Who are the members of the Ambassadors of Doubt?
martin mckendrick, lead vocals, bass and saxophone; keith nuttall, guitars, bass, flute and backing vocals; richard stockdill, keyboards, violin, accordion, mandolin, recorder, kitchen sink; steve taylor, drums, guitars and backing vocals.
Where are you from?
we’re from all over england and scotland, but are all now living in east dorset, with members in bournemouth, christchurch, poole (aka bcp) and swanage. we’re headquartered in poole, where we rehearse, eat chicken, and talk about our favourite genesis album, among many other things.
What’s the band’s history? How long have you been together?
since march 2024, when martin joined—the final piece in what we like to call a jigsaw for the blind. keith, richard and steve had already got together at the end of 2023. richard had been with keith in another prog/alt-rock band called crimson creatures from 2021 to 2023; and with steve in another band called lonely trees in 2023.
Does anyone in the band have a claim to fame, musically speaking?
not so much. we’ve all done bits and pieces and released music in various fields and genres and on various streaming platforms. The closest is probably steve, who was previously in a 1980s nwobhm band called soldier, which supported various artists including saxon and wishbone ash. soldier continues on to this day. keith once turned down nitin sawhney from an audition—does that count?
When someone is bothered enough to ask, how do describe your music?
difficult, but not so difficult that you immediately give up. it’s a sort of fusion of old-school progressive, new school progressive (whatever that is), alt rock, art rock, maybe, with a hint of electro and some vague overtones of folk and classical thrown in for good measure. but we do our very best to avoid those sorts of questions. if you have an opnion, please let us know.
What music have you released?
we released our first single (remembering ariadne) and album (ambassadors of doubt) in early 2025. they are available for purchase via bandcamp and are on all streaming platforms including spotify, apple music, amazon music, and so on.
Who writes the songs? How does it work?
for our new and first album, richard came up with most of the music and martin wrote most the lyrics, but then everyone chips in, and we all have a say in the song arrangements in how it sounds, and which bit goes where. by the way, in this past sentence, we are using the verb ‘to have a say’ as a sort of euphemism for ‘violently argue about’. but, as keith is the “producer”, we sometimes allow him to have the final word. we’ll likely continue in this fashion in the future… but then again, we might not.
What are your next steps? Do you have plans for gigging or going out on tour?
we’re currently writing and recording music for the difficult second album, which we hope will be available later this year. regarding live performance, yes, we have plans, but they aren’t very advanced yet. our priority is to write, record and release enough music to enable us to put a set together. we have no intentions of doing covers; at least, that’s our current approach.
realistically, at our advanced ages, we’re not looking for a whole bunch of gigs, or going on tour or anything like that. but we wouldn’t rule it out completely, if say we were on the run! but we’ll see if there is much demand for our sort of music. we’d love to play some festivals, either local ones, or perhaps a prog festival or two, where we may have half a chance of people liking us and therefore, ideally, us not being bottled off the stage.
Yes, you mention age. Judging by your videos, you all look pretty ancient. Just how old are you?
how rude. that’s a very personal question, but we can confirm that we were all born sometime after the french revolution. does that help?
Do you have a band philosophy?
yes, a very strong and purposeful one that helps us get out of bed in the morning. quite simply, we aim to change the world, one miserable song at a time.
however, not only do we not claim to have any answers, we also don’t know the questions. we’re all fundamentally scientists or engineers or technologists, in our education, training and professional lives, so consequently we largely believe in evidence and, arguably, the probabilistic and extremely nihilistic nature of the universe. does that help also?
ambassadors of doubt