, its heart­felt lyrics com­ing to the fore.

Says Shelly: “This is a song orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten on a lit­tle hol­i­day in the High­lands. Trav­el­ling to Scot­land was quite a feat and Ally couldn’t walk prop­er­ly but we were deter­mined to try to do what we loved, includ­ing being out­side and enjoy­ing nature. Every­thing, even sim­ple things like walk­ing over stones and bram­bles, was a dis­as­ter wait­ing to hap­pen but I need­ed to pre­tend we were ok for a while. It’s a hap­py heart­felt lyric but it some­how feels a bit sad.” 

Against the odds, and all med­ical pre­dic­tions, Ally made a full recov­ery, return­ing to tour with Texas and form­ing Red Sky July with Shelly as a ‘soul food’ side-project. Red Sky July have toured exten­sive­ly: sets at Glas­ton­bury, Isle of Wight, T in the Park and C2C: Coun­try to Coun­try and appeared as spe­cial guests of Sheryl Crow, Steve Ear­le, 10CC, Tom Jones and Jools Holland.

Now 15 years since the band formed, Red Sky July have returned with a folki­er fresh direc­tion since singer Haley Glen­nie-Smith joined the band. “I hadn’t seen her in over a decade, but I still had her num­ber and, incred­i­bly, it still worked,” laughs Shelly. “She could have been any­where in the world, but she was liv­ing ten min­utes from us in North Lon­don. We met up the same day and she agreed to join the band. It couldn’t have been more serendipitous.”

Red Sky July – Sin­gle Stones and Bram­bles from forth­com­ing 2025 album. Released 4 Octo­ber on Shad­ow­birds
Red Sky July