Michael Alexander speaks to Charlie Reid of The Proclaimers about the new album, the political ‘weaponising of nostalgia’ and the twins’ school days in Fife.
Proclaimers star Charlie Reid says Britain in 2022 resembles a “toothless old crone clinging on to vanished glories”.
However, the long time Scottish independence supporter is “not confident” that IndyRef2 will happen in 2023 – or sure that he will even see independence in his lifetime.
In an interview with The Courier to promote the Auchtermuchty-raised twins’ new “anti-nostalgia” album Dentures Out, Charlie says: “I think there’s zero likelihood of a referendum next year.
“I think that the British establishment would not grant one again if they thought there was even a fair chance they could lose it. They are not going to do it.
“I think Scotland’s at an impasse at the moment. I think we’re stuck. I don’t know what’s going to break it.”
However, he adds: “I would hope we are going to move towards independence.
“I think there’s more courage needed from the SNP…At some point you have to think like an insurgent rather than someone who’s just trying to run devolution better than the Labour Party.
“I want to see independence. I’d like to see it in my lifetime. I don’t know whether I will. I certainly think it’s moving that way.
“But if you are going to get a vote or you’re going to have a plebiscite election, you have to be sure you are going to win it.”
‘Romancing of the past’
There’s a jaunty upbeat feel to the opening track of The Proclaimers 12th studio album.
But don’t be fooled.
Craig and Charlie Reid’s most political album since Sunshine on Leith tackles everything from the “weaponising of nostalgia for electoral capital” to the “romancing of a recent past that lands us with a cosily commodified heritage culture”.
It’s 35 years since the release of The Proclaimers landmark debut album This Is The Story, and 34 since the release of Sunshine on Leith, the second album that made them international stars.
However, despite having recently turned 60, the fire and ire of the Reid twins remains undimmed.
“In some ways it’s an age thing – turning 60,” says Charlie when asked about the inspiration for the album with its look to the past, soaking dentures and faded Union Jack bedspread on the cover.
“Inevitably you get reflective.
“But I think a lot of it is seeing Britain like an old woman, a declining woman, with her dentures out.
“That’s really the point that’s being made of it.
“It’s come out in exactly the same year as we turn 60, so you can’t help feel you’ll relate to it to a great degree.
“But it’s more about Britain and the West declining.
“I think that’s probably more hat the title and the lyrics are about.”
Falseness of nostalgia
The first single to be released from the album, The World That Was, explores the frustrations of nostalgia being pressed into service during the Covid-19 pandemic with its illusions of wartime warmth.
It explores how people often view the past nostalgically or just plain falsely – thinking the past was better when often it really wasn’t.
In some ways, Dentures Out picks up from where the 2018 album Angry Cyclist left off.
That album expressed dismay at wider western society’s apparent shift to the right in the post-Brexit/post-Donald Trump election political landscape.
But even since then, the landscape, says Charlie, seems to have become bleaker.
Politics has become “incredibly harsh and brittle throughout the West”.
The terrifying realities of human-made climate change and how we are going to deal with it raise fundamental questions about being alive in the 21st century and even whether there is a future.
With such massive questions, is it little wonder people are scared and want to seek refuge in the past?
“Looking at the day to day news, it’s hard to believe what’s going on,” says Charlie when asked about his writing influences in recent years.
“We’ve lived this long and things have been sh*t before.
“They’ve been up they’ve been down. But they never looked over.
“At times you look at it now and think maybe it’s just because I’m getting older.
“But it does look incredibly bleak, or, it looks so ridiculous.
“The people who seem to gain power often now seem either frivolous or sociopaths or a bit of both.
“It’s terrifying really. It’s not just Britain. I think it’s all over the Western world.
“I know in Italy the apologists for the fascists and the crypto fascists look like they are going to be the biggest single party.
“If you look at a situation where someone like Donald Trump can not only be elected but consider even running again, it’s beyond belief really.
“The public standards if you want seem to have collapsed almost completely.
“It’s not almost as if there doesn’t seem to be any law, there doesn’t seem to be any self-restraint in the way people speak.”
‘Confronting’ issues
Charlie doesn’t think The Proclaimers songs can ever change the world by themselves.
Their traditional response has always been to “confront” issues through their music and make the lyrics “mean something” whether that’s about politics, relationships or comment.
Some people “dissect every syllable” while others will enjoy the tunes and never listen to a word.
By using upbeat melodies – major key stuff instead of minor keys – the true meaning can sometimes be “disguised” by the fact it’s a jaunty tune.
Only one number on Dentures Out, the closing ‘What The Audience Knew’, busts the 180-second mark.
The rest are sub-three-minute miniatures, recorded at Rockfield in Wales in three quick weeks in spring 2022.
James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers fame plays as guest guitarist on the title track and on Things As They Are.
What does Charlie listen to?
In his spare time, Charlie can be found listening to everything from modern acts like Sleaford Mods, to The Kinks, Noel Coward and old jazz records. He particularly enjoys the “simpler or less orchestrated stuff”.
It’s not a conscious thing to write short tracks, however.
“What happens is our songs come out the way they come out,” he says.
“We don’t really design anything. But I think the short songs reflect the music that we identify with – early rock n roll music, punk music, folk music.
“The kind of songs that we identify with strongly often are very short.
“They make the point. You get the chorus. You make the point again, then you go on to the next tune.
“I think it’s just the way they’ve come out on this record but it doesn’t reflect our love of that kind of music I think.”
Early years in Fife
Coming from a “definite Labour background”, Charlie’s brother Craig told The Courier previously how he was in his late teens when the politics of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher inspired him to support the idea of Scottish independence.
Born in Edinburgh’s Eastern General and living in the city until the age of eight and from about the age of 18, there’s no doubt that Hibs supporting Craig and Charlie regard the capital as home.
But after a couple of childhood years in Cornwall, they were also influenced by their formative years living in Auchtermuchty from 1972 to 1980 – a period which saw the twins attend Bell Baxter High School in Cupar and form their very first bands after Craig got an old beat-up drum kit and Charlie got a guitar.
Being on the road a lot means that when he’s back home in Edinburgh, Charlie tends to visit his sons and family, who now live in Glasgow, first.
But he still has a couple of pals in Cupar, he reveals, and has “lots of happy memories” of his time at Auchtermuchty Primary and Cupar’s Bell Baxter High.
“It’s funny now talking about the potential power blackouts in winter,” he says.
“I remember being there during the miners’ strike of 1972/74 and sitting there with a candle when the power went out at half seven at night, or whatever it was.
“There’s lots of things there. Going to Bell Baxter school, the friends I had there, and then moving away.
“I moved away when I was 17 so it kind of felt like I’ve had two lives – the life I had there, the youthful life, and then the grown up life here.”
Charlie doesn’t know if Craig would say the same, but as far as he’s concerned, having a twin brother has been a “big advantage” to him through life.
“You’ve got your kind of best pal with you,” he says.
“There’s the shared experience, the shared fact that we work in the same trade.
“But watching the ageing process, I look at myself in the mirror, then I look across the stage at Craig and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I think the best response is to laugh. Easily the best!”
Dentures Out, the new album by The Proclaimers, is out now.
They play sold out gigs at Dunfermline Alhambra on November 25, Dundee Caird Hall on November 26 and Perth Concert Hall on December 14.
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