The Skids, Big Country and the unsettling story of Stuart Adamson

The Skids, Big Country and the unsettling story of Stuart Adamson

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold February 24, 2026 Duration: 46:12

Stuart Adamson co-founded the Skids and Big Country but was profoundly ill-suited to the spoils of his success. Author Scott Rowley unpacks his passage from Dunfermline to Nashville and Hawaii to get a sense of his demons and what drove and inspired him. He talks to us here about his compelling new memoir ‘Stay Alive: the Life and Death of Stuart Adamson’ and touches on …

 

… hints of troubled family life in his early lyrics and the shadows of his father and grandfather

 

… that famous three-word review: “More crusading porridge!”

 

… the guilt of his success when he returned to his Dunfermline roots

 

… why learning to sing is unwise!

 

… how Big Country were saved by Steve Lillywhite and the resentment about their being sold as a pop group

 

… Nick Drake, Sinead O’Connor … “people who should never have been given a record contract”

 

… insurmountable friction with Richard Jobson

 

… how Nevermind made the old rock landscape look outmoded

 

… “guitars that sounded like bagpipes!” and other hoary old clichés

 

… “empty, breast-beating, bombastic!”: the rigours of the rock press consensus

 

… and how Big Country nearly played Live Aid.

 

Order ‘Stay Alive: the Life and Death of Stuart Adamson’ here: https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Stay-Alive-The-Life-and-Death-of-Stuart-Adamson/Scott-Rowley/9781917923538


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There’s a particular kind of conversation about music that happens between friends who’ve spent a lifetime immersed in it-not as distant critics, but as participants in the culture. That’s the atmosphere you’ll find in Word In Your Ear, a podcast from Mark Ellen, David Hepworth, and Alex Gold. With a collective eighty years of writing and broadcasting for titles like Smash Hits and Mojo, and shows from "The Old Grey Whistle Test" to VH-1, they don’t just recount history; they unpack the stories behind it with the ease of a shared laugh. This podcast grew naturally from their work on the late, great magazine The Word, where they began recording over thirteen years ago, building a dedicated following who found something genuinely special in the mix. Each episode weaves together music, commentary, history, and interviews, moving seamlessly from deep-dive analysis of a seminal album to a frank chat with a surprising guest, all delivered with the warmth and wit of a late-night chat. It feels less like a formal show and more like you’ve been invited to pull up a chair in a room where the anecdotes are plentiful and the expertise is worn lightly. The result is a consistently engaging listen that treats music not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing part of our lives.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Word In Your Ear
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