Deacon Blue's Lorraine McIntosh and Ricky Ross speak to The Scotsman's Janet Christie.
Deacon Blue announce The Great Western Road, a brand-new studio album, will be released on Friday 21st March 2025 and is available to pre-order here.
In March 2025, the band head out an exclusive run of five theatre shows around the album release. Later in the year, they hit the road again with 15 arena shows across the UK and Ireland, including their first date at Wembley Arena since 1990, and finishing with two hometown shows at the Glasgow Hydro.
Deacon Blue announce The Great Western Road, a brand-new studio album, will be released on Friday 21st March 2025 and is available to pre-order here.
In March 2025, the band head out an exclusive run of five theatre shows around the album release. Later in the year, they hit the road again with 15 arena shows across the UK and Ireland, including their first date at Wembley Arena since 1990, and finishing with two hometown shows at the Glasgow Hydro.
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00:00How would you describe the Great Western Road?
00:03Well it was a title that came to me one day, I was driving actually out the south side of Glasgow
00:10and I was thinking there are these brilliant avenues that kind of lead out of Glasgow
00:14and I always start with titles, I always think that titles, people usually ask you how you start with songs
00:20probably 90% of the time I start with a title and then I work backwards from there
00:25and it kind of fills, it just fills your imagination and I thought well what's that going to be about?
00:31When we started, Great Western Road was our hangout, we would meet in Kelving Bridge
00:37one of the guys in the band lived near there and we'd often meet there
00:42then jump into a wee mini bus and go somewhere to do a gig or whatever but that was the starting point
00:49and it was exciting, it was a place, it was the west end, it was really cool
00:52and it was where you wanted to hang out and just be seen and all the rest of it
00:57and I was thinking all these years on, it's sort of a different thing now
01:03and I suppose in this context it's a metaphor for a road that leads out of that place
01:12into, it's slightly unknown, into the wilderness and eventually up into the highlands
01:18and so it goes A82 and it just goes somewhere else
01:22and I think that became a, I suppose a metaphor for where we are now
01:27and that's in this definitely later phase of life and it's quite an exciting phase
01:34it's quite an exciting time but it's a completely different time
01:37It's 40 years since you started, what's the secret of your longevity?
01:42I think everything about Deacon Blue comes back to having a great songwriter
01:50and great songs at its heart and I think we have a great group of musicians
01:56who are very talented, who bring these songs to life
02:00and I think we work really hard at it but I think it all comes down to really the start is the songs
02:06you can't go out if you've not got great songs and do a great gig
02:10but I think with these great songs we have, I think we always were actually a really good live band
02:17but I think we've got better because we really pride ourselves on putting on a great show
02:23and giving people a great night because you're taking people's money, you're taking their time
02:30they could go and see a million other shows and they'll come and see us
02:33so I think every time we go out there's that feeling that we want to win this tonight
02:38and I think that has basically stood us in good stead over the years
02:42people come back a lot so I guess it's that all together
02:48How would you describe your sound?
02:51I kind of don't really in some ways, in the early days you used to get into a taxi
02:56if someone, oh what kind of music is it son?
02:59and once you've made a record it was easy enough to do
03:02and I kind of think that we do what we do which is, I don't bother doing it
03:08I think like lots of bands that probably from our era and beyond and before
03:14we were influenced hugely by the music that came before us
03:17and that's a really wide range of music but songs being at the heart of it
03:25songs with lyrics that mean something
03:29and I guess, people often say about for example Dignity it's become a sort of folk song
03:34and I think it is and I think that kind of folk tradition has influenced me certainly hugely
03:40the songs that people can sing
03:43Is it hard living with someone you work with and working with someone that you live with?
03:48No
03:50I think if you like each other and you enjoy spending time together
03:55then it's not, we enjoy it
03:58I mean we do go off and do other things you know
04:01so I think if we were just doing Deacon Blue I think that would maybe get a bit intense
04:07but no we love it and we value the fact now that our kids have all left home
04:13even though we missed them when they went
04:15there is a new stage and a new phase when we're actually thinking
04:18it's really nice to just have us to think about it now
04:22what we're going to eat, what we're going to do, what we're going to watch on the TV
04:26we're loving it actually, aren't we?
04:29Yeah we are
04:31Everyone will tell you the smaller the gig is the harder it is
04:34I think a small audience can be quite intimidating
04:38so I think big crowds are never really a problem
04:41I think you can maybe do a few quieter songs if we're doing a small theatre or whatever
04:49people have seats and they can sit and enjoy it
04:51and you've got to be aware if you're playing to a load of people all standing up
04:55there's only so long people are going to stand listening to really quiet songs
04:59so I think you adapt it a wee bit but not too much
05:02we just go out there and the set changes every single night
05:05every single night
05:07and keeps it fresh, keeps it scary
05:10and the small gigs are the scary gigs
05:14because people can hear you and see you
05:17when you're up there and it's all a big noise you can get away with quite a lot
05:21but not in the small ones