MOJO EYEWITNESS

SKIDS PLAY THE ABSOLUTE GAME

They were straight-out-of-Dunfermline punks. Then Stuart Adamson’s heroic guitars and Richard Jobson’s rabble-rouser intellectualism took them somewhere more complex and anthemic. Heroic, fiery hits including Into The Valley and Masquerade followed, but as well as creative struggles and line-up shifts, darkness and tragedy were waiting. “There was much more to the Skids than simply punk,” say the band and their collaborators, who recall “an ongoing tension… that ended up breaking the band.”

Interviews by KEITH CAMERON • Portrait by PAUL SLATTERY

The meaning of Fife: the Skids go forth at North Queensferry, February 22, 1979 (from left) Stuart Adamson, Tam Kellichan, Richard Jobson, Bill Simpson.

Camera Press/Paul Slattery

Caught in the tide: (left) Skids in New York, December 1980 (from left) Jobson, Mike Baillie, Russell Webb, Adamson; (right) Jobson and Adamson, Hammersmith Palais, August 26, 1980; (below) Jobson bares his soul, March 12, 1980.

Virginia Turbett/Getty (2), Barry Plummer, Getty (8), Justin Thomas

“THE SPINE OF THE BAND WAS STUART. BUT STUART WOULD VANISH A LOT.”

RICHARD JOBSON

Bill Simpson: Stuart Adamson and I were mates at Beath High School in Cowdenbeath. He played guitar and sang in a covers band, Tattoo, and invited me to his parents’ house in Crossgates, outside Dunfermline, and asked me to play bass. I’d never played in my life! Summer ’76, we packed in our jobs and moved to Amsterdam. Stuart only lasted a few weeks, but I stayed six months. When I came back, Stuart had been busy writing songs. Punk gave him the impetus to do his own stuff. That’s where the Skids started.

Richard Jobson: When I met these guys, I was still at St Columba’s High. I had to grow up fast.

BS: You’d see Richard walking about Dunfermline. Hair dyed black and white, long dark trench coat – he had a presence. Stuart asked him to audition for singer. I thought he was in his mid-twenties. In fact, he was only 16. But he had the look and the attitude and everything we expected a frontman to have.