“We’re doing a few warm-up gigs now and then it all starts properly in January, when we’re doing the full Absolute Game album. We’ll be playing that in full then in sort of a second half we’ll be throwing some other stuff in. The album really did show what a great guitarist Stuart Adamson was and how he put his heart into it.”

Last time we spoke you’d just released the Burning Cities album. That did well and it got some good reviews.

“It was a cracking album and a lot of that was down to Youth, who produced it. He really knew how to get the best out of us; I hate studio work, everything’s so slow but the way Youth produced that album it was like a live show. That’s a thing about modern recording – you can do everything quickly.

“I was doing some gym work recently and I was looking for music to play. I put the album on and it sounded really good.”

You must do a lot of gym work. Just watching you flying around the stage is enough to make a lesser man exhausted.

“I am as well but being on stage is the best feeling. I always say after two songs that I’ve gone on feeling sixteen, then two songs in I’m exhausted. Then I’ll say that we appeal to a younger audience – ‘Look, there’s a guy over there who must only be 58.’ That’s the sort of crowds we get.”

Talking about cracking songs, and answer this honestly, is TV Stars really the worst song ever written?

“I used to say it was but I’m proud of it now. It’s a bit of a millstone round my neck but I really have grown to quite like it. We played with the Pistols in Glasgow in the summer and you had forty thousand drunk punks singing ‘ALBERT TATLOCK!!!’ along with us. It might feel strange but the crowd gives it everything they’ve got.”

I know you did a few shows like that in the summer. I saw you in Warwick or rather heard you. There were a few problems with the security that night.

“Yes, it was a strange gig. First of all we had to go on really early and I kept thinking ‘Where is everyone?’.”

Arguing with stewards to be allowed in if my experience was anything to go by, but eventually you made way for the the Stranglers. They must be a hard act to support because it seems that a lot of their following only like one band; they’re not really music fans, they’re Stranglers fans.

“They do have a cult following, them and the Damned. You’re certainly never going to blow the Stranglers away.”

Talking of playing with other bands, you’re back at the Crossing, where you played with Spear of Destiny last year.

“That was another strange one. They play their songs in a different key to us. We’re E major, they’re E minor, almost bluesy. We knew we had to come out on stage and be at it right from the start to get the audience going.”

This time around you have local heroes the Au Pairs supporting you.

“They’re a great band, but it’s only Lesley now. It’s a shame they can’t all get together. They were really good. But being in a band is one step away from Spinal Tap. It’s a bizarre world and even now some of the things the band members say make me wonder.”

When you played the Crossing last year you were talking about when Stuart left to form Big Country and now when you drive through the Highlands you can hear that “Dun da da dun da da dun” tune going through your head.

“I can. It’s like a dentist’s drill. That was a good gig though.”

Stuart left after The Absolute Game and we all know what he did after that, while you moved in a bit of a different direction. It’s not very often that one member leaves to do the same sort of stuff while the rest of the band changes. Big Country, certainly in their early days, were closer musically to the Skids than the original band’s final work.

“We wanted to go in a more Celtic folkier direction whereas Stuart wanted to keep it rockier and it certainly worked for him commercially. Big Country were huge but to me they had no edge. Stuart wanted that success and he achieved it.”

So now, forty-odd years later the world has caught up with you.

“I wouldn’t say that but for example we’ve just come back from a couple of weeks in Ireland and we were playing to packed venues. I never thought we’d be doing it for this long but it’s been enjoyable.”

Looking back at some of your contemporaries; Simple Minds supported you, you played with U2 and of course Big Country were enormous. Do you sometimes feel you missed out?

“I’ve never really thought about it. I’ve always rather made music, and then later on made films, that I enjoyed and which I was proud of. You look at Stuart, he had the big house and the cars, all the trappings of a rock star but he clearly wasn’t happy and then what happened to him was just so tragic. I do get annoyed when I hear The Saints Are Coming called a U2 song, though.

“I’m going to keep smiling and have the audience leaving saying ‘That was great’. Nobody ever leaves a Skids show feeling they’ve been ripped off.”

The Skids play the Crossing, Digbeth, on 24th January 2026.