DEL BOYS STILL CUT IT IN STATES

Scots band Del Amitri have had their 1985 self-titled album re-issued in America. And the disbanded group have added four new tunes, including a cover of Van Morrison’s classic Brown Eyed Girl. Justin gives some clue to the reason behind the band’s failure to live up to their early promise-he put his best tunes on the band’s debut and they grew their hair. He said “We had a philosophy so strict that it eventually strangled us. No chords, no choruses, no distortion, no synthesizers and definitely no long hair.” Del Amitri were dropped by Universal Records because of poor sales of Can You Do Me Good?, but it looks like in America, at least they are still a much loved group. Justin was a teenager when he wrote the songs on Del Amitri and added, “There are more tunes between the twin guitars and bass lines in one backing track from this era of Del Amitri than in every top-line melody I have written since. It was, of course, a crackpot idea, but in my rock and roll dotage it holds a lot of charm.”

Scottish Daily Record: June 11, 2003