DEL Amitri frontman Justin Currie has told how he is coping with his Parkinson’s diagnosis ahead of the band’s bill-topping appearance at HebCelt festival.
The 59-year-old revealed in February that he had been diagnosed with the condition and this week gave the Sunday National a candid interview about “The Ghastly Affliction” and his most obvious symptom – “Gavin”, his trembling right hand.
You have continued to perform since your diagnosis but how much is the disease affecting you so far?
The Ghastly Affliction and its most obvious symptom, Gavin, has been relatively quiet recently, thanks for asking. Like so many conditions, it is exacerbated by stress. If something keys off a stress response, I can hardly type into my phone which can lead to very interesting emails. Autocorrect has become my personal assistant in that respect.
Every gig I get through without a major boo-boo, I celebrate as a sort of victory. Gavin is not fond of cold weather either, so outdoor shows early in the summer get slightly trickier. As I noticed Billy Connolly, below, saying in a recent interview, you develop the weirdest symptoms (with me, odd things appearing in my peripheral vision, mad spikes of anxiety) and then the symptoms just disappear.
I can go through a week with hardly any symptoms at all and then suddenly find myself struggling through each day. My walking was completely out of whack for a while but recently it has normalised.
You’re never sure what it might throw at you. And of course, with such a condition, it’s really easy to ascribe EVERY nagging ailment to its insidious effects.
I’m 60 in December so a lot of stuff that’s going on could easily be down to encroaching decrepitude and a lifetime of magnificent indulgence.
The NHS is very stretched right now and receiving treatment and support doesn’t always seem to be easy. What is your experience?
As I’m so early in my “journey” (vomit) I can’t really comment. I have a fabulous neurologist who checks me annually at the moment.
I’m lucky in that the “gold standard” medication has really helped and since starting that last year, I’ve regained a bit of strength and dexterity.
For example, I’d lost the ability to whisk eggs. The meds have restored that. Little gains like that are priceless for your morale. But, of course, I get really shit days.
Hilariously, when they put you on the co-careldopa, they make a big thing of the three main side-effects. Increased libido, liability to impulse gambling and binge eating. I don’t appear to have had any of that. My mate Aldo joked that I’d end up hanging about outside the bookies, eating pies and sleazing at all the passers-by.
Perhaps disappointingly, this scenario has yet to manifest itself.
You are appearing at HebCelt which this year runs from July 17-24 – tell us about that.
I’ve fallen in love with Lewis in the last few years, having borrowed the use of a remote house from friends of friends to do writing trips.
Two weeks in the wilds of north Lewis can be extremely productive. I’ll finish one song, take a walk round a bit of rugged coastline and go back to start another.
It took me a while but I now find the island extraordinarily beautiful. At first, I saw a godforsaken, treeless hellscape. Now I see a heather-covered continent studded with lochans, surrounded by magnificent islets and turquoise seas.
