THE BIG TEST ON BIG COUNTRY

THE BIG TEST ON BIG COUNTRY

Laura Fissinger

by

In our usual farsighted fashion, we figured out what you need before you did. After reading Big Country features in every magazine, newspaper, and periodical printed in the English language, the last thing you need is one more ‘ ‘impassioned young men” article. In fact, what you probably need is a chance to take this test, empty your head, and then go back to the music that caused all these dumb stories in the first place.

And don’t think that the sainted Scots themselves wouldn’t approve of this irreverence. At the end of a very serious and (sort of) strained interview, I prefaced a question by telling them it was going to be silly. Stuart Adamson and Tony Butler looked like monks being offered hot oil massage and women of sin. “Please,” Stuart moaned, “silly questions! We love silly questions.” For you, dear unwitting rock saint and hero, a motherlode. Sharpen your pencils!

JL. Big Country is most often asked in interviews:

a. How big is it?

b. So, do they drink Scotch in Scotland, ha-ha?

c. How do you get your guitars to

.. sound like bagpipes?..o}:

d. Why does Tony bounce up and

down so much onstage?..

Z. What does Big Country most want to accomplish with their music?

a. Earn enough money for lots of Scotch.

b. Find girls that sound like

bagpipes. __

c. Earn enough money to buy lots of Scotland.

d. Buy motorcycles, buy this magazine.

e. Raise a shiver on people’s necks.

3.What is guitarist Bruce Watson’s nickname among the BC road crew?

a. Bruce

b. Bird legs

c. Bagpipe face

d. Chainsaw

e. Studley Dudley, the fear of American maidenhood

4. How does lony Butler use his bass guitar?

„a. Like a normal guitar, only with

two strings missing

b. As a bagpipe

c. As a dancing partner

d. As a chainsaw

5. Stuart and Bruce used to be in a Scottish punk band called

a. The Scabs

b. The Scums

c. The Scots

d. The Bagpipe Terror Squad

e. The Skids

f. The Skanks

6. Tony used to play back-up (with drummer Mark Brzezicki),for several British rock icons. Like who?

a. Chuck Berry

b. Rod Stewart

c. Suzi Quatro

d. Pete Townshend

7. Stuart’s accent is notoriously difficult to understand. If you caught him on the wrong morning and asked him to repeat himself one too many times, he would express his displeasure by

a. Playing his bagpipes. b. Switching from English to Spanish.

c, Folding his arms and refusing to continue.

8. Before their first hit (“Harvest Home”) that Steve Lillywhite produced, Big Country laid an egg on the British charts. What was the song, what was the producer, and what was the problem?

9. What does Stuart think of videos with lots of female anatomy as scenery?

a. They look better than bagpipes.

b. It’s the naked men that are the problem.

c. Just as long as it’s not Suzi Quatro.

d. Really disgusting.

10. What is Stuart most afraid of?

a. Interviews that are big bombs.

b. Big bombs, period.

c. Chainsaws.

d. Interviews, period.

e. Drowning,' flying and doing “Solid Gold.”'

11. How does Stuart write songs?

a.If it’s not fun to dance to in a kilt, forget it.

b. If Tony doesn’t bounce his brains out, it’s no go.

c. Trying to get to people.

d. Trying to figure out what would be meaningful enough to get his band on the cover of

.‘ ‘Musician ” magazine.

18. What live acts does Stuart like?

a. Suzi Quatro, the Pin-Ups, Pia Zadora

b. Roxy Music, Mott the Hoople, Nils Lofgren, Bill Nelson, U2

c. Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, the Clash, Joan Baez

IS. How about Bruce and Mark?

a. Bruce likes John McLaughlin, Mark likes Buddy Rich.

b. Bruce likes Segovia, Mark likes Buddy Rich.

c. Bruce likes the Damned, Mark likes fusion.

d. Bruce doesn’t care what Mark likes—the Damned are the only band that matters (Take that, Joe Strummer).

14. What else besides rock music does Tony want to do with his life? yf a. Well. . . ' b. Gee...

15. What else besides music would Stuart like to do?

a. Play bagpipes, of course

b. Make biologically correct videos

c. Rule Scotland

d. Drink Scotch

e. Drive motorcycles and take photographs

f. Be a granddad

g. Pickle aardvarks

16. If Big Country held a vote for the weirdest guy in the band, who would win£

a. Stuart, because no one can understand him when he tries to explain himself.

b. Bruce—because everyone would vote for him and he’d vote for himself.

OK quiz champs, put your pencils down. All winners have won the right not to read anymore Big Country feature stories for the next two years! Instead they win copies of all Big Country work past and future, which is what all the fuss was about in the first place. 1. Actually, Stuart likes Scotch. How big it is is a matter of conjecture only for misplaced Motley Crue fans. Tony bounces up and down on stage because, says Stuart doubled over with laughter, “he’s a bouncy guy.” Ooookkkkaaaaay, boys. The right answer is D and the right answer to the question is certain kinds of Yamaha and Stratocaster guitars on certain settings. “We were never looking to make a bagpipe sound,” Stuart told CREEM for what must be his umpteenth official bagpipe disclaimer.

TURN TO PAGE 59

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 33

ANSWERS

2. Actually Stuart does like Scotch, as a source of courage and sensate pleasure. Buying Scotland? If it would keep everyone there employed, he might do it. Motorcycles are getting closer to the truth. After this story, he might not talk to this magazine again, much less buy it. Anyway, this was an easy one—however corny it sounds, Adamson wants to raise a shiver on people’s necks, give them a heart attack in the desirable sense of that phrase. Unlike some “social issue” songwriters, Adamson believes that human nature is capable of making the world more livable if humans themselves are inspired and loved. By their friends, families, and rock ’n’ roll. “Music is a positive force,” says Stuart. “It can break down myths and barriers between people.” And if he sounds pretentious and grandiose to some people when he talks like this, no matter. If Big Country’s music gets any more pretentious and grandiose than it already is, then we’ve got big trouble.

3. All of ’em are pretty good guesses. Stuart says that the crew calls Bruce “Chainsaw” in reference to the volume of his guitar and the mellifluous tone qualities of his amplifiers. This bit of inner circle trivia was offered after yours truly made some gushy remark about the pretty sounds of Bruce’s guitar.

4. A and C. According to Butler, approaching his bass like a guitar instead of a rhythm instrument is what gives the band’s bass lines such a different kind of personality from other rock bass parts. As for C, Butler’s wife can be glad she’s too big to hang around Tony’s neck.

5. If you’ve read your 20 million Big Country features you know it’s the Skids, and you know they were thought to be one of the best in the British Isles before the lead singer started to fall in love with himself.

6. Tony and Mark were a much-used rhythm section for hire before they joined BC. They’ve worked with Peter, among others and Pete’s little brother Simon. Tony has little regard for the big time rock scene; the night before this interview he went backstage at Madison Square Garden to see some players from the Ronnie Lane benefit. We couldn’t pin him down on what it was that had disgusted him so thoroughly, but

it’s going to be a cold day in hell before Tony Butler wears chains and cops an attitude.

7. Unfortunately, C is the right answer. About 15 minutes into the interrogation, Stuart did a short but potent sulk because I couldn’t leap the language barrier. It was real awkward for about five minutes, during which you can hear Stuart on the tape mumble something about not being a machine... (mumble)... a musician. “I’m just so embarrassed,” he kept saying. I talked to Tony for a while, who also looked embarrassed. It took the rather talkative Stuart only about two questions to rejoin us, speaking more slowly and acting perfectly civil. The whole scene was awkward but entirely forgivable—temper happens to everyone, and it’s almost a relief to see the Big Star With The Social Conscience act like a brat for a few minutes. It also says something about Stuart’s compulsion to be above reproach. All through this interview he never once really admitted that the band’s incredibly grueling schedule was getting to him at all. To all the questions about the pressure of interviews, concerts, quantum leaps in public recognition and expectations, long separations from wife and sons—the answers were stoic. “Nothing’s changed”; “We’re fine”; “Nobody and nothing has changed”; “No one is pressuring us, we won’t let it happen.” Stuart’s lapse seemed like the tip of an iceberg. More than a few musicians have been ruined by their own urge to be superhuman, people disliking you for being too saintly is only the start of the trouble. In or out of rock, people are always getting cracked in the head by their stiff upper lips.

8. D, you betcha. The song was “Harvest Home” and the producer was Chris Thomas. “No magic” was the problem; this is one of those bands that depends on the intangibles. Thomas didn’t have the chemistry and Lilly white did. Stuart says “we are not technicians.” We say they are not Toto, too.

9. God love him for his vehemence. Stuart got as pissed off at sexploitation videos as he did about anything else during this pissed off interview. Lots of men have nice polite statements about their disapproval of sexism. Adamson rants about it.

10. He didn’t really mention Solid Gold; we just assumed. Drowning, flying and anything nuclear are the big three. If everyone in the world worried about the latter as much as Adamson does, I for one would sleep better at night. Drowning he has thus far avoided; flying he gets through with—you guess it—Scotch.

11. Something like C. “Lyrics aren’t harder for me, but they take longer. Instead of writing down the core idea in black and white and telling things directly, I have to find the stream of images, so people can get close to whatever the song is about, and they can enter the heart of a feeling. You have to explain why about things instead of saying,.‘oh, I’m so pissed off.’ ”

12. B. Bill Nelson is Adamson’s guitar hero, and Adamson is The Edge’s guitar hero. And now you see how rock ’n’ roll never forgets...

13. C, although D is likely. Stuart and Tony couldn’t stop laughing about this one.

14. Tony is what you’d call easy going, and that is not to be confused with wimpy in any case and this one in particular. “I enjoy whatever I happen to be doing at the time.” You get the feeling that Tony in particular is the temperature regulator for Stuart, the one that throws cold water on the boiling kettle.

15. E,F,G, and you should hear him say aardvarks.

16. B, according to Tony and Stuart, although they probably give Bruce a run for his money now and again. Hopefully some of their weirdness will surface more as Big Country’s career goes on; otherwise, people will treat them like rock ’n’ roll saviors, which won’t be the salvation of the music or the people who make it or the people who listen to it. Nobody’s gonna save the world unless they’re strange anyway. As St. Stuart himself would say, “CHAAAAA!” We say, God bless ya! Gesundheit!