Skids

For years Richard Jobson has been working on merging moving images with stills in numerous projects, including his latest, The Journey, with Emma Thompson.

The broadcaster, talk-show host, writer, director, BAFTA award winner, and former frontman of punk-rock band The Skids talk about how he uses cutting-edge technology on the Mac in his film-making and broadcasting. Eddie Harrison moderates.

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By MATT BENDORIS : Published: 05 Mar 2010
click here for original article

FORMER punk Richard Jobson boasts that he can back-flip as well as Celtic star Robbie Keane.

The Skids frontman wants to perform the striker’s trademark goal celebration when he returns to the stage with his band tonight.

He beams: “I did the half-time draw in the Scottish Cup game between Dunfermline and Celtic.

“It was Robbie Keane’s first goal for Celtic and he can do a really good back-flip.

“I used to always do them on stage in the 70s, but Robbie’s given me a taste for it again.”

The major difference is that Jobson turns 50 next month while Keano is some 20 years younger.

Thrills … Scott in movie New Town

“Aye,” the Fifer concedes, “And the last flip I tried it at T In The Park in 2007, it was a total disaster.

“I landed on my knees and had to be helped off stage afterwards by some people from the ambulance service. But the fans seemed to appreciate the effort.”

We meet in Glasgow’s City Inn hotel.

Jobson is around 5ft 11in with cropped, greying hair and a long face to match his long teeth.

He talks with a slight lisp and stares intently with pale blue eyes when questioned.

But Richard is a strange mix – friendly then argumentative, down-to-earth then pretentious.

His personality reflects a career which has seen him go from angry young punk to male model, TV film critic and now movie maker, with his biggest hit, the ultra-violent New Town Killers, starring Scots Hollywood hunk Dougray Scott.

He’s also just made a worthy short film with Oscar-winner Emma Thompson called The Journey – the story of a real-life sex slave from Moldova.

Yet at Glasgow’s ABC venue tonight he’ll be reliving his old anarchy days on tour and taking part in The Fifer Festival – a series of events staged in Jobson’s honour.

Isn’t it all a bit scatty?

Up front … Skids star chats to Sun man Matt

He sniffs: “I don’t think so. I just go with the flow.

“I said I would never reform The Skids, then the whole U2/Green Day thing happened.”

That was when singers Bono and Billie Joe Armstrong performed a cover version of Richard’s 1978 single The Saints Are Coming for the victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2006. It was then adopted by this year’s surprise Superbowl winners The New Orleans Saints, as their anthem.

Jobson – who also had hits including Into The Valley and Masquerade – recalls: “I’m sitting in Abbey Road Studios in London watching Bono and Billie sing something I wrote when I was 17 in my bedroom in Dunfermline. Those words were written in anger. But I realised they were still relevant and I’m still driven by anger.”

However, the baffling lyrics, which include the line ‘A drowning sorrow floods the deepest grief… until the weather change condemns belief’, were sent up by the Maxwell TV adverts.

He says: “The commercials tried to decipher the meaning. You’ve got to be able to laugh at yourself. You can’t take yourself seriously.”

Before taking himself too seriously, by admitting: “I was a little hurt when the ads took the mickey, though. My song was written about something serious.”

But everything Richard does seems to be serious.

He shrugs: “I see the world in a darker way.

“Everything I do is driven by anger and compassion.”

That could be partly down to the tragic events in his life.

Making their mark … Skids were a hit

Jobson’s big brother Francis died in mysterious circumstances in India in 2001.

He said: “Francis was a Hare Krishna monk, so we would kick around Dunfermline in the 70s, me as a hardcore punk and him as a hardcore monk.

“He was 10 years older than me and took me to the cinema.

“That’s where my love of film comes from.

“When he died in India we never really got to the bottom of what happened.

“Death in India is really no big deal. It was also during the Monsoon season when hundreds were dying every day. So another body wasn’t a big thing.”

Later the same year Skids co-founder Stuart Adamson – who went on to front Big Country – was also found dead after apparently taking his own life in a cheap Hawaiian hotel room after battling booze and depression.

Richard sighs: “Now that was a real surprise.

“I can’t lie about it, we didn’t leave on the friendliest terms when The Skids split.

“He moved onto greater success with Big Country and had to cope with suddenly being the frontman, which might have been behind some of his personal problems.

“I wasn’t a very good singer. Stuart was better and a great musician. But I had attitude and front which he didn’t have.

“I just had no idea things had got so bad as we were never huge drinkers as a band.

“I know I once wrote a film called 16 Years Of Alcohol but that wasn’t about me.

“I’m epileptic so most of the time I avoid the stuff.

“We were never very druggie either while other bands were getting into cocaine and heroin.

“So it had no context for me that Stuart became an alcoholic.”

Richard, who used to be married to husky-voiced TV presenter Mariella Frostrup, now lives in Bedfordshire with his second wife, Italian Francesca, and kids Archie and Edie.

His next two films will star Dougray Scott – a Sin City-style version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and Into The Valley, about a young soldier returning to Fife from the frontline in Afghanistan.

Me: “How do you get on with Dougray – he always comes across as a bit of an a*** in real-life?”

Richard admits: “He’s a bit dry for sure. But Fifers are naturally suspicious people. I think I’ve overcome that, but Dougray is still canny and wary of folk. He’s like that with me, so don’t take it personally. But he also has a vicious sense of humour.

“I’d like to work more with him even though he knows he’ll never make much money with me.”

But aren’t Jobson’s films guilty of portraying Scots as a violent race to the rest of the world?

He sniffs: “If you don’t mind me saying so, you’re wrong. Sure my films are violent but they’re not set on some housing estate.

“New Town Killers had two hedge fund managers, wearing Armani suits, driving a Maserati and hunting a kid into the night – it’s a wee bit different.

“I don’t like sitting at film festivals in Brazil and Tokyo watching movies which show Scotland as a dung heap.”

Richard has to go, maybe to practise his back-flips?

He says: “I’m heading for the big 5-0 but I’ve never really thought about age in my head. So I’ll give the flips a go. Although, on second thoughts it may be best if I leave it to the last night of the tour.”

• The Skids play Glasgow’s ABC tonight and Alhambra Theatre in Dunfermline tomorrow. For more on The Fifer Festival, go to visitdunfermline.com mattbendoris@the-sun.co.uk