10 The Proclaimers

Published on Friday 28 December 2007 12:32

MUSICIANS

Their music has inspired generations of Scottish musicians and rallied the national team at Hampden

STRANGE that The Proclaimers should feature in Scots of the Year two decades after they first came to prominence. You might expect performers who smoulder with such righteous anger and rapturous energy to have burned themselves out by now. Instead, they marked their anniversary with Life with You, arguably the best album to have come out of Scotland this year. It is also timely. Back in 1987, to sing in your native accent seemed a novelty; now, it's clear that Craig and Charlie Reid have laid the foundations for a Scottish sound that is authentic but not parochial.

The release of such a great album is not the only reason that 2007 was remarkable for The Proclaimers. This was also the year they went mainstream and finally received the artistic credit they have long deserved. In March, '(I'm Gonna Be) 500 Miles' went to number one, re-released as the official Comic Relief single, and was played at Hampden to rally the fans and the national team. The song's ascendancy also coincided with the brothers' beloved Hibs winning the CIS Insurance Cup.

We were talking in their studio as part of a story I was writing about Sunshine on Leith, Dundee Rep Theatre's musical based on the band's songs. Stephen Greenhorn came up with the script by listening to their back catalogue, allowing the lyrics to suggest theme, plot and character. The result was a play about two Scottish soldiers coming home from war, and showed just how rich those songs are.

Over the course of its run, Sunshine on Leith played to 46,000 people. The band themselves are coming to the end of a UK tour, with a final gig tomorrow at Stirling Castle, during which they will have played to twice that number. Next year, they take on America. So are they at ease with their new-found mass appeal? "I don't know," says Charlie. "There are people who love us, others think we're a comedy thing, and no doubt there are people who loathe us. In a perverse way, we quite enjoy the negative reaction."

Craig adds, "Punk was one of the pivotal things in our musical education, so I like that people are against us. It's not that we want to provoke, but I know that every time we go on TV, there are people sitting out there whose day we have spoiled. I do enjoy that."

Peter Ross