They were bottled off stage by Alice Cooper's audience, derailed by a death in The Pretenders and made U2's producer cry: How Big Country made one of the biggest albums of the 80s

Stuart Adamson in sunglasses smoking a cigarette.

Back in 2011, I wrote a piece on Stuart Adamson and Big Country for Classic Rock. It opened with part of an interview I’d done with drummer Mark Brzezicki. It makes my toes curl now. I pointed out that Big Country used to do a great cover of Smokey Robinson’s The Tracks Of My Tears. The song opens with the lyrics: ‘People say I’m the life of the party/Cos I tell a joke or two/ Although I might be laughing/Loud and hearty/Deep inside I’m blue.’ Do you think, I asked Mark, that even with those words he was trying to tell us something?

I didn’t know the half of it. This year marks 25 years since Stuart Adamson took his own life. I’ve been working on his authorised biography since 2023. Stay Alive is about alcoholism, abuse, family, fame, addiction, depression and working-class pride. For the first time, both of Stuart Adamson’s wives, his children and bandmates tell their side of the story.