Like the weather in Scotland, the country’s pop music often feels overcast with a chance of showers. “There’s a slight doom and gloom element to Scottish music,” guitarist Gregor Philp says with a smile. “It’s plaintive and yearning, but I think that’s what gives it its emotional power.”
For the past 17 years, Philp has played with venerable Glasgow band Deacon Blue, whose now-classic 1987 debut was called – appropriately – Raintown.
Nearly 40 years on, their 10th album, 2025’s The Great Western Road, marked a return to the U.K. charts behind the single Late ’88, which Philp co-wrote with singer Ricky Ross. Tucked in to the song’s Philly soul-style grandeur, Philp’s precise rhythmic attack propels the groove along.
Elsewhere on the new record, he displays kaleidoscopic tonal command, from the crisp, bluesy licks of “Underneath the Stars to the Pete Townshend-esque acoustic rush of Ashore to the wah-wah strut of Mid-Century Modern.
“I always aim to play what makes sense for the song,” Philp says, “and it hardly ever makes sense to do a lot of virtuoso stuff.” Not that he can’t do the virtuoso stuff.
The son of musician parents, Philp started playing at age 10, inspired by everything from the Beatles to Genesis to AC/DC. By the time he was in bands in his twenties, he’d expanded from guitar to drums, bass and keyboards. “I had this sort of larger musical picture in my brain,” he says.
That prepared him for years of working as a composer in film, TV and commercials. “The budgets were tight, and I had to learn to do everything from jazz quartets to orchestral scores on my own,” he says.
That informed his musical philosophy. “I see myself as a facilitator – somebody who can help make something and bring it to life,” he says. “The ego is quite useless in a writing situation. I just ask myself, ‘What does this song want?’”
Philp’s preferred acoustics and electrics are made by Atkin Guitars (“The best Strat ever,” he says), while his Fender Princeton ’68 Reissue provides a “perfect compromise between clean power and lower volume.”
All will be part of his setup as Deacon Blue tour the U.K. this spring and fall. Philp says, “We make very orchestrated records, with parts that are done quite deliberately. In the studio, that’s how I think. On stage, I get to improvise more and stretch out!”
- The Great Western Road is out now via Cooking Vinyl.
- This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.
