Emerging from nowhere in '87 to lodge both their debut album, This is the Story and their hit single, Letter from America high in the Hot Press Critics' Poll, The Proclaimers have served notice that they'll be around for a long time to come. Catching up on the outfit in London, Enda Murray finds that Edinburgh twins Craig and Charlie Reid aren't behind the door about speaking their mind.
"I'm no gonna talk about Rangers", announces Charlie Reid in a Scottish accent you could cut with a knife - before promptly launching into a full 15-minute tirade against the sectarian policies of the Glaswegian football club. Whether its the finer points of Scottish politics or the dwindling fortunes of Hibernian Football Club, the Proclaimers, as their name suggests, speak their mind.
The brothers are identical twins and even in close-up it takes more than a cursory glance to tell Craig from Charlie. Fresh good looks, thick rimmed spectacles and a penchant for strong vocal harmonies beg camparisons with the Everly Brothers. Effusive and instantly likeable, they talk spiritually and with conviction, Charlie impatient to explain himself. Graig, more studied, filling in the gaps when the brother pauses for a thought. In some ways it's like listening to one mind speaking in stereo.
This is the story of a band whose fairy-tale rise to prominence is the stuff of every record company press department's dream. A rough demo tape sent to the Housemartins resulted in a "where are the Proclaimers" plea by Stan Cullimore on Janice Long's Radio 1 show. The brothers duly obliged by getting in touch and a spot on the Housemartins riotously successful British tour was secured. Needless to say the Proclaimers won many admirers among the Housematins' audiences and finally clinched a recording deal with Chrysalis on the strength of a memorable Tube performance. Their first LP This is the Story was recorded in nine days and represents a fine testament to the raw and soulful live performances for which the Auchtermuchty duo are now renowned.
But all has not been sweet and light. The twins' unique appearance has already resulted in some attempts to package them up and pass them off as a kind of novelty act with just enough sense and socialist acne to pick up where the Hull 4 left off at the thinking teenage and of the market. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Proclaimers are an intensely political duo with the emphasis on the small 'p'. Very conscious of where they were coming from in every sense, their progression from punk to acoustic roots rock was a result of their desire to establish a distinctive Scottish identity. As Craig explains, "the stuff we'd been listening to before punk came along - country, rhythm and blues, rock and roll is the stuff we're into now and punk was sort of a diversion. The only way we could express ourselves properly was to sing in our own accents. Just have the two of us and strip the sound down to the minimum - that's why we started as the Proclaimers".
Their first single Throw the 'R' Away picks up the identity thread dealing sardonically with the pressures they’ve been subjected to, to tone down their harsh Scottish pronunciations for British and American consumption. The cultural implications are obvious. But this insistence on being true to their background is not the first step on the road back to insular nationalism - an attitude they both abhor - but, as Charlie points out, an affirmation of their Scottishness. "We're not ashamed of our background the way many other Scottish bands appear to be. To me some of them try to create the impression they come from Harlem or something".
American music figured more prominently than either Scottish or Irish in the Reid family recording collection. Add to this a certain fondness for the C&W showband tradition, still alive and old-time waltzing in the ballrooms of rural Scotland, and you get an idea of the spirit behind the Proclaimers' music. Their unusual vocal delivery unashamedly owes much to the greats of country music - Hank Williams, George Jones et al. They reckon their song-writing strength lies in the ability to soak up various nuances, to incorporate diverse influences into a fresh new sound which truly reflects their personal experiences. "I don't like exclusivity in music" Charlie reflects, "that attitude where someone says 'we are this and we don't encroach on anything else'. Because that approach doesn't leave you open to new ideas".
An appropriate hit single in the run into Christmas and one which will strike a chord in so many Irish homes. The Proclaimers' Letter from America is a powerful evocation of the conflicting emotions surrounding emigration, the anger and affection which so many displaced people feel for their native soil. It's no wonder that it's been adopted as an anthem for emigrant Scots, though the Reid brothers point out that they have no wish to be leaders or spokespeople for any group. Their role, essentially, is documentary.
"We still live in Edinburgh but in some ways it feels like we've emigrated, we're out of Scotland so much" Charlie says, "So, we're not putting over anyone else's point of view, but our own. But if we reflect anything, it's the fact of reasonably intelligent people watching a country die on its feet - not rising up the way some people predict will happen in Scotland. If Letter from America is doing anything, it's documenting what's going on in Scotland - and, if you've got two fucking brain cells, you can see what's going on. I don't think we're exaggerating and I don't think we're being either pessimistic or optimistic - I think we're simply being realistic".
Letter from America has been likened to Elvis Costello's Shipbuilding in that it captures the mood of Britain in its third term of Thatcherism. What is Charlie's view of Scotland's future, given the problems of emigration and the ever-widening North/South divide? "There's a few choices. Scotland can either go for independence or maybe hang on for devolution - or it can do nothing. But if we do nothing, I don't think there will be a Scotland to speak of half way through the next century. It will just cease to exist as regards being a different culture. An independent identity just won't exist".
Graig and Charlie have in the past campaigned for the Scottish Nationalist Party and both are still members. Charlie sees the SNP as having something positive to offer the situation. "There's a lot of good people in the Labour Party in Scotland, some of the Liberals. But Tories are beyond belief. The one thing the SNP has over all the other parties is that it recognises the Scottish mandate and it recognises that people in Scotland, educationally, religiously and in many other ways, are totally different. The culture is totally different. Yet, we don't have our own parliament and so we can't do anything about preserving our own economic and cultural situation".
Devolution is dismissed off hand - independence is the only solution as far as Charlie Reid is concerned: "Ask a Labour politician if devolution will stop the closure of the Ravenscraig steelworks, which is probably going to happen in the next session of parliament. It couldn't. It couldn't and that to me is the bottom line, because an industrialised economy without a steelworks is finished. unless you have complete control over your own destiny, only then does a vote taken on defence actually mean something, a vote taken on school closures, on economic regeneration - it means nothing in Scotland and it would still mean nothing under devolution, because the power would still rest with England".
Many Irish people would have little trouble relating to the topics covered in the Proclaimers' material, both on political and on personal level. Do they hold with the idea of a Celtic consciousness, which surfaces through the medium of music?
"I think there's a collective Celtic consciousness in Wales, Scotland and Ireland in the fact that they're three countries who've been oppressed by England" Craig responds. "There's an inferiority complex about England - a desire to prove yourself in these islands as well as throughout the world and I don't think that's confined to music. I think it's a thing which abounds in these three countries anyway. I think a Celtic mentality must, to some extent, be a siege mentality, because Ireland's never going to be the predominant culture in the British Isles, neither is Scotland or Wales. The only predominant culture in the British Isles is going to be English culture".
Honesty is a much abused word in the fickle world of pop, but it's the word which springs to mind in attempting to sum up the Proclaimers. To manage to touch in the subjects, they cover without sounding in the least trite or pretentious, is a real talent. But then, where talent is concerned, these Celtic soul brothers have few equals. Watch 'em grow in 1988.
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