Deacon Blue set to release expanded
editions of their albums
Daily Record 24th October 2012
EXPANDED editions of their albums, Raintown, When The World Knows Your Name,
Homesick and a new out-takes and b-sides album The Rest will be released at the
end of the month.
Deacon Blue completed their 25th anniversary tour with a triumphant gig at
London's Roundhouse in Camden last night. The band follow up the Top 20 success
of new album The Hipsters by releasing expanded editions of their albums
Raintown, When The World Knows Your Name and Fellow Hoodlums this week, followed
by Whatever You Say Say Nothing, Homesick and a new out-takes and b-sides album
The Rest at the end of the month. Ricky and Lorraine look back on the
original releases:
Raintown, 1987
Now considered a Scottish masterpiece, it’s a concept album about grinding out a
life in Scotland in the midst of de-industrialisation and unemployment.
The stark photography of Oscar Marzaroli was used to illustrate the album and
singles including Loaded, Chocolate Girl, Dignity and when Will You Make My
Telephone Ring.
Ricky: “I’d been introduced to Oscar Marzaroli’s stuff by Tom Morton (now Radio
Scotland’s afternoon DJ). I brought the photos into a session, after seeing see
an exhibition and we decided to use them.
The temptation is to match the characters in the photographs to the songs
literally, but I think it’s better to come away from that. They were part of
Raintown from very early on.”
When The World Knows Your Name, 1989
Ricky: “Our most successful album was the least enjoyable one to make. But it’s
now the album I feel ready to accept, after 23 years. I didn’t enjoy
working with certain producers at the time. It wasn’t a happy time in the band.”
Lorraine: “We were trying so hard to show that we hadn’t been changed, we didn’t
even really celebrate when it went in at No1. If I was doing it again I’d
at least have opened a bottle of bloody champagne, not just turned the telly
on.”
Fellow Hoodlums, 1991
Ricky: “It was the album we enjoyed making most. But Your Swaying Arms shouldn;t
have have been the lead single. It went through a troubled birth, that song.
That album was such a pleasure. We went to Paris, Glasgow and New York to make
it. It was just so easy. Everyone relaxed and enjoyed it, and we recorded
the album playing live. It was a great period for the band.”
Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, 1993
Lorraine: “We were experimenting, and trusted other people’s instincts rather
than our own (the Happy Mondays’ Perfecto production team of Paul Osborne and
Steve Oakenfold).
It was a great record to make, and Your Town is probably our best single, but we
gave in to this notion that because they were cool and we weren’t then they must
be right.”
Ricky: “After that, it was just a case that we didn’t know what to do next,
really. It’s part of the reason we split up. We all needed to do something
different.”
Our Town: The Greatest Hits
Ricky: “It became really fractured, directionless. I regret the day we did I Was
Right And You Were Wrong. It was being programmed and programmed and
programmed. I wanted to take the tapes and throw them in the canal outside
the studio. It was driving me mad. But the end result was okay. It was a
bit of a meltdown period. I don’t regret releasing it and it sold a lot of
copies and went to No1. But I’d had enough of being in a band.”
Homesick, 2001
Ricky: “It was a very stressful unhappy record. Graeme was ill, Dougie was dead
busy, Lorraine was pregnant. It could have been much, much better. But the
single, Everytime You Sleep, is probably one of the top five songs I’ve written
for Deacon Blue.”
Lorraine: “Graeme came on both UK tours with that album. You could see how
much it meant to him, because at that point he was really very seriously ill.”