Originally published in The Aquarian Weekly

May 5, 2008

Justin Currie: Going it Alone

By Ken Shane

Justin Currie formed the band Del Amitri

in 1980 by posting an advertisement in a

music store in Glasgow, looking for people

who could play. After becoming popular

on the local music scene, they were signed

to Chrysalis in 1984, and released their

debut album the following year.

They were dropped by Chrysalis, and

signed with A&M in 1987.The band went

through numerous lineup changes, and

achieved substantial success in the U.K.,

though they were somewhat less successful

in the U.S. In 1995, Del Amitri had surprise

number two hit in the U.S. with their single,

“Roll to Me.” They made their last of their

six studio albums in 2002, though some

confusion exists because they have never

officially announced the end of the band.

You’ve probably been asked this

question several times today already,

but people want to know. Does Del

Amitri still exist as a band?

No, not really. There’s no demand for

Del Amitri, and if there was, then maybe

it might exist. But there’s nobody at the

moment for us to go and play to, and

certainly not to make a record. We didn’t

really break up in that Del Amitri consisted

of me and Iain Harvey, the other writer in

the band, and we still write together. But

whether or not that constitutes Del Amitri

is hard to say. If Del Amitri means a two

guitar, bass, and drums band from Glasgow,

then it certainly doesn’t exist.

In 1986 when you came here with Del

Amitri for your first American tour, you

paid for it out of your own pockets, with

some help from your fans. Now that

you’re about to start your first solo tour

of America, do you feel similar emotions

this time around?

There will never be another tour like the

thing that Del Amitri did in 1986, which

was a kind of miracle of fan support, and

idiocy on our part. It was an amazing

experience in that we were directly

supported, fed, and clothed by people who

got into our fan club in America. They’d

written to us in the U.K. Our manager

managed to persuade these people to put

on gigs for us, and raise money by selling

visors and t-shirts over there.

Del Amitri never did another tour like

that, probably because we couldn’t have.

We would have gone mad, or died. We

were literally starving for weeks on end on

that tour. When we weren’t in a town where

we had a show, or staying at a fan’s house,

we didn’t eat. So we didn’t really eat for

weeks at a time. But it was an amazing

experience, and an amazing way to see

America, because we were sleeping

outdoors, sleeping by the side of the road

basically.

Hopefully that will be different this time,

but what are your feelings on the verge

of the solo tour this time?

I’m looking forward to it. I haven’t done

a tour in the States since 1997.That was

the last time that we did a run of shows

over there, and I’m playing with a guy who’s

an American.

Will you be touring with a band?

No, I’m just playing with one other

musician, a guy called Peter Adams who

plays keyboards, and some other things

like that ... accordion.

The sound of Del Amitri began to

change after your first album and tour.

Can you explain the progression?

We were sort of arty auteurs of a rock

band for the first half of the ‘80s.Then I

started to write my own songs, which were,

for no particular reason, more traditional

in the way they were structured. They were

more traditionally verse, chorus. They were

wrapped around chord sequences, and

they were very different from what Del

Amitri started out doing, which was a very

arty thing. We morphed from being an art

band to being a pop band. We didn’t

deliberately do it to gain a wider profile, it

just happened that the songs I was writing

were more commercial, they were more

accessible. And I’m not now writing songs

that are less commercial. They just happen

to be. That’s just the way it goes.

Were you as surprised as I was, and a

lot of people were, when the single “Roll

to Me” became a big American hit in

1995?

Yeah, we were extremely surprised at

the size of the hit it was at radio. That kind

of took us aback, although it didn’t have

any effect on anything else. We still played

to the same size crowds. It didn’t actually

sell any albums for us, a. because it was

unrepresentative, and b. because it was

just a throwaway pop song in lots of ways,

that happened to get played on radio. It

didn’t have much of an effect on our careers,

other than that it made us a lot of money,

but it didn’t expand our audience at all,

strangely.

I wasn’t surprised that of all the things

we released, that was our biggest radio

hit in the States, because we always knew

that it was a throwaway pop thing. It was

extremely melodic, and it had that kind of

appeal. I think that’s why we put it on (the

album) Twisted, even though it didn’t fit,

because we felt that Twisted would have

been too dark an album without something

like that on it. The only thing at the time

that was weird was that it didn’t help us

sell any more albums at all. I think that’s

kind of common with bands if they have a

hit that’s unrepresentative, often it doesn’t

have much of an impact on the rest of their

career. For example the album, after that,

didn’t do anything at radio.

I’d been a fan of the band for awhile at

that point, and it was surprising to hear

the song playing on the sound system

when you were shopping in certain

stores, not to mention the ton of airplay

that it got on radio.

It was one of those songs that just

infected that whole area of mainstream

music broadcasting in the States. For years

we were given awards like for having the

tenth most played record on American

radio by a British writer, and all that kind

of stuff. We celebrate that fact that it did

well at radio, because as the songwriter,

that song bought my house. So I’m not

moaning about it. I put it on Twisted because

I thought we needed a pop thing on there.

I’m not one of these people who bemoan

having a hit, that’s for sure. I’m really glad

it was a hit. It’s not the best song I’ve ever

written, but I understand the appeal.

Let’s talk about your new album. As

you indicated, Del Amitri was a band

known for guitars and drums, but this

album is more acoustic, and includes

strings. There’s a real homegrown feel

to it.

I intended it to be a really sparsely

produced thing, and I think I ended up

perhaps not really achieving that. It became

a little more lush than it should have been.

But the idea for the sound of it was based

on the first John Lennon solo record, which

is a very stripped down kind of record. I

wanted to try something, especially because

Del Amitri were always overdub addicts.

I wanted to get away from that. My

responsibility as a solo artist ... I wanted

people just to hear me as a writer on his

own. But of course I didn’t really follow that

through. When you start with a very strict

set of criteria for an album, you very quickly

abandon them.

The original idea was to have no drums,

just a little bit of acoustic guitar, and strings.

That was what the whole record was

supposed to sound like. It didn’t work

out that way.

To me it still sounds pretty basic

to me. It sounds like something

you could have made in your

living room. It has that sort of

intimacy.

Well it was made in my living

room. On the whole I did it by

myself, with a drummer, in the

house. He just did some drum

tracks, and then I stuck some

strings on top. There were a couple

of tracks with a band.

The songs themselves seem

to indicate that this is a

breakup album in the

tradition of Blood on

the Tracks. Is that

the case?

I suppose it is. That’s one of these things I’ve

Heard music journalists say about things like

Tunnel of Love or Blood on the Tracks. Those are

albums that I particularly like. I think there’s

a reason for that. Maybe if you’ve been

in a band all of your life, and there’s a nice

kind of resonance that when you break

out of that relationship with a band, maybe

it makes sense to be singing songs about

coming out of relationships.

I just knew I wanted all of the songs to

be very frank, and I wanted them all to be

very honest love songs on the whole. I

guess those things tend to be breakup

songs. But I wasn’t deliberately trying to

make a breakup record, although I like

very few records that are made by people

in bands who then make solo records, and

the few that I do like tend to be breakup

albums.

Originally the album was going to be

called Rebound. There seem to be some

obvious reasons for that. Why did you

change the title?

Rebound had existed as a finished

album, mastered and completed, for about

a year and a half before it was released.

One of the chief guys at Warners, who

own Ryko, a guy called Jac Holtzman, was

quite adamant that because at his behest I

changed a couple of the tracks around, and I’d

re-sequenced the album, that we change the

title. He wanted to call it after the track,

“What Is Love For” and I was really adamant

that he was wrong, that it was cloying and

sentimental. He put up a very good

argument, and eventually he won the

argument. I usually like to make my own

mistakes, but I was persuaded by a very

senior a&r advisor. I’m kind of glad I was.

As soon as it was over, I e-mailed him and

told him he was right. I would just rather

that it was my idea. But it wasn’t.

Rebound was a great title for the original

album. The album then changed slightly.

Three songs moved off, and two songs

moved on. The album did feel different.

What Is Love For is a much better title

for this record than Rebound.

What’s next for you after this tour?

I’m going to stay in Los Angeles at the

end of the tour and try to pick up a few

more shows. I’ve got more writing to do.

I’d like to maybe finish another record before

the end of the year. It depends how much

writing I get done in L.A. I’ve got some

festivals to do over the summer here. The

main thing for me now is to write songs

that lead me in a different direction from this

first album. I’m not entirely sure where it’s going,

so I need to write another bunch of songs

that drive me in one direction, because I don’t

want to make another record like this. I think you

can only get away with making one dour and

rather tragic mess like this, and I don’t want to rub

people’s faces in it.

JUSTIN CURRIE RELEASED HIS FIRST SOLO ALBUM, WHAT IS LOVE FOR,

IN LATE 2007. FOR MORE VISIT MYSPACE.COM/JUSTINCURRIE.