Nathan Evans and SAINT PHNX Bottle Brotherhood and Scottish Pride on Angels’ Share

The trio discuss friendship, folk influences, and the collaboration behind their new album.

Article contributed by Vaneza Gutiérrez Wyckoff

Photos contributed by UMG 1824

Nathan Evans and the Glasgow brother duo SAINT PHNX — Stevie and Alan Jukes — have joined forces for Angels’ Share, a collaborative album that blends Scottish folk tradition with modern, hook-driven energy. When we spoke with the trio, their chemistry was unmistakable — the kind that comes from deep friendship and shared storytelling, creating a creative partnership that feels less like a calculated collaboration and more like something that simply fell into place.

That sense of connection runs throughout Angels’ Share, a record rooted in friendship, storytelling, and shared heritage. “I think being together… there is a sort of magic that happens, that every time we’ve done something together, [from] the early days to now, it’s just been growing and growing,” Stevie said.

“The fact that you’re in a room together, writing an album, and you’re sharing these experiences, and then getting to take that across the world is something really, really special, being brothers and best friends. And that’s the true amazing part of making this album.”

For Evans, the emotional foundation of folk music was set early, long before viral Tiktok fame and worldwide touring. When asked where that pull toward folk tradition comes from, he went straight back to childhood drives across Scotland.

“When I was a little boy, I had a gran and granddad that used to live on the Isle of Skye, and we used to drive up there… like a seven hour drive,” Evans said. “On the drive up there, we would have a tape cassette in the car of a Scottish folk band called The Corries… I would have my mum and dad literally just flipping the cassette back to front to back to front, all the way there.” He added, “Growing up with Scottish folk music, I think it’s just embedded in me somehow. All folk music all around the world all kind of relates. Folk music is just like a universal thing.”

The trio lights up when talking about the songs that define the album, each choosing a track that reveals a different side of the project. Evans chose the title track without hesitation: “My answer is obviously going to be “Angels’ Share”. I think it kind of sums up the album completely… we knew instantly there was something in that song that people were going to love.” Alan went with “Milarrochy Bay,” describing it as “upbeat and fun, [we] don’t take ourselves too seriously, and people seem to dance to it.” Stevie picked “Islay,” explaining, “It’s a slower song, it’s a love story, but the secret meaning behind it is… Al and I and Nathan have been across to the island of Islay, we fell in love with Islay, and we fell in love with whiskey.”

That whiskey thread is more than aesthetic. It’s baked into the album’s title and emotional core. Evans explained the meaning behind Angels’ Share — the tiny bit that evaporates from a whiskey barrel during production, said to be an offering to angels of loved ones we’ve lost — and continued,

“we’ve all lost someone… but even though you’ve lost them, they’re not entirely gone, because part of them still live on in you.”

The band’s vision extends beyond sound. Stevie described building a world around the music rooted in Scottish imagery and lived-in warmth. “We wanted to celebrate Scottish culture of heather, the hills, the glens and whiskey, things like that.” On the stage, complete with a traditional pub background, he explained they aimed to make it feel as if, “you went walking in the highlands and stumbled into an old Highland pub, and you came across this band playing.”

For photographers documenting their live shows, Stevie highlighted moments that capture the energy: “Nathan’s on top of the speakers, getting everybody jumping… there’s bits where we all come together in “Milarrochy Bay”, there’s a bit where Alan does a speech and toast to the audience and recites a lovely Scottish poem.” Evans added, “it’s not just, ‘oh, that’s the music done!’ It’s like… ‘how do we dress, how do we look? How is it going to look on stage? What’s the action points? How do we interact with the crowd?’”

That “full blown thing” approach carried in the recording process. Evans described a key stretch in the studio: “we jumped into the studio for three, four days, getting in all our musician friends - banjo players, mandolin players, bagpipes, fiddles, everything. Those four days were really, really special to see those ideas truly come to life.”

Stevie reflected on how embracing their roots ultimately changed everything. “When Al and I started SAINT PHNX, we were heavily influenced on U.S. music like Imagine Dragons and Twenty One Pilots.” But eventually, “the coin dropped. It was like, ‘Well, why are we not embracing what we are?’ All that Scottish folk stuff, embracing that over the last couple of years has been a massive, massive thing for us, and it’s helped shape the sound and just made it more natural.”

If Evans’ career began with a viral tidal wave, he still talks about it with disbelief. “Mind blown. That is the only word… I had no idea it was going to go that big…” And yet what stuck with him most was the joy it created: “to see kids and families and everyone making videos with smiles on their faces; everyone coming together.”

Evans reflected on how quickly the journey has unfolded — from writing together in the studio to bringing the songs around the world.

“I have made some of the greatest memories in the last two, three years… writing this album and touring the world. It’s just… it’s been incredible.”

With Angels’ Share now available across streaming platforms and the worldwide tour continuing to bring their blend of Scottish folk and modern energy to audiences far beyond home, the trio are proving that the most powerful collaborations often grow from something simple: friendship, shared stories, and embracing a sound unmistakably their own.