The Bristol band at the centre of the global sea shanty revival

Four friends from Bristol are at the forefront of a global trend for sea shanties.

In one of the unlikeliest developments of 2021, sea shanties are bigger today than they have been since the age of sail, helped largely by songs being shared on TikTok.

For Bristol group The Longest Johns, however, the trend has not caught them by surprise; although as the manta goes it has taken them years to become an overnight sensation

Their YouTube videos have got millions of views, thousands of people across the world tune into their live Twitch sessions and their version of Wellerman – a New Zealand whaling song written in the early 19th century – has been played more than 8.4m times on Spotify.

From playing in pubs and bars in Bristol pre-pandemic including the Three Tuns on St George’s Road and the Old Bookshop on North Street, The Longest Johns now have fans across the world.

At the end of 2020, the group made up of Andy Yates, Dave Robinson, Jonathan Darley (better known as JD) and Robbie Sattin collaborated with 500 of these fans in a video to Leave Her Johnny:

The sea shanty scene in Bristol has long been “bubbling under the surface”, according to Andy Yates, with he and the rest of the group often taking part in singalongs at pubs across the city.

The arrival of sea shanties into the mainstream has been brewing for several years, said JD. “We’ve always believed and hoped,” he told Bristol24/7.

His own first realisation that sea shanties could hold wide appeal came during an early The Longest Johns gig at the Louisiana, when they were support to fellow band member Robbie’s now-wife, a pop artist.

“Her whole audience was teenage girls, the exact opposite of people who you would expect to like sea shanties. We went up on stage and started singing, and to begin with they were thinking, ‘this is weird’. But by the end of the first song they were all hooked, they loved the entire set, and were singing and stamping along.”

In March 2018, The Longest Johns put out a video in the Xbox game Sea of Thieves, singing to other players within the game, “and that itself caught a real spark within the gaming world,” said JD.

Since that first sharp growth of their YouTube channel (which now has more than 200,000 subscribers), the group have been steadily growing their online audience, finding new ways to get their music in front of people and get them engaged and involved.

2020 saw the release of their third studio album, Cures What Ails Ya, featuring one song called The Last Bristolian Pirate about a farmer becoming a pirate on the River Severn.

And for more than a year, the group have released a new video every week on YouTube, as well as producing more content for Sea of Thieves.

Singing Wellerman to new Sea of Thieves players caught the attention first of Reddit users, and later Tumblr and meme website iFunny before people began picking it up on TikTok, whose duet feature makes it ideal for singing acapella.

“Now it’s just gone berserk and right out to the mainstream,” said JD. “But it’s so interesting looking back and seeing this natural progression of how it’s been able to reach new people over the years.”

Dave added: “We feel fairly lucky. We obviously can’t claim much ownership of these songs that are hundreds of years old and people have enjoyed for that long, but obviously the ones that have survived are going to be the best ones.

“But we are just grateful right now to be able to connect with people in the way we are, rather than just be sitting around waiting for gigs. We are still just four really good friends just trying to have fun and sing songs together, working really hard at it to make something of it.”

“There’s an element of vindication in this as well,” laughed Robbie. “Because we’ve been hacking away at this for nine years now!”

Since the start of 2020, all of the four members of The Longest Johns have been full-time in the group, leaving careers including a theatre technician, IT support in an accountancy firm and brewer.

Everything that the band has done so far has been self-funded. They had to cancel their plans for a tour after releasing Cures What Ails Ya, but have since been able to make a living through the pandemic with their online earnings.

When live music returns, The Longest Johns will certainly be playing bigger venues than the Three Tuns and the Old Bookshop, where they played with sea shanty royalty LocTup Together.

“At the Old Bookshop there was just a lot of people packed into a small room,” remembered Andy Yates. “It was just really great. With a lot of really great people.”

The message of one of The Longest Johns’ songs, Got No Beard, is that sea shanties are for everyone; something that has been born out with its current renaissance.

“That song is all about the bridge,” explained JD. “It’s saying that we break all the rules ourselves. It doesn’t matter. Everyone can and should join in.”

By virtue of their acapella nature, sea shanties are inclusive. You don’t need to know how to play an instrument in order to join in. All you need to do is be able to sing a chorus or even just shouting ‘hey!’ at the right time.

Sea shanties certainly bring people together more than just standing and listening to a gig, and this communal experience can easily be shared online during lockdown.

There is an even one school of thought to say that the current love for singing shanties is somehow an example of the entire globe collectively losing our minds. “The nerve!” tweeted The Longest Johns on Friday.

“Everyone’s voice could and should be used in a positive way,” said JD. “Singing is one of the best things to make you feel better and feel good. And doing stuff within a community is just another massive part of that.

“To be able to bring people together and raise your voices together is a uniquely special thing.”

Main photo: The Longest Johns

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