"Hold the Heart"/The Seer Interview

		Stuart Adamson and Bruce Watson
		Transcribed by Melody James (melodyjames@delphi.com). This interview was included in a special release of "Hold the Heart." It is from 1986, after the release of The Seer. The interviewer is not identified.
Q:		Why "Remembrance Day" for a starting point for a song?
Stuart Adamson:		I think because it's quite a potent image of learning from things gone past. This is the underlying theme and the key that the whole album revolves around. As such, it was a very potent phrase to use in a song and obviously the whole song just turns around the two words. I don't really like pinning myself down too much until maybe this time in two year time, then maybe I'll tell you, is that how it was. It revolves around the old T (?) stuff.
Q:		Do you have to live with an album for a while before you understand it yourself?
Stuart Adamson:		I think with this album it is. Steeltown was fairly black and white and presented itself in an up front manner. With this album things are tucked away in a lot of corners and stuff.
Q:		I don't think it's a particularly safe album?
Stuart Adamson:		I don't think taking the safe route is something that has ever cross our minds. I suppose it would be easy for us to do--
Bruce Watson:		Ten "Fields of Fire."
Stuart Adamson:		Things change, people change, haircuts change. Obviously music changes as you go through life, especially with us letting it happen naturally. Not sitting down and pre-planning what is about to go on record. In that respect, it's a fair representation of what we do and what we are at any certain time.
Q:		How do you see America? Is it still daunting?
Stuart Adamson:		I never really felt very daunted by the place because Ive always been aware of the fact that no matter where you go and who you bring your records to there will be certain things people can identify within the song. I tend to find that audiences no matter where we play tend to react in the same sort of manner. And it does feel more that just an evenings worth of entertainment. There is a bonding there as we put quite a bit of ourselves into the songs. For people to have been interested in the band and to have listened to it they must have understood and been touched by a certain amount of the sentiment that goes into the songs. I find no matter where we go, we can make it a very special occasion.
Q:		Is there anywhere you'd like to go?
Stuart Adamson:		I'd like to play behind the iron curtain actually. I think I'd quite like to do that.
Q:		Back to the LP [The Seer]. "The Red Fox," listening to the lyrics of that it seems to be about an underground resistance fighter.
Stuart Adamson:		What it says is that struggle is right if the frustration is clear enough
Q:		Do you think it will come to that in Britain?
Stuart Adamson:		I don't see myself as being any great political forecaster or economist or sociologist or anything like that. I just saying that I think in specific circumstances it can be the right thing to do. It is the only option left open to a lot of people. Particularly in a region like South Africa, all the options are being closed down one by one and it's going to end up in violence and it shouldn't have to.
Q:		In the song "The Sailor" there is that line, I never should have said out loud that I wanted to save the world.
Stuart Adamson:		It's a good phrase, you know. I think I stole it from somewhere actually, but I can't quite... Sometimes I do things like that, I mess around with phrases that can turn heads. I like to do that, the word play itself is more than any great thought that went in behind it... just sort of jot down everything that comes in then edit it down a bit. I sure you know if you start to get a big flow of stuff all coming in at once, you tend to just write it all down then edit it back afterwards. I'm not sure of the specific idea that it came from but I liked it. Sort of the grittiness of the phrase and decided to keep it.
Q:		When punk first started to happening how did that effect you.
Bruce Watson:		It was great for me because around that time I was playing around with the guitar and things like that. When punk came around you didnt have to be a technical wizard to get up on stage. For me, I was a complete amateur and still am. At that time, I could go up on stage, play my guitar, the band type thing. I just didn't worry about wrong notes and the guitar being at your chin (?). It was a great atmosphere at the time because there were other band coming up at the time.
Stuart Adamson:		Coming out of the woodwork.
Bruce Watson:		Coming up to Edinburgh at the time and you could go and see some really good bands. There were other bands forming in Scotland. You could actually meet the band afterwards.
Stuart Adamson:		And pet them and feed them.
Bruce Watson:		The big bands at the time Genesis were the untouchables. The master of the (?) type thing.
Q:		When you started BC, you said you wanted to have a communication with the audience. You achieved that. How are you going to maintain or increase the level?
Stuart Adamson:		I think all we can do to maintain or increase that is to carry on in the way we have in the past. Writing songs that we care a lot about and that we put a lot of ourselves into. And just by being all around cool dudes, I think, which is what we are [jokingly said]. You don't start into it thinking my God, how am I going to maintain my level of communication with my audience because I don't think of it like that. It's sort of a pretentious way of thinking about it. I just tend to put my ideas and feeling into the songs and hope that people can identify with them and share those feeling when we actually go and do them live. A lot of the old songs have moved out of the area of just playing them and belong to the people who have bought the records, enjoyed the songs and identify with the songs and touched a part of their life. That's very gratifying, I must admit, very satisfying.
Q:		"Look Away," the video, do you have much input into that?
Bruce Watson:		The only input we put into that was the straight performance part of it.
Q:		What about the idea behind the video?
Bruce Watson:		No not usually. The director or the script writer will bring along a story board—
Stuart Adamson:		What happens is we send a song in to a few people and they send back a few storyboards, and we agree on the one that makes us look the least like a bunch of prats.
Bruce Watson:		It's not our strong point.
Stuart Adamson:		I'm personally not interested in video as a medium for rock music. I think it spoils the song in that it puts a fixed image of a certain song into peoples minds when the ideas behind the songs are much more spiritual and much more intangible than that and in that respect I'm not interested in that at all. I can't bear acting, I wasn't cut out to be an actor. I find that very embarrassing and fatiguing. I just get terribly embarrassed to pretend to be something that I'm not.
Q:		Does it upset you that someone else puts a visual interpretation on your song?
Stuart Adamson:		Not when the visual interpretation as I see it, has some vague relations to things that are going on in the song. If someone started turning up with teams of leggy blondes and hotrods we would have something to say about it. Not that theres anything wrong with leggy blondes and hotrods, just not one of my favorite song subjects.
Bruce Watson:		As long as the leggy blondes are women
Q:		"The Teacher," why did you write that?
Stuart Adamson:		Asking someone why they write something or asking a writer why they write something. It's a bit like asking them why they go to the toilet or why they eat food. Writing has become a part of me.
Q:		Do you have to write everyday?
Stuart Adamson:		Sometime yea, if I'm in that frame of mind I do. I prefer to do it from inspiration rather than sit down a slug (?) my guts out.
Q:		Was it written for anyone?
Stuart Adamson:		Not in particular, it was based on a mood sort of thing. It tied in quite well with the underlying feeling of learning from the past and just a certain quest for knowledge and finding out and understanding.
Q:		"I Walk the Hill" is written by three of you, I think. It seems that the album is more of a group effort in terms of writing that before.
Stuart Adamson:		I think everything we do is a group effort. Although I might actually scribe the lyrics, they come from the attitude and the conversations that we are having in the group at that time. I tend to take my inspirations from the atmosphere of the group at a certain point in time and I usually formed in a period of 3 or 4 months before we actually record. The things that go down in conversation and the way we feel about certain things at a certain times. I think that the group is everything.
Q:		Who cracks the whip when it comes time to work?
Stuart Adamson:		I think it's me a wee bit because basically with me doing the words, I have a vague idea of how the arrangement of the song should go. Apart from that everyone contributes their own parts. We work it out between us. What should happen where and how the melodies and harmonies should work.
Bruce Watson:		I always see the song as a sort of instrumental first before Stuarts actually gotten into the lyrics. To start off I usually like to leave the guitar part vague and open until we get into the studio and find out more about the song.
Q:		Why use Robin Millar [accent on 2nd syllable; Mill-lar] instead of Steve Lillywhite again?
Bruce Watson:		Steve was doing the Rolling Stones
Q:		But he was your first choice to do it again?
Stuart Adamson:		I don't think it's terrible important who is the producer of a BC album. I think if they have a reasonable set of ears and can keep a good atmosphere in the studio we going to (?). We certainly don't need anyone coming in and saying were going to give you a sound because we have that already. No matter what we do it's always readily identifiable as being Big Country. So in that respect it isn't the most important thing to us but with that said, Robin was very good for the band. He brought out the space and melody and things that was a direction we wanted to go in. We felt we wanted to be a bit more airy with this album and have a bit more room in it. He was into what we are and enjoyed...
Q:		The song "One Great Thing," sounds pretty optimistic. Are you optimistic people most of the time?
Bruce Watson:		Usually we are, well, I'm quite optimistic.
Stuart Adamson:		Well I'm everything and nothing at the same time. I tend to fluctuate a bit. I go from being really up to being really pissed off. Even in the course of the same day. The best thing for me is that I feel incredibly lucky that I've been given the chance to express myself thought music and able to make it my career. I would do it if I was working a day job for nothing. It's nice to be able to do it as my job or work and it's something that I treat with great respect.