Ex Scheme members Rab McEwan and Des Osborne have kindly given Glasband 80 this interview, speaking about their memories of playing in one of the most popular and successful unsigned bands ever to come out of Glasgow. In late 2016 myself, mutual friend John Hooper, Rab McEwan and Des Osborne got together for an interview / conversation which turned out to be a great night with four older guys trying to remember names, places and gigs while reminiscing and having a laugh. Glasband 80 welcomes at long last!  an Interview with  -  Scheme. 

R.I.P Des Osborne - 2023 .

. When did you realize that you had a good voice and wanted to be a musician ?

Rab - I first started playing guitar then started to sing when I was about 11 or 12 years old and just kept going, I felt I could always sing, I remember when we played a gig in The Muscular Arms my Dad came to see us for the first time and at the end of each song we would stand up clapping and I would have to tell him to sit down again, it was embarrassing but very funny. 

. In 1983 The band came back with a new line up with Des on drums and Rab taking on bass as well as vocals, how did it feel coming back with a new line up ?

Des - I joined the band at the tail end of 1982 and my personal opinion is and I think Rab will agree with me here, if anything the boys had to up their game a bit because we went from six to five musicians, it was a different culture joining the band for me, I had to grow up quick and it was a big thing for Rab taking on bass but he took to the bass like a duck to water, the relationship between Rab and myself as in playing was great, when anyone speaks about me they will tell you that it is all about feeling, other drummers can do their bdum bdum drum fills. I was never a fancy drummer, I’m still not a fancy drummer I was all about feeling and myself and Rab were solid when we played. It was also around this time when we introduced a keyboard to our songs which gave us a bigger, better sound.

. Was there a point when you realized that you moved from on being just another band from Glasgow to a band that were being noticed,  standing out from other bands ?

Rab - For me it wasn't like that we just got up and done it and that was it, we really didn’t think anything of it we just played, I do remember every time we played a venue it was mobbed, even if we played a gig today it would be mobbed.

Des - No our heads were never like that, I remember my Dad saying “ Do you know what Son, I’m gonnae give you a bit of advice here, I know what you can do behind your drum kit, do you know what? there are another ten guys around the corner that are better than you” I always remembered that, we knew our capabilities and Ran can sing, I have never heard another singer like Rab,  he has a unique voice, I remember when we used to rehearse and Rab would play the keyboard and sing songs like Whiter Shade of Pale and I used to sit and listen like What!? He was brilliant.

. Can you talk about the song writing, what did you think of  Denny Oliver  as a writer  and  did you guys ever get involved  in   the  song  writing ?

Rab - He was brilliant, we all started doing a wee a bit here and there but Denny wrote most of the songs, we would say put this in or put that in during rehearsals.

Des - When the band came off the road in 1982 and reformed I would say that everybody got involved in the writing with songs like Time Goes By, Turn on Tune In, Playing the Game, Time To Wake Up etc...They were all written 1983 onwards, pre 1983 you had In The Red, Bow Out Maggie, Jail For The Weed and The Black and Whites but going back to the question Denny Oliver is one of the most prolific songwriters you could ever come in contact with, Denny could go to the toilet and come back and written eight songs, that’s the type of writer he was and still to this day he does it, I would say that Denny has a catalogue of about ninety songs, He wrote a brilliant song called Light Leads The Way which to me was the new Strange...Denny Oliver as a songwriter, I think….Brilliant!

. Scheme had a unique sound, how much influence did Peter Pirrie have on the Scheme sound ?

Des - Peter Pirrie on the desk was phenomenal that was the Scheme sound, we had a sound that no one else could touch, that was down to Peter.

Rab - Peter done a really weird version of Strange once when we were playing a gig in Arran, he brought a tape off of the mixer and said “wait till you hear this” it was unbelievable the sound was amazing!

Des - Peter introduced a chorus echo to our sound, other people used it for guitars nobody used it on the vocals but Peter did, that’s what made the three part harmonies sound like ten people singing,  things like John’s guitar sound when he was doing solos stood out so much due to the way Peter mixed the live sound.

. Did you get much interest after the Apollo concert in 1984 ?

Des - Of course we did, and do you know who got a lot of attention? Robert McEwan, Pink Floyd came in for Rab, he was going to be the slot in for Roger Waters.

Rab- Aye, they were looking for somebody to play bass and do a bit of singing so I went for it but in the end they went for somebody else, that was it ,end of story.

Des - When we played The Apollo Rab Andrews came to see us with Korda Marshall who was with RCA Records and it wasn’t until years later that I got introduced to Rab Andrews at T in the park in 2009 he told me that after the Apollo gig Korda Marshall said to him “See what you can do with them“ (meaning Scheme) he offered a three year three album deal…...But something happened, I think outside there was a scuffle with some fans or something and that was it….And a certain Scottish DJ (Slilly Boane}  put the boot in “Aye they all fight at their gigs, they all take drugs, they sell this and that” He hated us, he and all his cronies,  the bands he liked were playing places like the Garage and we were packing out The Pavilion and The Apollo.

. Did you ever think your sound was similar Men At Work in the early 80s ?

Rab - No I didn’t think we sounded like Men At Work or at least I never thought about it at the time.

Des - Rab sounded very like Colin Hay (The lead singer from Men At Work) I met Colin Hay three years ago at The Edinburgh Festival, I was there with a few friends one of them being Dolphin George (George Dunnachie bass player from 80s Glasgow band The Dolphins) we were at The Assembly Rooms to see Colin Hay play an acoustic set and after the gig George said to Colin Hay “ You’re the reason he is not a millionaire”  and Colin Hay said  “What”?  And George said   “ Glasgow band in the 80s?   Men At Work sounded just like Glasgow band Scheme especially Rab’s voice”.

Rab - I don’t know, maybe if I sang the same songs as him we would sound alike but I don’t think we sounded the same.

Des - Well the first time I heard Who Can It Be Now I thought Fuck sake that’s Scheme on the radio! and people were saying to me no That’s Men At Work. Let’s put it this way, Colin Hay sounded like Rab McEwan and Men At Work sounded like Scheme.

. In 1983 on The People's March For Jobs the band marched along with thousands of  other folk from Glasgow down to London, did you play any gigs on the way down ?

Rab - Yes, every night we would stop somewhere, set up and play a gig, all the way down.

Des - And it ended up at the Crystal Palace Bowl for a final big concert, I wasn’t there but what I had read and also speaking to John Smith later there were about fifteen thousand people at that gig, what happened was the Glasgow marchers met up with the marchers from Newcastle, Liverpool and Manchester then on to London, the last meeting place was the Crystal Palace Bowl.

Rab - There was a big pond around the stage Aswad came off before us then we went on and all of the Schemer’s (Fans) took off their T shirts and dived into the water to get closer to the band, the water was splashing up onto the stage Awe it was brilliant, just brilliant.

. A lot of people have said that your songs can be too controversial, what do you think, did it stopped you from getting a record deal ?

Des - A lot of people jumped on the band wagon, look at U2, UB40, Billy Bragg and even Paul Weller and The Style Council he was waving his flag, they were all doing that kind of stuff after us. You just need to look at the opening scenes from the Innocent as Hell documentary were there was four maybe five thousand fans watching us, the establishment couldn’t handle the fact that we could bring these different crowds together from all sides of Glasgow, Easterhouse, Barlanock, Pollock, Govan, Townhead. Possil and we were all having a good time, they couldn't handle that, and that Glasgow councillor Aitken in the documentary said that “Their music isn’t quite my cup of tea”. In my opinion he was just cheesed off because we had been given money by Glasgow District Council to fund the Black and Whites album, That’s why Jimmy Boyle said “Well you would expect him to say that” in answer to Mr Aitken’s comment and as John and Denny effectively said in the documentary twenty quiet love songs are not what we are all about.

. A few years ago I was talking to the actor Billy Boyd about possibly making a film about Scheme because we both thought that going from being a local band in Easterhouse to packing out The Apollo and all of the success the band had  was a story and a half, it never happened obviously because it needed the clout of someone like Peter Mullen but we always thought it was a great story ?

Des - I hate doing comparisons but The Stone Roses are a similar type thing, the whole thing like where they came from, concrete jungles, they grew up in the schemes around about Manchester, the cult following, coming from nothing, there are a lot of similarities, our Spike Island was probably Crystal Palace Bowl or Queen's Park on a summer's day with five thousand people on that hill. I once spoke to Mani from the Stone Roses and he said “ I have been checking you out, Why were you guys not massive”.

. How did it feel when you started to get noticed by fans ?

Rab - I used to stay in Bellrock street and we would be playing in The Dalriada, we would walk up the road and people would come up and talk to you like “ How you going Rab? And I would say Aye Awe right, come on I’ll get you a tape” the fans were always brilliant, we never thought we were anything special, we would stop and talk to fans, sign autographs, get our pictures taken, Nae bother.

Des - See the amount of stuff we used to give away, T shirts, tapes straight off the desk, we never ever thought we were better than anybody, we were still boys from the schemes that’s the way our parents brought us up, we always had our feet firmly on the ground as far as that one goes.

. How long did the Channel 4 documentary take to film ?

Des - Fucking weeks! We had a full camera crew with cameras everywhere we went. They used to say to us “Right we need to get together tomorrow nine o’clock sharp” so my day would star at six o’clock in the morning I would drive down from Pollock to get George then up to the east end and I would tell Denny to get Rab, John Smith?? He was the worst, it was a nightmare trying to get john to wake up out of his bed, by this time it was going onto one o’clock in the afternoon, those channel four guys were with us for about six to eight weeks and they were like “ what the F$&k’s going on?? They just couldn’t believe it………( We are laughing at this point). How often does a band get the chance to make an hour long documentary on national TV with a national known TV company on channel four and we are turning up every day about five hours late.

. Did Scheme bring out a single with I’ll Change Tomorrow and Turn On Tune In ?

Rab - Yes we nearly did, you see the thing is that when we played it live it would be brilliant but we just didn’t think it worked in the studio.

John Hooper - I was up at your house at the time in Bellrock street Rab when you said to me “Let me know what you think of this, it’s our new single and it’s not out yet” and you played 12” version of Turn On Tune In and I was like….fucknig amazing.

Des - Aye it always worked live, we were brilliant live, what they should have done was put us in a studio with a couple of mics with Peter Pirrie and a PA and recorded the single live but see that dry sound in the studio? That wasn’t us, but that session was the closest we had got to how we sounded live,. It was recorded in Monmouth Studios and the songs on that 12” single were I’ll Change Tomorrow, Turn On Tune In and Strange, all we got out of it was a copy of the single each, it was never released.

. I liked the fact that you could walk into a venue play the gig and walk straight back out  again as you had roadies ?

Des - See our road crew? They were the sixth and seventh members of Scheme, those boys would be out of the van and set up ready to go within an hour, Ronnie Smith and Jimmy Gracie, sadly Jimmy died ten years ago, he was a really really good mate of mine. Although we say we were a five piece band we were really a seven or eight piece band when you count Peter Pirrie, Jimmy, Ronnie and Andy Fowler amongst that crowd we were all part of Scheme.

. Do you have a favourite Scheme song ?

Rab - Awe that’s difficult , they were all great songs, if I had to pick one it would have to be Strange at the end of the night...Brilliant!

Des - My favourite song before I joined the band was Strange, that finale with John working his way up the frets on his guitar and the wall of sound on that song was amazing, the same thing with John on the song Well Alright he would work his way up the frets on the guitar solo at the end until his hand would be hitting the pickups, another favourite of mine is Time Goes By with the audience participation thing, that was a major hit, another song that never gets mentioned and I have a live copy of it is  Sunny Days Ahead recorded at Maxwell Plums, Peter is there and the f”£$ng live sound of Sunny Days Ahead is absolutely brilliant that song is a hit..

Rab - I agree, Time Goes By when it got to Clock Chime bit and the audience joined in it was brilliant.

. Do you have any a favourite gigs ?

Des - For me it would be Maxwell Plums, as a Glasgow band playing to a crowd that got bigger and bigger it was brilliant, playing there every Saturday for five or six years that was my favourite gig.

Rab - It was just that stage being half way up the stairs and a pillar in front of you, Maxwell Plumbs was good apart from that, I prefer playing in an open venue when you can see the crowd, The Dalriada was my favourite gig standing at that big window and you could see all of the crowd.

. Did you remember all of those gigs you done as good fun or hard work as you sometimes played tree gigs on the same day ?

Des - Great times the fact that we played so much was why we were so good live because as well as playing live we were also rehearsing during the day that’s how we mastered our craft, every day down at Tillycairn road, it was like a full time job it really was, we weren’t working in a factory, we would spend all day playing and writing tunes the gigging that night.

. I spoke to John Smith way back in 2005 and he mentioned that he was always nervous before playing the song Well Alright because there was a lot of guitar work in that song what do you remember about that ?

Des - See John? Sometimes he had low confidence but for a boy to be that talented he was actually quite shy.

Rab - That’s right, John would close his eyes when playing that is why he played guitar like that.

Des - He would go missing twenty minutes before going on at The Pavilion and we would say   “where's  John?” and we would go looking for him and you would find him downstairs somewhere having a cigarette, he said he was nervous about going on, and then he go on and shut his eyes and not a note out of place! Ye know what I mean? cigarette on the end of his guitar nailing it. I would class John Smith in the same vain as two guys, Eric Clapton and Dave Gilmour, that’s the kind of feel he had when he played.

.What are your memories of legendary Scheme members John Smith and George Wright who recently passed away ?

Rab - The two of them were great, really really brilliant  guys, I remember bumping into Julie (John’s girlfriend)  it was the first time I had seen her in ages and it wasn’t long after John died and I was in tears, it was terrible.

Des - Nothing but admiration, there is not a day goes by when I don’t think of John Smith, George Wright and Jimmy Gracie, I always had a dream of someday getting the whole band back together for a gig, not just a wee gig but something like The Barrowlands but when John died in 2014 that dream of getting the full band back together died too.

. Why did you name your band Scusie ?

Rab - Scusie was the name of my dog.

Des - Really? I thought it was a nickname as you were are sometimes called Chewsie as in McEwan.  (John Hooper joins in) - Aye me too!

Rab - Naw it’s ma dug.

. And you brought out a CD with Scusie, is it all Scheme songs that are on the CD ?

Rab - No the are some versions of Scheme songs on there and some covers, at the moment I am recording an album of Beatles songs about fifteen Beatles numbers for the kids, it’s just a private CD for my family.

. Who were the musicians in Scusie ?

Des - Rab singing, myself on drums, Jim Scanlon on guitar, George Dunnachie on bass and Frank McGovern on guitar.

. Do you have any plans to play live again in the future ?

Rab - Yes, and I can’t wait to get back into it, we are about to start rehearsals for a gig again in the Barrowlands or maybe The ABC

Des - Aye now that Rab and myself are both recovering from illness we are eager to get back into rehearsals again, we want to do a big gig again like Rab said, The Barrowlands, we want to do it for ourselves and also to do something special for the fans.

( 2 years after this interview, Scheme played in front of 5000 plus Scheme fans at The Forte in Easterhouse)

Des Osborne sadly left us in 2023.   This one’s for you Des.