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

An episode of [Word In Your Ear](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1567029088), 24 Feb 2026, 46 min.

Audio: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/5ff0586154e2a73589267809/e/699df4eb0e248fdc4f487dfc/media.mp3

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 Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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