Peatlemania: meteoric rise of three musicians from Lewis to be told on TV

But with a guitar, an accordion, drumkit and wicked sense of humour – not to mention the fisherman-come-lead singer’s crowd-surfing arrival at Glasgow’s Barrowland in an inflatable dinghy – for fans of their unique island “croft rock”, Peat And Diesel are the hottest ticket in town.

They’re the extremely down-to-earth trio who upended the saccharine Christmas single market with a rugged version of Fairytale Of New York – lyrics and title subtly changed to reflect their Stornoway roots.

And against the odds, they found themselves propelled from their day jobs and weekend gigs at Stornoway’s Lewis Bar, to the venue every Scottish band wants to see bouncing to their music – the Barrowland – almost the next.

Now the behind-the-scenes story of how Peat And Diesel charmed music fans with foot-stomping songs of island life sprinkled with larger-than-life characters and everyday events – from eating herring for dinner to riding in a mate’s rusty transit van – is set to be told.

A BBC Alba documentary, That’s The Way We Do It, which charts the group’s unforeseen rise, reveals the trio’s own surprise at how rapidly they careered from bashing out a few unlikely tunes in their front rooms, to selling out the famous Glasgow venue in less than 10 minutes, and scooping Live Act Of The Year at the Scots Trad Music Awards.

According to the band’s accordion player, father-of-two electrician Innes Scott, there’s no-one more shocked at their rapid rise to fame than him and his Peat And Diesel bandmates – delivery driver and drummer Uilleam “Uilly” MacLeod, and fisherman-frontman Callum “Boydie” MacLeod.

“It started with us just playing around and having a bit of craic on Saturday nights,” he says. “One night after too many beers, Boydie came up with this half-Gaelic, half-English song that we posted on Facebook. Almost overnight it got 30,000 views. Two days later we were asked to do our first festival.”

That was quite an ask, he recalls, as the band at that point only knew two songs and didn’t even have a name.

Yet somehow, Peat And Diesel rose to the challenge. Within weeks, Boydie’s fishing boat was tied up in Stornoway harbour while the band cut their first album at the town’s Wee Studios.

The result, Uptown Fank, was peppered with oddities. The well-known nineties song Brimful Of Asha turned up with Boydie’s new lyrics about being fed a Plate Full Of Sgadan (herring) by his granny, and another – Kenny Dhomhnaill Fhionnlaigh – recounts what sounds like an extremely boisterous night out in the local pub.

The album was launched at last year’s Mull Music Festival and set alight a new craze ... Peatlemania.

Almost instantly Peat And Diesel were in demand. A Celtic Connections gig at Oran Mor was organised, only for the 500 tickets to sell out within minutes of going on sale. Within three hours the gig was moved to the Barras. Thirty minutes later, all the tickets for that venue were snapped up too.

“No-one could have foreseen what has happened,” promoter Robert Hicks, of Beyond, tells the documentary. “I think that it’s easy to liken them to the phenomenon that have been the likes of Lewis Capaldi and Gerry Cinnamon, and how their rises have been meteoric.

“But the thing to keep reminding yourselves is those guys have all put in the groundwork, done the small shows and built to a point where it’s suddenly exploded. Peat And Diesel have skipped that a bit, suddenly they are ‘bang’ at the Barrowlands.”

Donald Shaw, the artistic director of Celtic Connections, says the band’s success is unprecedented ... but well deserved. “There are no airs and graces, it’s really raw and real.”

The band’s roaring success rests largely with “gumsy” singer-songwriter, Boydie, a free spirit with an eye for an amusing lyric, rasping vocals, thick Lewis accent and extraordinary guitar skills.

“It’s the way he is,” says Innes Scott, who uses his holidays from his job maintaining the runway electrics at Stornoway Airport for Peat And Diesel gigs across the country.

“Life doesn’t bother Boydie. He doesn’t care about what day it is or what he’s supposed to be doing.

“He likes to do his own thing – it can be hard work dealing with him,” he groans. “I don’t know how many times I’m close to strangling him.

“But he has something special ... there’s something there that is magic.”

The band’s success has come so fast that its members are still racing to catch up. While Innes and Uilly balanced their new life with the day job, Boydie faced increasing pressure to produce another collection of toe-tapping, smile-along songs to create the band’s second album.

Light My Byre was recently released to coincide with ticket sales for more gigs. The documentary shows it being recorded at breakneck pace and without much in the way of fine-tuning to ensure the band’s raw edges aren’t glossed over.

“Half the tracks on the new album we can’t play yet because we’ve not properly learned them,” admits Innes. “We never usually bother about practising.”

Now, of course, there is unexpected time on their hands for practice.

Before the Covid-19 crisis, Peat And Diesel were inches away from a sell-out Irish tour, with a host of summer festivals and an end-of-year tour in the pipeline.

Now most gigs are off and the challenge is whether Scotland’s maddest musical stars can pick up where they left off.

“I had been using up my holidays in order to play and falling behind at work. I suppose now there’s a chance to get back on track,” adds Innes, who intends to finally start building the family house that’s been on hold while on the road.

“I don’t think it will lose momentum. We’re a bit behind with making videos, and this will be a time to recharge.”

• That’s The Way We Do It is on BBC Alba on Friday, April 3, at 9pm, followed at 10.30pm by From Barrow To The Barrowlands, filmed during the band’s live performance.