Justin Currie, Nell Ní Chróinín and Brigid Mae Power

Adam Smith Theatre, Kirkcaldy, October 20

It’s a glamorous life for Justin Currie, lead singer of Del Amitri, whose old band just celebrated their second reunion of the century (the first was in 2002) with a successful run of gigs over the summer.

“I’m painting a staircase,” says Currie, answering the phone at his home in central Glasgow.

“My house is a cowp, I moved in 20 years ago and it’s all got too much for me. I’ve got my mate in doing a professional job and I’m doing the easy bits.”

Away from the painting overalls, Currie says his favourite piece of work this year was playing the Barrowlands in Glasgow once again with Del Amitri, which is “always a complete thrill.”

With the live element of he and longtime guitarist Iain Harvie’s band put away for the moment, the singer will next be playing on his own at James Yorkston’s regular guest night Tae Sup Wi’ a Fifer in Kirkcaldy.

“I’m just going to do it on my own, because it’s not going to be that long a set,” says Currie, with typical selfdeprecation.

“There’s a real piano (at the Adam Smith), so I’ll have enough things that I can hit in an extremely rudimentary fashion that it hopefully won’t get too boring over an hour. But normally I would bring a real musician along.

“When I do gigs under my own name, at least a third of it is usually Del Amitri stuff,” he continues, “but for this I’m going to try to do as much solo stuff as possible. I have 10 years’ worth of my own material, so enough to build a set from. If it screeches to a halt, though, I’ll just throw in a hit or two, or I might take requests. But I’m aiming to get by.”

As for Del Amitri, Currie says he and Harvie are happy to make gigs together a rarity, because the full band show is expensive and they don’t want to wear out audience goodwill.

“We’ve embarked on trying to make another record, but whether we deem it worthy of release is open to question,” he says.

“Maybe we might finish something next year? I really don’t know.

“Iain and I have carried on writing stuff over the years, so some of it may be applicable for this, and I took myself away to Lewis in February specifically to write a bunch of stuff for a band called Del Amitri. That’s quite a different from writing solo stuff, I really enjoyed it.”

Beyond that, the only thing in Currie’s diary is a guest spot at Celtic Connections, “which will hopefully get me focused on this Del Amitri record.” That and painting the house, of course. “Please don’t remind me!” he says. “I’m enjoying my tea break.”

Also appearing at this edition of Tae Sup Wi’ a Fifer will be Nell Ní Chróinín, an Irish sean-nós singer from County Cork, and the acclaimed Irish singersongwriter Brigid Mae Power. Upcoming editions, meanwhile, will be headlined by a solo set from Idlewild singer Roddy Woomble on November 17 and the iconic folk singer Vashti Bunyan on December 15. taesup.co.uk

Justin Currie is set to appear in Kirkcaldy on Saturday.