Faustus (band)

Faustus
Faustus at London Folk Festival, Cecil Sharp House, September 2016, taken by Maureen Musson
Background information
Origin	Hampshire, Shropshire, Hertfordshire, UK
Genres	English folk music
Instruments	Vocals, fiddle, guitar, melodeon, oboe, bouzouki, cor anglais, banjo, mandolin
Years active	1998–present
Associated acts	Bellowhead Belshazzar's Feast Whapweasel Seth Lakeman Dr Faustus
Website	faustusband.com
Members	Benji Kirkpatrick Saul Rose Paul Sartin

Faustus are a three-piece folk music band based in the UK. The all-male membership brings together multi-instrumentalist musicians active across many other leading bands in the UK folk scene: Benji Kirkpatrick (Seth Lakeman Band, Bellowhead), Saul Rose (Waterson–Carthy, Whapweasel) and Paul Sartin (Bellowhead, Belshazzar's Feast). They have been described as “bloke-folk” and aiming to “rescue contemporary folk from the curse of feyness” (The Independent). In 2007 they received a 75th anniversary award from the English Folk Dance and Song Society, and they were nominated as best group at the 2009 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.

Faustus evolved out of an earlier four-piece band, Dr Faustus, featuring Sartin and Kirkpatrick alongside melodeon player and singer Tim van Eyken and concertina player Robert Harbron.
Sartin and Kirkpatrick had been playing together for a number of years, and were looking to expand their work with others to explore traditional English music. Sartin met van Eyken and Harbron while performing the Mick Ryan opera A Day’s Work at Salisbury Playhouse. The band’s name came from the traditional tune Dr Fauster’s Tumblers rather than the Christopher Marlowe play of the same name.
The early years of the band were spent playing for the charities Superact and Live Music Now, putting live music into schools, prisons, hospitals and other venues.
In 2002–03 the band recorded their first album The First Cut on Fellside recordings, and toured it through UK folk clubs and venues. They received a nomination for the Horizon Award (best new artist) at the 2004 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.

The band also recorded their second album, Wager (2005) on Fellside.
The album was toured, but afterwards rather than continue together the group disbanded to focus on other musical projects, including Bellowhead (of which Sartin and Kirkpatrick were founder members), Waterson–Carthy, van Eyken’s solo work, and Harbron’s duo with Emma Reid.