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SAINT SENARA

AWARD-WINNING BLUES FROM THE WILD

Photo Credit: Saint Senara
Photo Credit: Saint Senara

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Saint Senara: blues, folk and Americana.

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Saint Senara are a Cheltenham-based blues, folk and Americana duo whose Dark Water EP earned widespread acclaim as one of 2025’s standout releases.

With lead single “There’s a Storm Coming” winning Best Rock Song in Nashville and the band shortlisted for UK Blues Federation Emerging Artist, their haunting vocals, cigar box guitar, and poetic lyrics have captivated audiences at Cheltenham Jazz Festival, Upton Blues, Lakefest, and beyond.

Quick Highlights

  • Best Rock Song winner (Nashville‑based awards) for “There’s a Storm Coming”.
  • Dark Water EP named among the best roots releases of 2025.
  • UK Blues Federation Emerging Artist shortlist, plus slots at Cheltenham Jazz Festival, Upton Blues, Lakefest and more.

Bio:

Who is in the band?

  • Andrew (vocals, guitars, cigar box guitar, bass, piano, stomp box, percussion)
  • Chloe (vocals, percussion)

Where are you from? / Where are you based now?

Andrew is originally from Cornwall and Chloe from Kent. We now both live in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. The wild Cornish landscapes and folklore have deeply influenced our sound, lyrics and even our band name.

What are your musical influences?

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, early Florence & the Machine, Hozier, Fleetwood Mac, Kings of Leon, Stephen Wilson Jr and a lot of traditional folk and roots music.

 

About the latest release:

The Dark Water EP is us really discovering our sound. It was produced with Lex Raymond at White Noise Studios in Weston-super-Mare and we spent a lot of time crafting the unusual, raw and ethereal sound that we thought the songs deserved but kept a live performance of each song as the roots of the recording. The record has been called one of the best releases of 2025 from multiple independent music magazines and its lead single won an award for Best Rock Song in Nashville, Tennessee.

Visit Saint Senara’s Bandcamp →

BOOKING EMAIL ADDRESS:

saintsenaraband@outlook.com

Website →

Editorial:

Poetry Meets Blues: Saint Senara’s Journey

Two worlds collided through the thin divide of neighbouring walls when poet Chloe Gorman moved in next door to retired musician Andrew Bate. What started as a playful suggestion of writing a song together to keep each other entertained during the 2020 lockdown soon developed into a new musical venture that has won international awards, earned multiple five-star reviews and beguiled audiences at sell-out shows all over the UK.

Named after a church in Zennor to reflect Andrew’s Cornish roots, Saint Senara have created an unconventional musical style for themselves, combining roots, blues and folk with a dash of Americana and their own unique vocal stylings to a powerful yet haunting effect. Their songs are shaped by Chloe’s poetic approach and Andrew’s theatrical background, creating the beautiful, moody soundscapes that have come to define their sound. The duo made their debut at the 2022 Cheltenham Jazz Festival and have since performed at venues and festivals across the UK, including Upton Blues Festival, Lakefest and Komedia Bath.

Beautiful, moody soundscapes that define our sound

– Saint Senara

After two well-received EPs, their most recent release, Dark Water EP, defined the Saint Senara sound, with unconventional percussion, ethereal vocal harmonies and their signature “chainsaw” guitar tone. The EP brought a lot of attention to the band across the independent scene, earning them multiple five-star reviews, an Artist of the Month placement and shortlistings for several end of year awards with its lead single “There’s a Storm Coming”, earning the title of Best Rock Song at the Uncle Paul Independent Music Awards in Nashville, Tennessee.

Photo Credit: Saint Senara

Following the release of this record, the band found themselves selling out headline shows and guest appearances at prestigious venues such as Temperance in Leamington Spa. They were handpicked by Dom Joly to play at his new SpeakEazy night, the first musical act from the Gloucestershire area to be invited to do so. Their 2025 was capped off with being shortlisted as one of the top emerging Blues Acts in the UK today and a nomination for Country Duo of the year at the UKCMAs.

Coming from two mutually underprivileged areas in Cornwall and the Medway Towns, the band have established their sound through a DIY approach with very little in terms of on-stage effects or trickery, preferring to make their big sound through a lean stage setup of only guitars, vocals, a stomp box and a tambourine. Being from working class backgrounds, the duo understand the difficulties for musicians in this position and are always looking for new ways to give opportunities to others on the scene, most notably, curating and hosting the Songs & Stories stage at Cheltenham’s Crosstown Traffic Festival, giving a platform to other grassroots songwriters.

Career Highlights

  • Best Rock Song – “There’s a Storm Coming” (Uncle Paul Independent Music Awards, Nashville 2025)
  • UK Blues Federation Emerging Artist Shortlist 2025
  • Artist of the Month – Echo Rebel Magazine (June 2025)
  • Best Newcomer 2025 – Full Send Zine
  • Country Duo of the Year Finalist – UKCMA 2025
  • Notable performances: Cheltenham Jazz Festival, Upton Blues Festival, Lakefest, Komedia Bath, Temperance

With more festival appearances, a tour and an album in development, 2026 is shaping up to be the duo’s biggest year yet.

Q&A:

  • The one thing we always take on tour is…

    CDs for the journey. Most collected from other bands we’ve met on the road. And Chloe needs snacks.

  • Our most memorable gig (for any reason!) was… Andrew: There are so many for good. Mostly, we have a great time and the crowds are lovely. But there are some odder moments which definitely stay with you. One festival was like that. Our car was in the garage, so we had to spend the morning renting a car and driving all the way out to Hereford, only to find that there were hundreds of people there for a children’s sports day. Football games were taking place on either side of the stage. We also nearly got impaled by an errant parasol when a freak tornado whipped through the field. Weird day.

    Chloe: The Carpenter’s Arms is a lovely, traditional Cotswold pub with flagstone floors, a fire and a pub dog. It has a great reputation for folk music, but we played on a wild and windy January night, and driving out there involves miles of unlit country roads. It looks like there’s nothing and no one else around for miles. With the moonlight, the creeping cold and the fog, it felt like a horror movie.

  • The best crowd reaction we’ve ever had came when…

    Andrew: I remember Upton Blues Festival being very special. We had the opening slot at 11 am. We weren’t expecting many people to be there, but there were and it grew and grew as the set progressed and everyone was so into it. It felt amazing.

  • A lesson we learned the hard way on the road is…

    Andrew: Never tour in new boots. I got a pretty severe foot infection from touring in new boots. Nearly lost a toe. My ma saved it by applying an old folk remedy and then I had to go and get my toe lanced.

    Chloe: Don’t be afraid to have your boundaries. Interacting with people is great and speaking with fans is wonderful, but overstepping, from anyone, is not acceptable and you should be clear about what is and isn’t acceptable to you.

  • The song we love performing most is…

    Andrew: It’s hard to pick. It’s always fun to watch people get completely sucked into the extremes of ‘There’s a Storm Coming‘, but the way that audiences will dance and groove to ‘Never Done‘ is a wonderful moment of joy.

    Chloe: I love performing “Flowers On My Grave” because it doesn’t matter where we are or how many people are there; the room will fall silent and listen to every word.

  • The best advice we’ve received as musicians is…

    Being on stage and performing is a privilege and a responsibility. If you are up there, you need to give people something to earn that position. Their entertainment should be first and foremost in your mind, otherwise, there’s no point in performing. It’s a philosophy and a standard we hold ourselves to at every show.

  • Our dream collaboration would be with…

    Andrew: T-Bone Burnett. He has such a distinctive sound in his recordings and it’s almost impossible to replicate. So to get some of that eerie yet bluesy sound on Saint Senara songs would be a dream collaboration.

    Chloe: Robert Plant. I want to sing with Robert Plant. Make it happen.

  • A venue or festival we’d love to play is…

    Long Road Festival. We saw our friends Steady Habits play on the Front Porch Stage there last year and it was really special. We think we could do a good dirty set at Buddy’s Good Time Bar too.

  • If fans only remember one thing about our live shows, we want it to be…

    That they had a good time and were entertained.

Press:

Notable Achievements

  • Artist of the Month (June 2025) – Echo Rebel Magazine
  • Best Rock Song: “There’s a Storm Coming” – Uncle Paul Independent Music Awards 2025
  • Best Newcomer 2025 – Full Send Zine
  • Country Duo of the Year Finalist 2025 – UKCMA
  • Single/EP or Mini Album of the Year Finalist 2025 – Fatea Magazine
  • Emerging Artist of the Year 2025 Shortlist – UK Blues Federation
  • Gloucestershire’s Best Band 2023 – Gloucester Battle of the Bands

Key Performances

  • Temperance
  • Upton Blues Festival
  • Cheltenham Jazz Festival
  • Komedia Bath
  • The Sub Rooms

BBC Introducing or festival mentions

  • Upton Blues Festival
  • Cheltenham Jazz Festival
  • Lakefest
  • Crosstown Traffic
  • Underground Festival

Media:

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Gallery:

  • Photo Credit: Saint Senara
  • Photo Credit: Saint Senara
  • Photo Credit: Saint Senara
  • Photo Credit: Saint Senara

Featured events.

– Andrew Bate

Andrew Bate has been a professional musician, composer and writer for the last twenty years. He has written music for film, theatre, audiobooks, choirs and bands, and toured the country extensively as a musical director with a Cornish theatre company. He spent several years as a copywriter and studio manager for a travel company before joining the Involving Music team. Originally from Cornwall, he now resides in Gloucestershire, where he gets to immerse himself in the south west music scene as part of the duo, Saint Senara.