BIG COUNTRY

MAKE IT BIG

BIG COUNTRY BROKE OUT OF THE NEW WAVE WITH A WIDESCREEN VISION AND DISTINCTLY SCOTTISH BRAND OF HEARTLAND BLUE-COLLAR ROCK. CO-FOUNDER AND GUITARIST BRUCE WATSON RECOUNTS THEIR BITTERSWEET JOURNEY WHILE KEEPING THE LEGACY ALIVE.

FELIX ROWE

In 1982, Big Country burst onto the horizon with a swell of duelling guitars, rumbling drums and lofty ideals. Theirs was an expansive, widescreen vista, tapping into Celtic tradition, yet contemporary to the core. A kind of Springsteen-esque blue-collar heartland rock – if Bruce had grown up in the Scottish Lowlands. Like the Boss, their gritty anthems carried a sense of hope, born in a small town and reaching for something greater.

Big Country was the creation of visionary frontman, Stuart Adamson, and another Bruce – guitarist, Bruce Watson.

They were both ex-punks from Dunfermline, Adamson had seen some success as guitarist of the Skids, whose 1979 single, Into The Valley, made the UK Top 10. But by the third Skids record explains Watson, “Stuart was getting a bit restless”, and scoped out Bruce for a new project. “About a year later he turned up at my flat and said, ‘Look, I’ve left the band, do you want to get this new thing together?’ I don’t think Stuart knew what he wanted to do at that point. It was just one of those suck it and see kind of things.”

They spent a month or so “working with a little drum machine, a couple of guitars, a synthesizer and this little tape machine.” The resulting tracks formed the core of their first album, 1983’s The Crossing.

They assembled a band, though early gigs were brutal. “Our management put us out [on the road] with Alice Cooper. It was sink or swim. We did a couple of dates and the crew manager just said, ‘Look, this ain’t working, boys.’ I mean, we weren’t that great, and Alice’s fans certainly let us know by throwing bottles of piss at us. It was a learning curve.”

PIVOTAL POSITIONS

Back as a duo, they just needed the right vehicle to drive them forward. The answer came in the form of bassist Tony Butler and drummer, Mark Brzezicki, who had performed on Stuart’s final Skids tour in the support act, On The Air. The formidable pair had established themselves as ‘Rhythm for Hire’ – ‘the Sly and Robbie of Soho’, in reference to the famed session players.

“They were well known in recording circles as a shit-hot rhythm section,” says Bruce. Indeed, Butler had turned down The Pretenders to commit to Big Country. Their arrival proved pivotal, injecting further vivacity and motion into Adamson’s rousing anthems.