You can get our new album on cassette – 40 years of Deacon Blue

In 1985 Deacon Blue formed in Glasgow and over the years have achieved great success with 12 UK top 40 singles and two UK number 1 albums.

Their debut album, Raintown, referring to Glasgow, spawned what is probably their most popular hit, Dignity, which is still regularly played at parties and has even been adopted by Dundee United fans.

Forty years on, the band are still together – after a brief hiatus – and are releasing a new album, The Great Western Road.

The album title gives a nod to the places they used to meet up for gigs back in the day and also serves as a metaphor for their lives.

“I was thinking about these big roads and avenues that lead out of Glasgow and at the time of life we’re at it’s this unknown ending,” singer Ricky Ross tells BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland programme.

“You have to think about these things so it became an interesting metaphor – the idea that you just don’t know what’s round the corner. It’s also quite exciting.”

Ross, a former teacher, points out that a lot has changed in 40 years, not least the music industry, which has changed almost beyond recognition.

To celebrate this, and to mark their milestone, the band are releasing a cassette version of the new album.

“That’s causing people quite a lot of amusement as they can’t find a cassette player,” Ross says.

The band formed in the summer of 1985 – when Ross moved from Dundee to Glasgow – taking their name from the 1977 Steely Dan song Deacon Blues.

Original members included Ross, singer Lorraine McIntosh – who married Ross in 1990 – drummer Dougie Vipond, keyboard player James Prime and guitarist Graeme Kelling.

“This all started when Dougie and I got together,” Ross adds.

“Over the last 40 years our lives have changed and things have gone in different directions for everyone but those of us who started it are very, very close.

“They are the closest people in my life. We all created something very special when we started.”

Ross says he really appreciates the older fans who still come to the gigs but is also pleased to see younger fans in their audiences.

“I am very grateful that people are still coming – that they’ve come all these years to see us,” he says. “They are the core audience but its lovely that they’ve passed this on to other people as well.

“We were playing at the Albert Hall a couple of years ago – there were four guys in their early 20s and I thought ‘are they taking the mickey here?’ but they were for real and that was quite nice.”

The band are currently playing a string of gigs around the UK and Ireland, some of which are in smaller theatres.

“We wanted to do the new record and a lot of the songs we haven’t got the chance to do when we play bigger shows,” Ross says.

“But we’re coming back later in the year – playing in Aberdeen and a couple of shows at the Hydro in Glasgow – when we’ll do everything, all manner of things, which we always try to do.

“You always want to make people feel that they’ve got the best of you.”