Twin brothers Craig and Charlie Reid – otherwise known as The Proclaimers – will forever be remembered for their 1988 smash-hit I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles). But the pair have released 10 studio albums since 1987 as well as three compilation albums.

With their distinctive singing style and strong Scottish accent, they’re still in demand today, as the 90 shows on their nationwide tour testify.

We caught up with them before their four live shows in the county...

You’re happy to play smaller cities and towns, aren’t you?

Craig: We’re energised by playing these places, and they connect you with people, too. We recently played Darlington for the first time, and we phoned our mum from the gig – she’d done her midwifery training there. There’s things to learn in every gig, every place, you play – especially places you haven’t been before. That keeps you on your toes. You mix and match with places you have been before, and that can’t help but keep it fresh for you.

Charlie: We’re provincial and we’re proud of that.

Craig: It’s also down to the fact that we’ve been around for a long time now. We’re persistent! Plus writing songs and playing live are the things for us.

You’re as popular as ever. What do you put that down to?

Craig: We still enjoy doing it. It’s as simple as that. We’re 53 now so we know it’s not going to go on forever. But still when we hit the stage we’re as good as we ever were, maybe better. The recovery period between the gigs is harder, so you know eventually it will come to an end. But that means that for now we want to keep going as hard and long as we can. I think we’re at our peak now. And when you get to our age, you can’t take long gaps between tours and albums. We need to, and want to, keep that momentum.

With the money from your hits – from I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) and I’m On My Way – you could just sit back and relax couldn’t you?

Craig: Because we still make music for the same reason we always did: it’s so we can get up and play it to people. Yes, we’re known for those records, and will be long after we’re gone. But the live performance is the thing that we enjoy. If you’re a performer you need that constant buzz and thrill night after night. And we were lucky we could do it in the first place, and that we had a bit of talent. The rest of it is work. And if you can do that for decades, that’s really lucky.

Charlie: That’s a huge part of who we are as people. I actually have fears for what I would do if for some reason we couldn’t do this any more. In the end, all we’ll ever be is two guys who stand up, with a guitar on, and sing a couple of songs, and go home. That’s what we do. And if people join in, then we’re bringing people together.”

Your new album is called Let’s Hear It For The Dogs. How important are lyrics to you?

Craig: The lyrics are more important than the music. And we’re always looking for a lyric that’s unusual because it’s maybe about a subject that’s not been tackled very often. Or it’s looking at a subject that’s been looked loads of times in a different way. We always said from the start that we like our songs to be understood. Not necessarily on the first hearing, but on the second or third.

You’ve been starting your shows with Sky Takes The Soul, the first song in Sunshine On Leith (the film adapted from the stage show based on The Proclaimers’ songs).

Charlie: It’s a great show opener. It starts with just the one instrument, the guitar, just scraping way, and it kind of confronts the audience straight away – like the first incarnation of Dexy’s Midnight Runners did. They were a big influence on us. So we hope it maybe takes you back a little bit. A lot of people who come might not know the song, or only know it from the film. Then we play Over And Done With second, which is funnier. But that first song is quite confrontational, and we like that.

You appeared on Emmerdale didn’t you?

Charlie: We got asked to do it and we were like, “of course!” You’ve got to do that! If you got asked to do Corrie you’d have to do it…

Craig: And the key thing was we would actually be playing. If it had been a walk-on part with a bit of patter then maybe not…

Charlie: But the story on the show was that, like hundreds of other people across Britain, they’d launched a festival, in their little patch of Yorkshire. But why us? Maybe they thought we were cheap!

Craig: “And there are loads that we’ve turned down. Question Time we’ve said no to several times.

You have a couple of famous fans, don’t you? (David Tennant and Matt Lucas)

Craig: David got married to our song Life With You! They’re both incredibly talented men, who have massive audiences. And their audiences might not naturally like The Proclaimers. And that’s understandable. But when you get people like them, celebrities who are successful in artistic ventures, who dig you in the same way that folk in the street do – that means a lot to us.

Charlie: But Matt or David liking us doesn’t mean any more to me than a taxi driver saying he likes us, or the guy that comes up to you at the Hibernian match who’s a bricklayer from Leith.

TOUR DETAILS

The Proclaimers will be at the Orchard Theatre in Dartford on Sunday, May 22. For tickets call 01322 220000 or visit orchardtheatre.co.uk

The show then moves to the Assembly Hall Theatre in Tunbridge Wells on Saturday, May 27. Tickets at assemblyhalltheatre.co.uk or call 01892 530613.

And then the Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone on Sunday, June 5. For tickets visit atgtickets.com

The final Kent date is at Chatham’s Central Theatre on Friday, July 22. For tickets go to tickets.medway.gov.uk