Trains, pains and auto Hue lines

It’s just over 25 years since Scottish brothers Pat and Greg Kane released Remote, the ‘sophisto-pop’ album that spawned the hits Ordinary Angel, Looking For Linda and Violently and led to them rubbing shoulder with the likes of Madonna and Ray Charles.

“I’m very proud of that record, ” says singer Pat. “Two quite inexperienced Scottish working-class musicians striding into the heart of NY’s music scene at its most powerful, and managing to pull their songs through the middle of it.”

The duo have recently revisited the material for a new album, Remote – Major to Minor, and are taking the songs on the road. “We like to play!” says Pat, of the motivation behind the tour.

“The balance of power in the music business has shifted to the live musician – and as we’ve always enjoyed taking our repetoire out there, seeing if it still connects with an audience, it’s the most natural thing in the world to do.”

Leeds famously gets a mention in the song Looking For Linda.

“She was a real person, who I met for 15 minutes on a train journey from Glasgow Central to Paisley Gilmour Street, ” explains Pat.

“In that time she drunkenly told me her life story so far - basically running away from an abusive husband, pretending to go out and get a packet of cigarettes, but actually jumping on the train at Leeds.”

“I keep meeting storytellers on public trains – the new album has a reimagined version of Looking for Linda called Slow Train Home – a story about a lost boy, struggling with addiction, I met on the train home a few years ago.”

Known for his left-wing politics – their 1987 song Labour Of Love can be read as the story of a Tory voter losing faith in the then PM Margaret Thatcher – Pat has lost none of his passion.

“I am still perplexed as to why working people would vote for parties which are diametrically opposed to their social and economic interests – which is what I was grappling with in 1987, and what we’re still grappling with now under a Tory-led Westminster coalition.”

“Our last original studio album, HotWire, had a song called Little Man which is an update of the topic of Labour of Love for the Ukip-era.

“Except done to a New Orleans second-line beat. We’re perverse that way.”

Remote: Major to Minor is out now, available exclusively from www.hueandcry.co.uk.

The lads also play Lytham Proms on August 1.