Podcasts · Word In Your Ear

The Skids, Big Country and the unsettling story of Stuart Adamson

24 Feb 2026 · 46 min · Episode 878

Stuart Adamson co-founded the Skids and Big Country but was profoundly ill-suited to the spoils of his success. Author Scott Rowley unpacks his passage from Dunfermline to Nashville and Hawaii to get a sense of his demons and what drove and inspired him. He talks to us here about his compelling new memoir ‘Stay Alive: the Life and Death of Stuart Adamson’ and touches on …

… hints of troubled family life in his early lyrics and the shadows of his father and grandfather

… that famous three-word review: “More crusading porridge!”

… the guilt of his success when he returned to his Dunfermline roots

… why learning to sing is unwise!

… how Big Country were saved by Steve Lillywhite and the resentment about their being sold as a pop group

… Nick Drake, Sinead O’Connor … “people who should never have been given a record contract”

… insurmountable friction with Richard Jobson

… how Nevermind made the old rock landscape look outmoded

… “guitars that sounded like bagpipes!” and other hoary old clichés

… “empty, breast-beating, bombastic!”: the rigours of the rock press consensus

… and how Big Country nearly played Live Aid.

Order ‘Stay Alive: the Life and Death of Stuart Adamson’ here: https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Stay-Alive-The-Life-and-Death-of-Stuart-Adamson/Scott-Rowley/9781917923538

Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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Links in the notes 3

• https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Stay-Alive-The-Life-and-Death-of-Stuart-Adamson/Scott-Rowley/9781917923538
• https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
• https://acast.com/privacy

The episode on the publisher’s site ↗ (opens in a new tab)