AS regular festival goers will tell you, one of the joys is discovering new bands who you were totally unaware of beforehand.

This year’s Ramsbottom Festival looks likely to establish Moreland and Arbuckle in that category with the American roots and blues trio making their first visit to these shores.

“We are really looking forward to it,” said guitarist Aaron Moreland speaking from his home in Kansas. “As we’ve never been on tour in the UK before we really don’t know what to expect.”

The band, who play the bespoke festival at Ramsbottom Cricket ground on Sunday, September 15, have gained a growing reputation for their distinctive sound which has its roots in early Delta blues and is achieved with a line-up of Aaron on guitar, Dustin Arbuckle on harmonica and vocals and drummer Kendall Newby.

“Dustin and I started out as an acoustic duo playing some pre-war-style blues,” said Aaron, “Then we were part of a full-on blues quartet for a while with a drummer and bassist but then we went through a couple of bass players and just thought we’d move on and do without.”

Part of the band’s unique sound is achieved through Aaron’s home made cigar box guitar with one bass string played through a bass amp and the other three strings played as a lead guitar.

“It sounds complicated but it really isn’t,” he said.

“We are pretty difficult to pigeonhole which both helps and hurts us. But we don’t compromise, that’s not in our nature and that’s the beautiful thing about making music.”

With songs ranging from country rock and old fashioned blues and down and dirty rock and roll thrown in, Ramsbottom Festival goers are certain to be entertained.

“We just let all our influences come through in our music from songs from the twenties and thirties to bands like Led Zeppelin. I suppose because of the way Dustin sings and plays too our sound is quite old fashioned but with modern instruments.”

Moreland and Arbuckle will be showcasing some songs from their new album 7 Cities when they come to the UK, an album which they admit is something of a concept album.

“It’s based on a local legend in Kansas about a Spanish explorer Corando who came to the area in the 1500s looking for seven cities of gold where the precious metal grew on trees. Needless to say it was a total myth but he spent several months trying to find them.

“It is definitely an album with a story running through it but we didn’t really intend it to be like that. But when we started writing the songs it just seemed to fit together so well.

“We will be playing some songs from it no doubt but we play a lot of different stuff and like to do something different every time.”

  • Moreland and Arbuckle play Ramsbottom Festival on Sunday, Septemnber 15. The festival runs from Friday, September 13 to Sunday, September 15 with headliners The Futureheads, Richard Hawley and Sinead O’Connor. Details from www.ramsbottomfestival.co m