The phenomenal second coming of Deacon Blue was never going to be a mere lap of honour. Since the indestructible pop-rock heroes reconvened on record with The Hipsters a dozen years ago, they have scaled peaks they didn’t even know were there and written eloquent new chapters in the story of one of the UK’s most beloved bands.

The latest instalment in that epic tale is The Great Western Road, their tenth studio release. It arrives on a momentous anniversary, 40 years since songwriter and frontman Ricky Ross and drummer Dougie Vipond created the group’s first incarnation. Longtime fans and recent devotees alike will immediately fall for the album’s trademark combination of rock and pop, by turns rousing and poignant, with their inimitable soul and gospel seasoning.

The vibrant first single Late ’88 is a nostalgic nod to their salad days of early success, featuring a lyric video with images from the era of songs like Real Gone Kid and Dignity and the hallowed Raintown, surely one of the great debut albums of the entire decade.

But Deacon Blue are all about new adventures and fresh achievements, and The Great Western Road weaves a tapestry of sound that is unmistakably theirs but with a richly rewarding, completely contemporary ambience. Produced by Ricky and their latter-day bandmate and guitarist Gregor Philp, it features 12 new songs, all written or co-written by Ross, four with Philp and one with his wife and fellow vocalist Lorraine McIntosh.

“One of the things I’ve always wanted to keep doing on any record was to write about who I am at my age,” says Ross. “Not who I think I am, or who I was. In a sense that was the secret of Raintown as well, because it was really written as a 27, 28-year-old, not a 21-year-old. And I think in some ways that’s what I wanted to do with this one.”

The centrepiece of the album is the widescreen title track, for which Ricky took both geographical and metaphorical inspiration. “It’s about that road out, you know,” he says. “Glasgow’s got these great big avenues that go out, from before the motorway was built. The Great Western Road is spectacular because it starts off in the heart of Glasgow, in Cowcaddens, and then it goes straight out and it takes you right to Loch Lomond, to the glorious wilderness.

“And I thought, that’s the metaphor I’m looking for. You’re not going to be here forever, you don’t know what’s in front of you. But it’s not like it leads to a cul-de-sac, and that’s what’s intriguing about it all. So there’s an element of looking back, but more importantly, there’s also an element of looking forward, and a sense of wonder and mystery. Everyone in the band liked it because everyone related to it.”

After 2020’s City Of Love took the band to the top of the Scottish charts and into the UK top five for the first time since the Our Town compilation of 1994, the following year brought the mini-album Riding On The Tide Of Love. As the band, and the world, stepped gingerly back into the post-Covid light, the broad outline of the new project began to form.

“It was a long process,” says Ross. “It’s been two years of writing and demoing. Obviously there was a solo album and a theatre project in between times.” There was also the little matter of the All The Old 45s world tour that spread across the 2023-24 season to accompany the retrospective album of that name. The itinerary embraced all of Europe and included returns to Australia and New Zealand and a first-ever trip last February to South Africa, for dazzling outdoor concerts in Cape Town and Johannesburg. One or two of the new songs, including People Come First and How We Remember It, even showed themselves in early runouts at some summer shows.

“At the end of the writing process,” laughs Ricky, “we were making plans, we had the sleeve done, we had the tour dates done and the release date set up, and I said: ‘We haven’t actually recorded a note yet!’ Then it happened very quickly.”

A solid and productive week of rehearsals followed, then it was off to Monmouth, in the Wye Valley. The storied Welsh studio Rockfield, where so many classic rock records have been created since the 1960s and where Queen’s deathless ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was born, became Deacon Blue’s home for the duration of the recording. “It’s the first time we’ve been to a residential studio for god knows how long,” says Vipond, “and I was kind of going, ‘Is that the best idea?’ But it actually was, because you’re totally focused. You can’t go anywhere!

“It’s almost like a time capsule there. All the amps from the ’70s are there, and all these old microphones, and they sound amazing. I know that I set my drumkit up where Roger Taylor set his up to record on Sheer Heart Attack, which is one of my favourite Queen albums. And the amount of drummers, the amount of people that have been in there. Neil Peart had recorded Rush albums in there as well. So it was pretty terrifying at first.”

The album also marks a notable reunion with engineer Matt Butler, who worked with the band on Raintown. “That was the biggest excitement for us,” adds Dougie, “because we hadn’t worked with him for such a long time. He’s so professional and so on it and such a good laugh, and he creates such a positive vibe.”

That rehearsal time proved invaluable when recording started. “We were really well prepared going down, which basically gives you an opportunity to be as creative as you can be because you know what’s going on. For example, we were listening back to ‘Late ’88’, and we all sat there and went ‘This isn’t very good. It’s not going anywhere’.

“That night we all went to bed, we all woke up in the middle of the night. I was saying things into my phone and recording things going, ‘Should we do this? Should we do that?’ And we all did it individually. Ricky got up really early, went into the kitchen at eight in the morning, met Matt and basically rewrote the chorus. And we went in that morning and completely re-recorded it.” Less than four weeks later, the song was getting its world premiere on BBC Radio 2, where it went on to become a Record of the Week.

Such studio creativity is the intuitiveness that goes with a lifetime in music together, in addition to which Deacon Blue, individually and collectively, feel a deep responsibility to do justice to both their legacy and their audience, on record and on stage. They will underline that once again in UK theatre shows in the spring of 2025 and then on a 15-date arena tour in September and October, including their first visit to Wembley Arena since 1990 and two concluding shows at the Glasgow Hydro.

“Every time you put something out, it has to be up there,” says Vipond. “It has to be as good as the old stuff. Otherwise, what would be the point of doing it? As a writer, Ricky is unbelievable because his work ethic is nuts. We’re still playing in excess of two hours a night. Ricky is nine years older than me and his energy is extraordinary. I’ve been sitting behind him for all these years looking at the back of his head and he’s still got this amazing ability to keep that energy going, and that’s why we’re still doing it. I mean, he’s come up with an unbelievable collection of songs here that are bloody brilliant.”

The Great Western Road Trip, as the tour is named, will be the latest collective celebration of a remarkable band. “It’s just this belief that you have that people are going to come to this night and they’re going to be converted,” says Ross. “They’re going to come in one way and come out thinking something else. I think we used to go to gigs with that expectation ourselves, especially for me growing up in Dundee and travelling to Glasgow, to the Apollo, for gigs. You thought, ‘Wow, what’s going to happen tonight? It’s going to be life changing’.

“It’s a thrill to think that there’s an audience out there that can take us back to where we were in 1990,” he concludes. “And I think we’ve worked quite hard for that. You know, I think we’ve tried to make shows, and records, that touch people, and make them want to come back again.”

December 2024

 

REAL GONE KIDS

Ewen Vernal [bass]: played in Deacon Blue until the 1994 break-up and now plays with Capercaillie.

Graeme Kelling [guitar]: was a member of Deacon Blue until his death in 2004 from pancreatic cancer. There was a dedication to him on the album cover of The Hipsters. “He was the only one of us who was a true hipster,” Ricky says. “He was the cool guy with the Ray-Bans and the Katharine Hamnett jackets. He lived the life. Truly a day doesn’t pass without us thinking about him and very often talking about him and the stories that all come up.”