When it comes down to it too it doesn’t matter who you are, everyone’s genuine experiences are interesting in the way that all accents are. It’s just how those experiences are interpreted.” Origins in Dundee

If he were to do it, it would need to be about what shaped him and what he valued as important in his life. But I think there’s been a change in the way music is viewed. That thing that we grew up with, in the 70s and 80s, when you were either in or out, cool or not cool, you loved this band, so you hated that band…. There’s a brief mention of a party with Bruce Springsteen, a wink in the direction of a do with Bono and The Edge, a head-tilt towards Rod Stewart and a cute anecdote about Billy Joel. The Rolling Stones and George Martin ghost through paragraphs and Mike Scott of The Waterboys – a pivotal figure in Ross’s story – is both gently held to account and, ultimately, absolved.

Credits

These are the formative times. The things that shape an approach to life. Experiences at college then working in a more regular job for the first time. And I was I suppose just meeting a different set of people.” Bringing people together I think that’s the search for most people – to realise when you are happy, to realise when life is good. I don’t want to use the cliche of Calvinism, but there is a sense in which sometimes that can dominate our lives, that somehow you deny yourself. Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge. There’s lots of stuff about the band, but also lots that’s very personal – material that would really be of no consequence to anyone else, but meant a lot to me.

It’ll be a bit experimental, and I’ll have to judge it as I go along,” he says. “But that’s my intention. I didn’t intend to write a memoir. I wrote a song called On Love for our City of Love album, which vaguely mentioned my grandparents. It was a trigger for me. I wanted to write more about them, and then I started to think about other people I wanted to write about. So I did.” Recently, the Daily Record reported on a poll of the all-time top 100 Scottish music artists, in which Deacon Blue finished a highly respectable fourth position (behind Primal Scream, Simple Minds and Travis). That’s not too shabby, is it? “It depends who they asked, I suppose,” demurs Ross. “On another day, we’d be 94th.”There are moments when the personal and professional come together of course, particularly with his wife Lorraine who has been with Deacon Blue since the recording of Raintown. So a lot of these things that were just formative experiences. I mean, there wasn’t a massive difference between Dundee and Glasgow at that time It’s probably more different now but it really didn’t feel like it then. It did feel like a different experience. Unauthorised copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting prohibited. Edel Germany GmbH, Neumühlen 17, 22763 Hamburg. Physically, emotionally and spiritually, you’re moving. There’s a little place on Mull where I used to take kids when I was a youth worker, and we used to do a wee sing-song. Yet anyone looking for the kiss-and-tell candour once pursued by the Press after the singer married his Deacon Blue bandmate Lorraine McIntosh, following the end of his first marriage, won’t find tittle-tattle here.