Interview: The Proclaimers - He ain't geeky, he's my brother

IN THE dark lobby of Edinburgh's Sheraton Hotel, it takes a few moments to recognise Charlie Reid. Without the trademark specs, faded denim jacket and an identical twin by his side, he looks like any other punter who's wandered in off Lothian Road –- certainly not like one half of one of the most visually distinctive music acts to come out of Scotland in the past 20 years.

When his brother, Craig, approaches a few moments later, looking like he's stepped straight out of 1987, I think that, if I were to cross my eyes, I'd have The Proclaimers circa This Is the Story standing in front of me. As it is, sitting together on a deep sofa underneath a musak-spouting speaker, the identical twins from Auchtermuchty – now about to release their eighth studio album, Notes & Rhymes – look surprisingly unidentical.

Charlie, the older twin by 30 minutes, seems to have abandoned the geeky look that helped to make The Proclaimers so famous in the late 1980s. He's switched the heavy-framed specs for contact lenses, wears his hair short and gelled down and, today, sports some quite trendy attire. Indeed, it's rather disconcerting to see him without his Proclaimers paraphernalia – like seeing Freddy Mercury without his moustache or Elvis without his quiff. Craig, on the other hand, seems to be channelling the styling from the Sunshine on Leith album cover.

What is clear is that both look far younger than their 47 years. Craig, in particular, doesn't look too far from the gawky 25-year-old who bobbed about awkwardly in the video for (I'm Gonna Be) 500 Miles. Is there, I wonder, some dusty attic in Leith in which hangs a disfigured portrait of the brothers, specs askew, the signs of 22 years in the music business etched heavily upon their faces?

Most 21st-century pop acts are styled to within an inch of their back-combed hair, but very few artists achieve that instant recognisability that The Proclaimers have enjoyed for more than 20 years. So was their unique image the brainchild of a savvy record label exec? An overpaid stylist? Of course not.

"We'd been on the dole and spent most of our time since leaving school unemployed," says Charlie, simply. "The specs, the fact that we obviously didn't spend much on clothes; we got to a point where we thought, do we change it or do we leave it? We kind of thought it was better to leave it, to not compromise. The image is strong, but we're twins anyway – when we were kids walking down the street, people would always look at us because there were two boys that looked the same. We just never bothered changing."

It was perhaps their stand-out "anti-cool" look that first got The Proclaimers noticed. They were discovered when a fan sent their demo to Hull indie band The Housemartins, who then invited the brothers on their 1986 UK tour. It was in 1987, however, when they appeared on Channel 4's The Tube that they became known to the nation. The late Paula Yates introduced them with the words "and now for something really weird…" and the exposure helped their debut album, This is the Story, to go gold, with the single, Letter From America, peaking at No3 in the UK charts.

The 1988 follow-up album, Sunshine on Leith, which has sold more than two million copies worldwide, featured two of their biggest hits: I'm Gonna Be and I'm On My Way, catchy, upbeat tracks that have earned them some lucrative advertising and marketing deals over the past two decades. I'm Gonna Be has been used to sell everything from credit cards to washing powder, has featured in the US animated comedy Family Guy and is set to be "covered" by Homer Simpson in The Simpsons. It was re-released in 2007 for Comic Relief and also featured in the Johnny Depp film Benny & Joon, helping it to reach No3 in the US charts in 1993. So popular and recognisable are their most famous songs that in 2007 they were used as the basis for a successful stage musical entitled Sunshine on Leith.

With such anthemic hits under their belt and an unusual aesthetic, The Proclaimers sometimes tread the line between credible artists and novelty act. However, the word "credibility" is one they don't have any time for. "When we grew up, any act to me, if NME said they were good, straight away I would judge for myself," says Craig. "And for every band that NME said was good that I thought was good, there were maybe two that I thought were f***king rubbish. So they think they've got credibility? I don't give a f**k, I think they're rubbish. So having credibility, being cool, was something that did not enter our consciousness."

"There was the piss-take aspect, but we expected that," adds Charlie. "To present yourselves the way we did, it was pretty uncompromising. You must expect that the best you're going to get is someone taking the piss and the worst that everybody hates you."

With "cool" the last thing on their minds, The Proclaimers were also unwilling to soften their broad Fife accents in the recording studio. Indeed, the accent sounds softer in person than on their records. "We don't hide it," says Craig. "A lot of Scottish entertainers down the years have hidden it and kinda polished it a bit. Being Scottish gets you noticed and generally people have a favourable view of Scotland, but it's maybe a wee bit limiting sometimes as well – I can understand why some of the big stars have shied away from it."

"I notice there's a few more (accents] coming through now," adds Charlie. "The Glasvegas thing, and Paolo Nutini. At one stage it seemed to be just us and the folk acts. But even Alex Harvey, you could hear something creeping through. It's like with those early Beatles records – no matter how hard you try to sound American, you get the Scouse coming through. I always found that made their records more attractive. With us, it wasn't about accentuating it. We just didn't bother trying to hide it, and because a lot of the material was about Scotland you didn't want to sound like you were from New York!"

The new album was written in six months, which helped the brothers to focus their creative energies. During a career that's spanned two decades and eight albums, they took two six-year career breaks on either side of their 1994 album, Hit The Highway, but have recorded an album every two years since 2001. "To me, it feels like anything before 2001 was stutter, stop, start, stutter," says Charlie. "Since then there's been a rhythm to it, in terms of being able to deliver records and always being on the road."

Craig agrees that working to a tight time schedule (I'm Gonna Be was written in less than an hour) can help to get the creative juices flowing. "The best material comes when you get that inspiration," he says. "With I'm Gonna Be, there was no perspiration. Certainly, there are acts that prove it time and time again, acts that have a couple of albums, then you wait five years and it's shit, and part of the reason it's shit is because they were up their own arses. They were examining their own entrails and trying to make f**king Sergeant Pepper and maybe they got diverted and it's rubbish. I'm not saying you should make them as quickly as possible, but I don't think you should think about the process too much."

When we discuss ambition and what's left to achieve, both brothers remain modest: their only aim is to continue making a living out of music, something that seemed an almost impossible notion when they were scraping by on the dole in the mid-1980s. "It's ongoing for us, that thing about the destination and the journey," says Charlie. "The journey is far more satisfying than anything in life. When do you 'make it', and what is 'making it'? People who talk about making it don't know what the f**k they're talking about."

Is either brother ever curious about the potential virtues of a solo career? Both are willing to entertain the notion, but both assume that I'm referring to the death of the other. Clearly, for each, the idea of taking to the stage without his twin is too alien a concept. "Until one of us shuffles off this mortal coil, I don't know," says Craig. "Certainly, if Charlie died I would keep going, no doubt about it. I don't know how I'd do it… We feel that the sum total is stronger than the two parts."

"I think that after a couple of days of mourning I'd probably go back on the road," adds Charlie. So can we expect an album every two years from The Proclaimers until they're claiming their OAP fish suppers from Leith's Persevere bar? "I think you've got to do what you're supposed to do. If you have an ability you should use it, right up to the end, even if it's only sitting in the house in your wheelchair writing a song."

• Notes & Rhymes is released on Monday

Planet Proclaimers

THE extent of the Proclaimers' impact on pop culture abroad belies their proudly worn and uncompromised Scots roots. Although one of their first references on American television beyond their own musical appearances was being sent-up by Wayne's World duo Mike Myers and Dana Carvey on Saturday Night Live in 1992, the twins' tunes have been utilised in several major films since, including the Johnny Depp comedy Benny and Joon (I'm Gonna Be), Dumb and Dumber (a cover of the Motown single Get Ready), Wes Anderson's directorial debut Bottle Rocket (Over and Done With), Shrek (I'm On My Way) and most recently Mama's Boy (Then I Met You).

Additionally, they have been involved in a brief skit on hit animated comedy show Family Guy, and plans are afoot for a similar appearance on The Simpsons, as well as a further small-screen soundtrack outing on crime drama Cold Case.

Closer to home, they have been happy to endorse Sunshine on Leith as their beloved Hibernian FC's adopted anthem, where it's played before every home match, as well their biggest hit I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) receiving a rendition on those rare occasions the Scotland rugby team crosses the white line at Murrayfield, and before the national side's games at Hampden.

They also recently revived it as the Comic Relief charity single in 2007, with Matt Lucas, Peter Kay and a host of other celebrities helping to send it to No 1 in the charts. In the same year their back catalogue was the basis for the critically appraised jukebox stage musical Sunshine On Leith. Their songs have been covered over the past 20 years by acts as diverse as punk band The Toy Dolls and Maximo Park.