Proclaimers
In a word, the Proclaimers celebrated new album, Life With You, is about simplicity, writing a simple song, and putting it across in a very simple, direct, honest way. It’s not just what Charlie and Craig Reid’s new album is about, it’s what they’ve based the music of the Proclaimers on for more than 20 years.
“It’s what all the great blues guys and country guys have in their music—simplicity,” says Charlie. “And from the point of view of simplicity, we’ve been able to develop our own particular thing.”
By paying attention to this, and through writing reflective, astute and sweet lyrics, and delivering those lines with sincerity and earnestness, the Proclaimers have carved out a niche for themselves at the netherworld where pop, folk, new wave and punk collide. And it’s turned their latest disc, Life With You into the Reid Brothers’ biggest hit in their native Scotland and the U.K. album in years.
Released overseas last year, Life With You is now making its U.S. debut on Decca. Comprised of songs that skip from matters of the heart to front-page news, the disc was produced by Steve Evans—known for his work with Robert Plant and Siouxsie, among others—at Rockfield Studio, a country studio in Wales that birthed such iconic British rock albums as Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and Oasis’ (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?.
In between sweet and/or pining love songs like the title track, Life With You finds the brothers longing for the relative calm of the Cold War in the face of a terrorism-filled new-world reality (“The Long Haul”); they poke fun at one of Britain’s knighted musicians on “In Recognition”; and they ask for an apology from a misguided politician(s) in “S-O-R-R-Y.”
“I think you try to write a better song every time, rather than trying to make a better album,” says Charlie. “And that’s what we did with this album. You break it down to the smallest denomination.”
Says Craig, “I think we wanted to get an album that kind of carried more of the nuances of the music. I think we’re very proud of the albums we’ve made since 2001, but I feel like we needed to maybe step it up a little bit in production values.”
To that end, they enlisted Evans, who worked tirelessly to capture their best performances. “We worked intensely,” says Charlie. “It was probably the most full-on recording that I’ve ever done, and I think that brought something out in the performances that was more distinctive than anything we’ve done in a long while. Steve does a lot of vocal takes, some vocals he might have done 18 or 20 takes, and I was a bit skeptical at first, but I think he just likes to work that way. His girlfriend was expecting a child during the recording, so I think he might have been at some stages thinking, ‘I want to get this finished and get back down the road soon because my girlfriend’s just about to have a kid,’” he adds with a laugh.
“Because Steve is younger than some of the producers we’ve worked with,” says Craig, “he’s maybe got more of a hunger. That’s not knocking any of the producers we’ve worked with before. He was just very, very thorough, and painstaking.”
And that hard work is audible, as the disc is carefully recorded, the Reid Brothers’ vocals recorded pristinely.
Life With You, which features the Reid brothers’ touring band (with the exception of its new drummer), was recorded after the group saw their best-known single, “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles),” become a smash in the U.K. in another unlikely way: While recorded in 1988, “I’m Gonna Be” didn’t become a U.S. hit until it was featured in the 1993 film Benny & Joon. Last year in the U.K., the Reid brothers did a version with comedians Peter Kay and Matt Lucas for charity, and the song became a No. 1 single there, while the hilarious video became an Internet hit.
The success reunited the brothers with their original producer, John Williams, who originally signed the group to the now-defunct, but well-remembered Chrysalis label in 1987. Williams signed the band to his W14 label in the U.K., and introduced them to Evans.
Now 45, the Reid brothers are now in their third decade of making music together. Growing up some 40 miles north of Edinburgh, Charlie and Craig enjoyed a childhood during which their carpenter father played music all the time on the radio and on record: New Orleans jazz, Willie Nelson, Fats Domino, Frank Sinatra. “There was a big range of music in the house,” says Charlie. “He liked everything, opera music. Some people switch onto film, paintings. We just switched onto music and kept on doing it.”
When they were about ten, they started a drums-and-guitar duo, before writing their first songs in 1974, during their first year in high school—three-chord tunes inspired by the Beatles, Stones and Kinks. After school, they move to Edinburgh, and began playing with other musicians. (One of them was friend Kai Davidson, who also opened a lot of doors professionally for the group. Life With You is dedicated to Davidson, who took his own life in 2007.)
“Just before we signed there was a lot of unemployment in Scotland, so there was a lot of time when you weren’t working, so you could devote the time to your music—so I guess that’s how we developed our act, staying in this little apartment and working and working and trying to develop our own sound. Unemployment was a blessing in the end,” chuckles Charlie, noting that from that situation neighboring English punk heroes like the Clash, the Damned and the Buzzcocks registered a lasting influence.
In 1982, the brothers decided to strip the group down, develop their own style and focus purely on the songs. 1987’s debut, This is the Story was an acoustic affair followed the next year by Sunshine on Leith, which introduced the world to “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).” 1994’s Hit the Highway followed on the heels of the Benny & Joon-fueled American success of “I’m Gonna Be.” Before reuniting with Williams last year, the brothers self-issued a trio of albums, and continued to tour endlessly.
It’s the road where they feel most at home—and where they continue to collect praise. Paste magazine called a recent Proclaimers gig a “case study in the unquestionable value of excellent songs, enthusiastically performed.” Mojo recently noted: “There is something carnivalesque about a Proclaimers gig, something feel-good and tribal that gets you up and at it. Ask The Coral, who previously booked the Reids for a private Xmas party. Ask fellow Proclaimers fans The Zutons.”
“On the road,” says Craig, “I think you want to get across fairly quickly whenever you’re playing: You want to hold them, and take them up and take them down again. You just want to give it everything you’ve got—in a really controlled manner. And you want to get across to people in the back of the room.”
“You try to stay honest to yourself,” says Charlie, surveying the band’s long career. “We’re 45 years of age now, to be writing the same song we were writing at 25 would seem to me to be a little dishonest. So we write about what we know, and about our lives.”
“We love writing songs, and we love playing live,” adds Craig, “and that’s what it’s about for us.”
