Del Amitri Set for a Triumphant Return To Australia In 2027

In February 2027, DEL AMITRI return to Australia and New Zealand with Past to Present: Four Decades of Their Greatest Hits a celebratory tour showcasing the songs that defined their remarkable career, from early indie beginnings to international chart success. Formed in Glasgow in 1982 by Justin Currie, Del Amitri found their long‑term creative backbone in guitarist Iain Harvie, whose presence has been central to the band’s sound for decades. Their breakthrough came with the 1989 album Waking Hours, featuring the enduring hit Nothing Ever Happens and the deliciously catchy Kiss This Thing Goodbye. The early ’90s brought further global recognition with Always the Last to Know and their biggest US success, Roll to Me, which reached Number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and remains a worldwide jukebox favourite.

Across seven studio albums, Del Amitri have sold over six million records, earning a reputation for sharp songwriting, wry lyricism and melodic, emotionally resonant rock that continues to connect across generations. After a hiatus in the 2000s, the band returned for sold‑out reunion tours and, in 2021, released Fatal Mistakes, their first collection of new music in eighteen years, reaffirming their signature sound for both long‑time fans and new listeners. Del Amitri are currently in the studio recording their new album which is set for a release later this year. Justin Currie chats with Rob Lyon about the tour.

It’s great that Del Amitri are coming back for another massive tour. You must be really looking forward to coming back again?
Yeah, yeah, we’re thrilled about it, actually. We were there in 2023, so we’re excited to be coming back so soon.

Even this time around, are you blown away by the level of interest in the shows?
We’re always amazed… I mean, we were amazed in 2023 that anybody came to see us, considering we hadn’t been there since 1990. So, to be quite honest, at our age, we’re amazed that anybody turns up to any of our shows, so we’re prostrate with gratitude.

Do you have plenty of great highlights and memories from the last tour?
Well, I don’t remember much about the last tour because my mother had died about a week before we went out there, or actually less than a week. So I spent most of the tour talking to my sisters on Zoom and emailing them and choosing coffins and things, so I don’t actually remember very much else. I remember having a very nice day in Brisbane and going to the art gallery there, which I really enjoyed. I don’t remember much about Melbourne, and Sydney was the last show. I remember wandering around Sydney, and I hadn’t forgotten how much I loved Sydney, but it was just lovely to be back. But yeah, Perth and Adelaide, I was just wandering around in a bit of a daze.

What is it about the music that keeps resonating with fans? Things almost seem bigger and stronger than they ever have been.
Well, I don’t know. I mean, I guess your audience grows old with you, and if they still listen to your music occasionally, that’s a good thing. But I think that’s generally true of most bands. If you have a bit of success in your twenties and you find an audience, usually they kind of stay with you, so I don’t think it’s unique to us.

I’ve been looking at the tour set lists, they’re massive. It almost seems like two hours isn’t enough to fit the whole back catalogue in.
Oh, we don’t do tours like that anymore. They might look massive, but the songs are quite short.

Do you find now that you’re able to enjoy the touring side of it more? Is it less stressful or much different compared to back in the day?
Yeah. I mean, we always enjoyed touring, but the problem with being on a record label and having some kind of success is that there’s an awful lot of stuff to do around the touring, and at the same time as the touring, whether it’s radio or TV or meeting people. That can get quite stressful because you end up having too much to do. I mean, I could not take on the workload that we took on in our mid‑twenties now, no way, in my early sixtiess. So it’s more relaxed than it used to be, and we’ve got more time just to explore where we are. That’s a really nice thing, that we can see more of the cities that we’re in. So I’ve really enjoyed that, and it’s great only having to think about the gig, not having to think about anything else.

Being able to do it on your own terms now, that must be a real feather in the cap?
When you leave the safety of a major record deal, where there’s always a lot to do and quite a lot of demands on you, it’s quite scary at first. But then after a while, you realise it’s quite liberating because you can just pick and choose what you do. You don’t feel obliged that you have to do certain interviews or you have to do certain things. We didn’t really experience that until we got back together in 2014, after we hadn’t played together since 2002 and that was a revelation. I was like, God, this is so much more relaxed. So yeah, that’s a lovely thing.

Was the hiatus ultimately the best thing career‑wise, to reset, do other things, and then come back to it?
Well, I didn’t want to go on hiatus, but Ian did, because at that point we were on the downswing from the kind of high of our success between 1990 and 1995. Then we put an album out called Some Other Suckers Parade, which sold a lot less in the US and the UK than the previous record. Actually, we didn’t mind that slide‑down because it was quite gentle, and we didn’t really want to play massive venues or anything, so we were quite happy just touring regularly. But towards the end, the audiences were getting smaller, and there was less interest in what we were doing. So Ian thought it could be a bit depressing just carrying on and I think he was right, so I ended up doing loads of things for fun, like singing with a jazz band and singing with a soul cover band and stuff like that. I did lots of gigs as a guest, which I really enjoyed. So it probably was a good thing, and without that hiatus, I probably wouldn’t have started making solo records, and I’m pleased I’ve got those out of my system. But then, as I say, when we got back in 2014, we couldn’t believe how much we’d missed it.

Is it hard when you’ve got singles like Kiss This Thing Goodbye and Always the Last to Know? that people continually expect more of that?
Well, I don’t think we’ve ever felt pressure to produce more of that, but we always do those songs live, and we still love playing them live. But yeah, we wouldn’t sit down and try and write another Nothing Ever Happens or Roll to Me or something, that would be futile. So yeah, I don’t feel any pressure. I mean, if we wanted to, we would quite happily go and make a very, very different sort of record. We haven’t particularly wanted to do that, but we don’t feel any particular restriction to do that, because if you made a record that the audience didn’t understand, hopefully they’re still going to come to the gigs, because you’re still playing the other material.

How’s work going on the new album? How’s that tracking?
Slowly. We’ve been working on it in the last week or so. We’re inching along, and things keep getting in the way. We just went to the US for a couple of weeks around the World Cup, which really got in the way. But yeah, we’re getting there.

How was it going over for the World Cup?
Well, we were dreading it, because we didn’t really want to go to Trump’s America, and we didn’t really know why we were doing it, so yeah, we were dreading it. But it ended up being great fun. Boston was brilliant, full of the Tartan Army supporting Scotland, and the Americans were getting on really well with all the Scottish visitors. So yeah, that was really good and I got to see a bunch of old friends, and I got to spend some more time with a bunch of friends that I haven’t spent a lot of time with recently. So in the end, I really loved it, but it really got in the way of trying to make this record.

Is the direction similar to what we already know, or are you looking to push a subtle sound shift?
I don’t know if it’ll be a sound shift, but we’re making the record a lot more the way I’ve made my solo records, whereas the last album we made like we’d have made a Del Amitri record in the mid‑90s, where we just all got in a room, rehearsed it, and then all got in a room and recorded it. Whereas this time, we’re doing a lot of work at home, and maybe we’re being a bit more conceptual about the songs this time, I’m not sure. We don’t have the money we had last time either, so we’re trying to spend the money in areas that matter, rather than rehearsing for a week or standing by a recording studio for a month. So because of that, we’re going to try and make it feel different, but I really doubt that the audience wouldn’t instantly recognise it as us. It’ll feel subtly different, I guess, but the practical approach to it has been very different.

Is it hard to keep things on track when you’re trying to be more efficient, working solo, and then bringing it all together?
I mean, yes, but I’ve done it on three of my solo albums, so I’m quite confident that you get there in the end. I think Ian’s slightly less confident, but he seems to be warming to the process, I guess. The other good thing about doing a lot of stuff at home is you can spend a lot more time on details, which you don’t quite have time to do in the studio. That can be a bad thing, but so far, I think we can still see the wood for the trees.

Is this something you’d hope to have out towards the end of next year, or is there no timeline yet?
I mean, if we hadn’t gone to America, we might have got it out this autumn. We’d like to get some new tracks out this year, and then try and get an album at the beginning of next year, but who knows?

How do you find the whole other world now of streaming, drip‑feeding singles, and all that?
You put tracks out, you don’t call them singles anymore, you just call them tracks, but to me, that’s a single. If you make a video for something, it’s a single, or if something comes out on its own, it’s a single. So no, I still kind of think of it in the same way. At one point, we thought about, as many bands have considered, just putting out three EPs a year and then compiling them all after a couple of years. But people still want albums, and it’s making an album and releasing an album that seems to get people excited still. It’s quite odd, even though streaming, there’s no reason why everything should be on an album on streaming services, but people seem to like to stick to that format. We’re trying to make a double album, so the way we’re thinking of this is five songs a side, so twenty songs, five songs a side, don’t overstay a welcome, keep the songs short, that’s the thinking.

Playing the big hits or the whole back catalogue and seeing the audience reaction, is that still just as impactful for you as it was at any stage in your career?
Yeah, I’m still amazed when people sing along to lyrics. I still find that incredibly gratifying and also, the older we get, we play things differently. It’s much harder at my age to play fast things, it’s harder to sing fast things, so I’m always grateful if there’s any applause at the end of those things. I think, okay, I’m still just about getting away with it, because you never know. But yeah, we just love appearing in front of an audience.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Del Amitri on the following dates, tickets from Destroy All Lines…