Scottish pop rockers Deacon Blue are celebrating their Ruby anniversary this yr with a brand new album, The Nice Western Highway. Basic Pop talks to frontman Ricky Ross in regards to the secret of methods to survive 4 a long time in a band and nonetheless be having enjoyable…
On Deacon Blue’s newest album, The Nice Western Highway, chief songwriter Ricky Ross is in a reflective temper. Fashioned in 1985, with debut LP Raintown launched two years later, 2025 marks the fortieth birthday of considered one of Scotland’s premier pop-rock acts. It was 1988’s Actual Gone Child that may be their breakthrough success, with its accompanying album When The World Is aware of Your Identify peaking at No.1 within the UK. Not a band who normally look backwards, this yr’s anniversary has nudged Ross right into a nostalgic mind set – the video for Late ’88 is made up of pictures and clips from earlier a long time.
“As you become old, you attempt to make sense of the previous,” he tells us over Zoom from his house in Glasgow. “It’s not all the time nostalgia, it’s usually puzzlement, like, why will we try this? Why didn’t we do that? You get to a sure age, and also you’re capable of look again to attempt to work out the paths of the place you got here from.”
How does it really feel celebrating 40 years of Deacon Blue? Did you ever suppose you’d get this far?
Ricky Ross: If somebody had stated to us in 1985, “Go and examine this act out, they had been round 40 years in the past,” you’d have laughed at them, as a result of that may have been 1945! At that age, you simply weren’t occupied with something that occurred even 5 or 10 years earlier than, it simply felt actually previous. However right here we’re.
Although this yr is the fortieth anniversary since Deacon Blue’s formation, Late ’88 seems to be again to 1988. Why that yr particularly?
It was significantly Actual Gone Child. Up till that time, we’d launched songs from Raintown, however I imply, all I wished to do was make an album. I feel it was midway via making Raintown, somebody talked about singles, and actually I don’t suppose we’d given it any thought! I imply [the four singles] scraped into the chart with a little bit of assist, however they didn’t actually change our life or anybody else’s. However later, in late 1988, we launched Actual Gone Child and that actually did change our lives. We had been on telly for the primary time considerably, and I all the time keep in mind attempting to purchase a coat in Marks & Spencer and folks taking a look at me. All of the sudden it was like, individuals know who you might be since you’ve been on tv.
How did you retain it collectively again then? In a single day success could make some individuals go a bit loopy…
It does mess together with your head a bit. I feel all of us in all probability handled it in numerous methods. However I feel the purpose of Late ’88 is it was enjoyable, too. It was thrilling and that’s what pop music needs to be. The factor a few hit track is that that’s the purpose of it, that it turns into one thing so ubiquitous that everybody is aware of it, and that was one of many issues we wished to do. It was a wild rollercoaster experience for just a few months, however good enjoyable.
There’s a line in Late ’88 – “By no means considered tomorrow”. What would the Ricky Ross of 1988 consider the Ricky Ross and Deacon Blue of 2025?
I’d have been actually shocked if somebody had informed me that we had been nonetheless doing it. I keep in mind doing an interview early on with a Japanese tv crew, and I stated, “I feel we’ll make three albums, then we’ll cut up up.” In actual fact, we made 4 after which cut up up. I all the time noticed it as a finite factor – I didn’t have any long-term plans. Even 20 years in the past, I’d have nonetheless been shocked that we’re nonetheless doing it, and positively shocked that we’re having fun with doing it, and that the social facet of the band, the cohesion of the band, is sweet.
You’re one of many few teams with 40 years behind them who aren’t filled with substitute members. How have you ever managed to maintain most of that authentic line-up collectively?
Having the break helped. We cut up up in ’94 and didn’t get again collectively til ’99, so all of us discovered our ft a bit bit, we discovered completely different paths. Take Dougie [Vipond], for instance. He began doing tv work, which is a giant a part of his life. Jim [Prime] began instructing and went over to France and performed with Johnny Hallyday, and did numerous issues, Lorraine [McIntosh] began appearing [she made her big screen debut in Ken Loach’s 1998 movie My Name Is Joe ], and I began writing and dealing with different musicians. Being in a single band and by no means getting outdoors of that little circle isn’t good.
One of many nice issues about creating music is making it with different individuals. So all of us obtained that different hinterland collectively, and once we got here again collectively, we thought, “You realize what, we’ve labored with completely different individuals, we’ve finished various things, our little factor isn’t as unhealthy as perhaps we thought it was – perhaps it simply doesn’t should be this 100% factor that dominates our lives.” We do produce other locations to go when all of it will get an excessive amount of, so once we do come again collectively, we are able to make it actually, actually good.
It’s been 4 years for the reason that band’s final album, Driving On The Tide Of Love. What’s the relevance of the brand new report’s title, The Nice Western Highway?
I’m a fantastic collector of titles. Like a variety of songwriters, you accumulate them, then you definitely attempt to work out what it’s and what’s it resulting in. So we had been driving out of the town and I used to be excited about these large avenues that lead as much as Glasgow. It’s a giant metropolis, however there are these iconic roads, with Nice Western Highway being, in some methods, essentially the most pertinent one, as a result of once we had been beginning off, that was our hub, our assembly level. That street leads out to this stunning wilderness, and in some methods, out to the unknown.
I assumed it was only a nice metaphor for the place I’m in my life, and the place we’re – you simply don’t know what’s subsequent. It was 20 years in the past that Graeme [Kelling], our guitarist, died – that came to visit a interval of being ailing for 5 years, however you simply don’t know what adjustments one yr will carry. I all the time wished to write down songs about being trustworthy and being on the level we’re at, and the Nice Western Highway allowed that metaphor to be there. So it was all actually beneath that title and umbrella, after which the songs began to emerge.
What’s the distinction between making an album now and the way in which you made them within the 80s?
The distinction is that then, you probably did an album, you probably did an in depth tour, and then you definitely made one other album. Having that hinterland I talked about earlier can be very helpful. After we completed [2020’s City Of Love], it was horrible, as a result of the album had no sooner come out than it was lockdown, and we couldn’t do half the promo that we had been meant to do – and we definitely couldn’t do the exhibits. However I used to be capable of do a solo report [Short Stories Vol. 2] as a result of I did that in the home. That obtained that little bit of frustration out. Having extra issues to do helps in an odd means.
What’s subsequent for the band?
We don’t actually make large plans. This yr is form of mapped out, as a result of we’ll be touring and doing promo for this report. Within the meantime, I’ve been working for the final 5 years on a undertaking known as Small Acts Of Love, which lastly goes on stage this summer time on the Residents Theatre [in Glasgow]. Sadly, it’s across the identical time we’re on tour, in order that can be fairly busy, as a result of there’s a variety of work nonetheless to be finished on casting a band and singers, in order that’s my summer time undertaking. The songs are written, the play has been written, however each time it goes in a workshop, it adjustments. So I believe when it goes into rehearsal, it would change once more, however we’ll see what occurs.
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