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Del Amitri’s Justin Currie: ‘I’m glad I’ll be on tour with the band this year, rather than moping around snarling at the Christmas trees and music’

© SuppliedDel Amitri.
Del Amitri.

Justin Currie has every reason to dread Christmas. But this year, songs will save the season for the Del Amitri frontman.

“I had my Parkinson’s diagnosis, my mum was diagnosed with cancer and died shortly afterwards, and my partner had a stroke all in the run up to Christmas,” said the singer. “So I’ve gradually come to kind of bury my head in the sand around Christmas, with all that. I’m really glad I’ll be on tour with the band this year, rather than moping around snarling at Christmas trees and Christmas music in the shops. I’m glad I’ll be busy.”

Justin is on a UK tour with the band he’s spent most of his hit-laden adult life with as the songwriter and singer for, with singles like Nothing Ever Happens, Roll To Me, Always The Last To Know and Don’t Come Home Too Soon.

They’ll bring the curtain down on 2024 with a pre-Christmas double header at Glasgow’s Barrowlands, scene of many a memorable Dels festive show in the past.

“It had become almost like a tradition for us,” said Justin. “We did a Barras gig at this time of the year for years. The Barras audiences are great, the noise they make bounces off that low ceiling and makes it all seem twice as loud. We’re looking forward to it.”

Justin Currie was diagnosed with Parkinson’s last Christmas; his mum received a cancer diagnosis and his partner had a stroke. © Duncan Bryceland/Shutterstock
Justin Currie was diagnosed with Parkinson’s last Christmas; his mum received a cancer diagnosis and his partner had a stroke.

Justin and the band’s fans know to make the most of the moment – here and now, to echo the title of one of their most popular singles.

Since going public earlier this year with the news that the tremor in his right hand was a symptom of Parkinson’s disease, the singer is honest about his view of the future.

He said: “Today is a good day, I don’t feel too bad, and I can still do my job. I don’t look too far into the future with either hope or lack of it.

“People with things like Parkinson’s or Multiple Sclerosis would say there’s something refreshing about not living in the future at all. The future is quite scary.

“I know I’m going to get worse, and there are lots of different ways you can get worse that you don’t really want to think about. There’s nothing you can really do to prepare for that. I used to live in the future a lot, but something like this is quite good for getting rid of all that.”

The current burst of activity looks likely to yield another album following the band’s 2021 LP, Fatal Mistakes.

“I’ve written half of another album, but I’ve been procrastinating as usual,” said Justin. “Hopefully we’ll get something out next year. Things move at such a glacial pace with us, and I’m not really sure why.

“At first I was freaked out with what I was writing, because I thought some of the songs were quite sad. I wondered if maybe I should just bury them, then I realised that actually they are very honest. And all I have ever really tried to do as a songwriter is write about what I know. Sometimes I write stories about things I’ve read about or witnessed happening to people.

“So it’s quite natural if you get hit with a diagnosis of a degenerative brain disease. It changes you. The disease itself changes you. It’s like someone else taking control of you. Something starts taking over. And you want to let that guy do some of the writing as well. You can’t fight against that.”

Having become a regular fixture in the charts of the 1980s and 90s, his band split in the early 2000s, and it would be more than a decade before they performed again, reuniting for an epic Celtic Connections performance at Glasgow’s Hydro arena in 2014.

Justin said: “I do regret that we haven’t made more Del Amitri records. I made four solo records in 10 years and I’m glad I made them but I would have liked to have made more. The solo years feel like they’re over now.

“We’re quite happy to make Del Amitri records now that might sound like a solo album, whereas in the past we’ve been careful to avoid that. I’m not writing pop songs anymore. Why pretend to be something I’m not?

“I couldn’t carry a gig myself on piano and guitar, I don’t have the same dexterity. A solo gig would be too exposing. It is what it is.”

And yet the band plays on. Del Amitri launched their festive tour with a warm-up gig at Glasgow’s Tramway at the start of the month, an event which also doubled as the official unveiling of a limited edition malt whisky struck in their name.

Parkinson’s might now be part of their story but, based on their brilliant Tramway performance, it’s not part of their sound.

Del Amitri. © Supplied
Del Amitri.

Justin said: “I try to keep my voice in shape as much as I can. When you’re 59, the audience don’t expect you to sing the high notes you could sing when you were 25. I used to want to be perfect within my limitations, whereas now I will let myself off if I am imperfect within those limitations.

“I’m a high baritone and your peak period as a high baritone is your early 50s. Your low range gets weaker and you lose some of your falsetto. You’ve just got to expect that.”

He takes encouragement from the likes of Michael J Fox, who appeared briefly on stage at Glastonbury this summer with Coldplay and has sustained elements of his career in film and TV.

“I watched him on the last series of Curb Your Enthusiasm and I was very pleased to see him working,” said Justin. “He was very funny in it. You look to those public figures who have got the same thing as you, Jeremy Paxman, Paul Sinha, Billy Connolly, and sometimes that can be quite troubling. It can be either frightening or encouraging. Not to be doing things would be really rubbish.”

Justin Currie is still doing things. Writing, recording and touring, and for now that’s all that matters.

“I still consider it a victory when someone tells me they’ve been moved by a song, especially if it’s one that has been designed to move them,” he said. “That’s still really gratifying.

“Parkinson’s has made me ignore any comparisons with myself when I was younger. You can only do what you can do now, the best you can do, and when it’s not good enough anymore then you just stop. I’m confident I’ll still be playing next year so long as my voice holds out.”


Del Amitri play Aberdeen Music Hall on Wednesday, Perth Concert Hall on Friday, Edinburgh Usher Hall on Saturday, Glasgow Barrowlands, December 22-23, and Inverness Leisure Centre June 25, 2025