Dundee-based band flying high in charts.

Record goes straight to number 11 spot after 23 years

Almost a quarter of a century after releasing their debut album, Dundeebased The Swiss Family Orbison have finally seen the record hit the Scottish album charts.

The self-titled disc, which was originally released in 1997 on CD only, was re-released at the start of this month on shiny yellow-coloured vinyl.

And to the band’s surprise, it shot straight into the number 11 slot in this week’s album charts, nestling between fellow Scot Gerry Cinnamon and legendary crooner Matt Monro.

Founder member, lead singer and songwriter Kit Clark admits he was slightly taken aback when he was told it had charted.

“It’s pretty cool, I wasn’t even thinking about it,” he said.

“If it hadn’t been for this lockdown (which resulted in their planned launch gigs being cancelled), we would have been more in promo mode so it wouldn’t have been such a surprise,” adding that his late father “Dunc” would have been immensely proud they were “wupping Matt Monro”.

Kit, whose fellow band members are the Deacon Blue pair Dougie Vipond (drummer) and Gregor Philp (guitar, vocals), along with Keith (Kekker) Matheson (Big Blue 72, Marshall Curtis and The Pearlfishers) on guitar and vocals and bassist Colin Davidson, says the album was always intended to be released on vinyl.

“But that wasn’t happening in 1997 and because mastering for CD was always a bit thin back then I wanted it remastered for this release,” he said.

For that process he enlisted the help of former Dundee sound engineer/ producer Robin Sutherland, now living and working in Finland.

“Now it sounds the way we wanted when it left the studio, so thanks Robin,” Kit said.

Dundee-based band The Swiss Family Orbison are riding high in the charts with a vinyl version of their debut CD.