How did Big Country get their name?
Although many Millennials and Gen Z’ers aren’t aware of them today, Big Country were a highly significant act. The music of the 1980s would not have been the same without them, with the landscape missing the creators of the decade’s most stirring anthems. Yes, even the rousing choruses of Bono and U2 were no match for what the Stuart Adamson-led band were creating.
Underpinned by the ex-Skids man’s commanding vocal delivery and dovetailing guitar work with Bruce Watson, the Dunfermline outfit tapped into the ancient, mystical essence of their native land by evoking the sound of traditional folk instruments such as the bagpipes and fiddle. This gave Big Country a wholly unique sound that remains so, even 41 years after their formation.
Adamson and Watson, alongside bassist Tony Butler and drummer Mark Brzezicki, remain a storied band. Just one glance at the cover of their 1983 debut album, The Crossing, perfectly conveys what’s in store for the listener, with the deep blue, rising sun, compass and thistle denoting the vibrant aural happening the quartet created with producer du jour Steve Lilywhite.
The most commanding aspect of the cover is their logo, with it placed in the middle of the picture in a bold, old-west-looking looking font. Delving into the matter of their name a little deeper, there’s a lot to be said, given its highly effective presence. Big Country was the ideal choice for the expansive, “big music” they were pioneering at the time. As soon as the members came across it, they knew it was the one. This came after they flirted with many candidates during rehearsals in Dunfermline.
Per The Courier, in a 1985 interview, Stuart Adamson discussed how the band became Big Country and revealed that it was all a fluke. “I left my previous group, The Skids, at the start of 1981 and began writing songs with a view to forming my own band,” he said. “First, I approached Bruce Watson because I’d been impressed when he played in a group with my wife’s brother.”
“We practised in the local community centre and tried out several other local lads – but it just didn’t work”, the late frontman explained. “Then I remembered bassist Tony Butler and drummer Mark Brzezicki, who once played with the support band on a Skids tour.”
Adamson then explained how Butler and Brzezicki gelled perfectly with him and Watson, and around this time, they were messing around with “dozens of names”. One of them being ‘The Rodeo Giants’, but “most of them were plain daft – ‘The Rodeo Giants’ is one I remember.”
Luckily for the band, their future was crystallised when Adamson thought of Big Country, as it accounted for the sound they were forging. He recalled: “There was no reason, apart from the fact it seemed to go with the sound we were aiming at.”
The former Skids man concluded: “Everybody else agreed, so the name stuck.”
