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The Latest Breaking News from Bruce Watson

Big Country Redux guitarist Bruce Watson picks the soundtrack of his life. "The Rolling Stones are the quietest band on stage I've heard in my life. You can actually talk over the top of them playing"

Bruce Watson picks his records, artists and gigs of lasting significance, and names some lyrics that'd make a great tattoo

Louder · Aug 14

“Even though it’s a budget guitar, it’s great. Paul Stanley used to smash one up at the end of KISS shows”: The amps that defined punk, the custom electric that was “painted in a shed” – Bruce Watson on the gear behind Big Country’s sound

The Big Country guitarist pulls some choice guitars and amps out of the vault, and explains why the Esquire beats the Tele

Guitar World · Jun 3

“I was in Norman’s Rare Guitars in LA when I spotted the Les Paul. I played it for hours in the shop”: The unlikely fate of Big Country frontman Stuart Adamson’s ‘Peace in Our Time’ Les Paul

Bruce Watson shares the story of a guitar that encapsulates the time Big Country tried to break America – before they took their Scot rock sound to Moscow

Guitar World · May 27

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“There was no master plan apart from we didn’t want to do the Thin Lizzy/Status Quo blues bendy thing”: Bruce Watson on the birth of Big Country, Stuart Adamson’s legacy and the secret to bagpipe guitar

Bruce Watson shares the guitar story of the Scottish rock stalwarts, the "Itch and Itch" amps so crucial to his tone, and how “Scotland’s answer to Jimi Hendrix” was the heart of Big Country's sound

Guitar World · May 24

“They’d always played fast and loose with traditional song structures. This album pushed it even further”: Big Country wouldn’t have called Steeltown a prog record – but it is

1984 release tackled issues of the day cleverly and with incredible musicality

Louder · May 17

“Automatically you go into blues when you do that”: Big Country's golden guitar rule that steered them clear of the blues

The band drew great inspiration from Thin Lizzy’s sonic template, but they made a concerted effort to avoid being labeled as a blues band

Guitar World · Apr 6

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

In an exclusive extract from a new book about the life of Stuart Adamson, we look at the hidden story behind The Crossing

Louder · Mar 24

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"Half of the people I knew wanted to pat me on the back, and the rest to punch me in the face": Bruce Watson looks back on Big Country's second album Steeltown

Big Country's Steeltown album was recorded during the 1984 miner's strike as guitarist Bruce Watson's father stood on the picket line: the album reflected those dark times

Louder · Feb 5, 2024

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