Bruce Watson

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Big Country guitarist Stuart Adamson's passing. His fellow guitarist and keeper of the Big Country flame, Bruce Watson, shows us his guitar collection and lets us into the secrets of the 'bagpipe guitar sound'

- Scott Rowley

Bruce Watson is standing in what used to be Kenny's Music in Dunfermline, one of a chain of music shops across Scotland until it closed in October last year.

Today, the shop floor is a hive of industry again. There are guitars everywhere - too many for one guitar shop - and we're adding to the chaos, with the guitars of Big Country founding member Watson being set up in the corner for Guitarist's photoshoot.

“I've been coming here practically every month since, fuckin' hell, 1973, I think,” says Bruce. “Apart from when I've been on the road.”

Watson has a studio downstairs in the same building. “It's part of my life,” he says. “And we thought we were going to lose it.” The current activity is down to new owners who bought the stock after Kenny's went under, and are reopening soon as Mo's Music. “And that's why they've got four shops'- worth of gear in here,” says Bruce. “The internet - it's killing guitar shops everywhere.”

The building used to be studios, rehearsal rooms and a venue. Joe Cocker once played here. Stuart Adamson's first band, the Skids, rehearsed in the corner that now houses walls of Fenders, Squiers and Jacksons. Before Stuart asked him to join what would become Big Country, Bruce's band Eurosect recorded demos there, including a song called Forbidden Whispers. It was that song that made Stuart Adamson think that he and Bruce could work together. It became Angle Park, the first song they wrote together.