THE SUNSHINE BOYS
Band of brothers tell how they beat weirdos tag and accent bias to have pop success
To First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, The Proclaimers are the band who sang the anthem of her teenage years.
For fellow artists like Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners and Paul Heaton of The Housemartins and The Beautiful South, they were a duo who made them sit up, take notice and throw their weight behind them.
And to fans like Little Britain star Matt Lucas, they were educators and ag i tators , “rebellion in a sweater – a chunky one – Aran.”
On their first TV appearance, on Channel 4’s controversial pop show The Tube, they were just plain weird.
It was January 1987 and identical twins Craig and Charlie Reid were introduced by the late presenter Paula Yates.
She summed up their doublewhammy, straight- down-theline, no- gimmick appearance, which was unique in the decade’s musical landscape. She said: “And now for something totally weird and unusual.”
The brothers, from Auchtermuchty, Fife, agree with the late presenter’s initial sentiments in a new documentary.
Called This is the Story, after the twins’ 1987 debut album, it’s presented by actor and fan David Tennant.
Craig said: “She wasn’t wrong. Oh God, aye. I think we were always going to be fish out of water in everything we did.” Lucas agrees. The comic actor, another famous and vocal fan of the band who put them in drag when he directed the video for Spinning Around in the Air in 2012, said: “I remember seeing The Proclaimers on The Tube and they didn’t look or sound like anybody else.”
The sound, in particular, was key. While other Scottish bands of the era, such as Simple Minds and Big Country, had great chart success singing in a transatlantic twang, The Proclaimers were straight out of Fife and proud of it.
Craig and Charl ie, now 55, refused to drop their accents, something which threatened to hold them back.
Charl ie said: “We’d gone to London two or three times and had met a couple of people who said we like the songs but the accent…I couldn’t see the point of writing songs about stuff we knew and had observed and then singing it in a mid-Atlantic accent.”
Cra ig added: “It wa s a determination to do it our own way and not sod the consequences but accept the consequences. We were younger and determined and fed off each other’s energy about it.”
Their resolve paid of f in 1987 with Letter from America, their first huge hit.
It was produced by another Scottish music legend, Gerry Raf ferty of Baker Street fame. And if their accents hit the right note, so did the lyrics.
Linking the Highland Clearances with industrial shutdowns of the Thatcher era in towns including Bathgate, Linwood, Methil and Irvine, it became a pol itical ly charged Scottish anthem.
It struck a chord for one young person in particular growing up in Ayrshire: Sturgeon.
She said: “Letter from America came out at a time when I was getting really involved in politics so it wasn’t just that my home town was mentioned in it, which in itself was quite a big thing, but it was also that it spoke of something about my country that was also motivating me to get involved in politics.
“So that song for me is the anthem of my teenage years.
“Their songs over the past 30 years have in many respects been the soundtrack to Scotland’s pol itical journey and that has made the pol itics much more accessible at times to younger generations and brought politics alive.
“Not just Letter from America but songs like Cap in Hand, really, in very simple terms but in beautiful lyrical terms telling
They didn’t look or sound like anyone else
Scotland’s story in that way was hugely important – politicising, small-p politicising, a generation of young Scots like me.” For the brothers, Letter from America was born out of anger but then, they were a couple of old punks. They saw The Clash live and formed two punk outfits, The Hippy Hasslers and Black Flag, although the Auchtermuchty version are not to be confused with the more famous American one. They struggled initially to get gigs as The Proclaimers but their passion and talent saw them win inf luent ial supporters including Rowland, of Dexys, and Heaton, then lead singer of The Housemartins. Rowland, whose hits include Geno and Come on Eileen, met Craig and Charlie on Dexys UK tour in 1980 and provided them with valuable studio time. He says: “I remember seeing them down the front of the stage at the very first gig, which I think was Edinburgh, because you can’t miss them. Two guys who look very similar with the glasses – great look – and of course, the following night, I was like, ‘ Them two guys are down the front again.’ “We became friends and we wou ld have these long discussions into the night. They were very political, very vocal in what they thought. They inspired me. “They came down to Birmingham for a couple of days and we recorded some demos. I had booked a couple of days in the studio because I’m just used to that, demos taking a bit of time. “I dropped them off at the studio, introduced them and went off somewhere, came back about an hour later and they went, ‘We’ve done them’. They were great.”
So good that they jumped out at Heaton. He still has the tape The Proclaimers sent him and plays it on the cassette recorder The Housemartins used to play demos on in their van on tour.
He said: “It was some time in early 1986 or late 1985, their demo got played in a sort of battle of the bands inside the van. I suggested, ‘ This band are too good just to be in the van – they’re better than this’.”
An invitation to the band’s base in Hull – and a drinking session to suss them out – led to a support slot and a recommendation to producer John Williams. He was impressed, as were staff at Chrysalis Records when they performed on a desk in the boardroom.
Their appearance on The Tube cemented a record deal and a glorious future which has included a worldwide hit in I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles), which Craig confesses took him less than an hour to write, and the stage and movie musical Sunshine on Leith.
They also have the devotion of hardcore fans such as Tennant, who said: “I have bought every album and seen them live countless time and I had Life With You played at my wedding as I walked down the aisle.
“They never fail to make my heart fly.”
Not bad for weirdos. The Proclaimers: This Is The Story is on BBC2, Wednesday, at 9pm.