Skids, The

The Skids formed in Dunfermline, Scotland, in 1977.

The singles Sweet Suburbia and The Saints Are Coming both made commercial inroads before the mighty Into the Valley reached the UK Top 10 singles chart in early 1979. The band released their debut studio album, Scared to Dance, the same year.

Skids enjoyed a further year of chart success as Masquerade and Working for the Yankee Dollar reached the UK Top 20 singles chart. Both came from their second album, Days in Europa, also released in 1979.

By the time of their third album, The Absolute Game (1980), things had soured. Richard Jobson had become something of a preening, posing dilettante, dabbling in poetry and theatre. And the audience no longer seemed to matter so much.

So Stuart Adamson left the band and returned to his hometown, where he set out to form a new group that would not stray from the idealistic path The Skids originally followed themselves. And lying in bed one night in 1981, Stuart made up his mind: that new band would be called Big Country.

Jobson and new bassist Russell Webb wrote and recorded the band’s fourth and final album, Joy (1981). The pair played multiple instruments on the album and also invited a collection of seventeen musical friends to perform on various tracks with them.

The band finally dissolved in 1982, with the compilation Fanfare posthumously issued by Virgin.

Jobson and Webb went on to form a new band called The Armoury Show, who recorded just one album – Waiting for the Floods (1985) – before splitting up. Jobson pursued a solo career as a poet, songwriter, television presenter and film director.

Stuart Adamson was reported missing by his wife Melanie in November 2001. On 16 December 2001, he was found dead in a room in the Best Western Plaza Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was just 43.

According to a local police report, he had died by hanging himself with an electrical cord from a pole in a wardrobe.

His body was flown back to Scotland, where a private funeral service was held at Dunfermline Crematorium in Fife.

Richard Jobson
Vocals, guitar, keyboards
Stuart Adamson
Guitar, vocals, keyboards
Willie Simpson
Bass, vocals
Thomas ‘Tam’ Kellichan
Drums
Mike Baillie
Drums
Russell Webb
Bass, vocals

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