Deacon Balls And Cambridge Blues
No'1 11th July 1987

There are many places for budding young popstars to ply their trusty trade. But one of the oddest must be the Cambddge May Ball - an end of semester shebang where tickets start at £75 and one and all, with plum in throat and gal on arm, can run around having a wheeze and a half. For young Glaswegians Deacon Blue though the prospect of Toff Of The Pops seems less intimidating and more appealing than you might imagine. Sitting in some generous beak's study- now transformed into a dressing.room- singer/ songwriter Ricky Ross is optimistically philosophical. "lt's good fun playing to lots of different audiences. You get into all the tactics of what will work for different types of people. On this tour (to promote their 'Loaded 'single and 'Raintown'LP) we've gone from tiny little clubs in Bath, to Hammersmith Odeon, to supporting Ben E. King at the Birmingham Hippodrome. "That was great. We met him and he was a total gentleman. He was standing at the side of the stage when we came off and he shook our hands. Imagine being there for the support band - a definite great story! " So did Deacon Blue grow up in the hallowed cloisters of Cambridge?

"Not quite," laughs Ricky. "Douglas, (the band's drummer), went to music college in Glasgow." "The only time I got to wear a dinner jacket," says Douglas, "was when we were actually playing." In fact Deacon Blue- taken from an old Steely Dan song - began as the brainchild of Ricky Ross -a lad galvanised into action by the arrival in his native Scotland of such latterday punk heroes as The Clash and The Buzzcocks. "I'd never been into the glam/Roxy Music thing that people like Duran loved. I couldn't see anything to identify with in the lyrics. But when the punk bands came along it was brilliant. And with people like Elvis Costello getting in on it as well the importance of the song seemed to be coming back." Outside The Cure's 'Lovecats 'is getting the gentry a-jigging- Is there anything in the charts that excites him at all? "I love Terence Trent D'Arby's wishing Well'- I think his voice is brilliant and I think U2 have written some great songs - songs that anyone could sing - recently. The best single ever though has to be Prince's 'Kiss." And with that its time to return to the bumper cars and Buckingham pies. . Paul Simper