by Seven Nations
~ Whiskey ads and Celtic Rock ~
In the early 2000s, Seven Nations were the face of the Dewars whiskey ads in magazines. Always game to check out something new, I dug up two or three of their songs on pre-Metallica Napster and realized they’re actually pretty damn good. The whiskey is not really all that, but the music certainly was.
It’s the opener from their 2000 release, which repackaged a handful of songs from earlier independent albums, but re-recorded with the newer (and theoretically more stable) lineup of the band. I got a copy of this CD for Christmas and we’ve mixed the songs into our playlists for years. It is both unmistakably Celtic-influenced, and unmistakably rocking. We’ve seen the band live several times over the last 15 years, including at an Irish pub with maybe 30 other people in the building. Didn’t matter the size of the crowd, they played their asses off.
What’s interesting about those whiskey ads is that Dewars is based in Pitlochry, Scotland, and Seven Nations are based in Orlando, Florida.