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Ernie Emmanuel on the Pure Local Extra show

today31 May 2025 21

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Today we were joined by Ernie Emmanuel, a 16 year old musician from Chepstow, on the Pure Local Extra show

Something that happened recently is that he played at the Devauden Festival on the main stage last week. He said that it was an amazing experience, something he had been looking forward to for months. A highlight of his set was that he got to cover “Skinny Dipping” from local band The Rogues, a group he is a big fan of.

Next we talked about his journey into music:

When he was younger, he played Ukulele. After that, he started playing the guitar which he has been playing for around 10 years. Over lockdown he fell in love with it with lockdown being a creative time for musicians. He said that he’d like to play drums and learn it if he could.

The next topic of the creative process behind songs: Every now and again he’ll sit down and decide to write a song. It’s usually after doing something (e.g. going on holiday) and looking back on memories. He added that he plays some chords and takes the song from there.

We then listened to Boulders by Ernie, a more recent song. There is currently a music video out which is doing quite well online. We got the story behind the song: he went to Portugal in the summer, visiting one of the oldest towns. Next door to his AirB&B, there was this old guy who knew no English and had never left the village. He played some songs for him while learning about him through google translate. This song is about growing up and how life develops.

Throughout the show Dani and Stephen asked some silly questions, things like “what song describes you the best?” And so on. One question being “If you had 5 slots to fill at a festival, what acts would you choose?” Ernie answered with: Elvis, The Kooks, The Rogues, Hosier and Bob Marley.

Seeing as festivals are quite current as festival season is approaching and with Devauden last week, we asked what parts of playing festivals are the best. Some of which being, people singing his songs, people finding out about you there and being able to be there with friends.

As for what’s next, he has an EP out this summer which is almost finished, it just needs a few more songs. Also the regular gigs and just seeing how it goes.

Listen to the full show and all of the funny questions and answers here 



Written by: Amber Couldrey-May

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