By BRUCE DENNILL
Deacon Blue are appearing in South Africa for the first time in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Singer and chief songwriter Ricky Ross (pictured, third from left) talks about his musical journey.
During Covid downtime, your recorded solo material and wrote and autobiography. Now you wouldn’t have asked for the scenario in which it happened, but how important was it to process all you had been through to that point?
Nobody would want that time again. In Scotland, we had a long lockdown, and music is about together, so it was tough. Creative projects were put off. I had started the book in 2019, but the time to we were allowed in that period was good. With the solo record, it was possible to record, here in my home, at the same time as I was writing. It was good to have something to do, and it’s possible that these projects wouldn’t have happened without that time.
Did it help set the route for where you are now, or where you’re going?
In the middle of lockdown, there were darker moments where we wondered if we’d ever work again. That was especially a problem for younger musicians. When we did get out there, it reinforced the joy of being able to do it. The core of what we do is being in a room together.
Many bands most famous for their early material don’t get to experience the audience enthusiasm of their big breakthroughs again, but Deacon Blue has, with arena shows, great sales for the City Of Love album and demand for shows here, on the other side of the world. What’s your headspace on this – and how has it changed from then, in the Eighties and Nineties?
I remember a phone call from our manager years ago, in which he said, “There are people in Australia who want you to go and play there. What do you think? It might be very expensive.” So I said, “We’re of an age where if we don’t go, we’ll lose something.” It’s exciting to reconnect with an audience. It’s always exciting for your music to travel. When I was young, I liked to dial into the medium wave channels on my radio and I would hear a band from Glasgow, where I lived, on a station in Scandinavia. Whenever that has happened for us, it’s been a real thrill, and we don’t take it for granted.
Do you ever connect those two timeframes on stage? You’ve reworked some of your Deacon Blue hits recently, for instance…
We do try to get back to the original versions because that’s often what people want to hear, but all songs have a life of their own. We’ve never played the same songs in the same way. We like to improvise. I’m always amazed at bands playing to tracks – we just set up simple and do the gig. In our heads, we’re playing the album version, but it has some extra arms and legs.
As you’ve shown in songs like Raintown, Glasgow is a music-inspiring city – and newer bands like Biffy Clyro, Twin Atlantic, Travis and others have supported that since. Can you explain the scene for people who’ve never been there?
I’m too old to give you a good contemporary sense of it now! But when you’re younger, you’re grabbing at any opportunity. I was born and spent time as a child in Dundee, and then, we knew that Glasgow had the people, the studios and the opportunities, in the same way that London or Liverpool or New York does. There was also always lots going on that not everyone was aware of. At that time, getting a big record deal meant getting the A&R guys in from London or wherever, which would give us a sense of something happening.
You’re an author, a Christian and a songwriter – someone powerfully aware of the value of storytelling. How does that influence how you write or how long it takes you to write?
It’s easy to re-hash what you’ve done before. There are so many songs out there, so for one of them to make its way into the world, it has to be distinctive. But I have always loved the “three chords and the truth” approach. Either way, it’s about saying that thing that hasn’t been said in that way before – and which carries emotional truth. It does get harder to do, but let’s have a go, right? That’s my current brain-ache!