When the London-based PR firm called Dougie Adam to say he could spend an hour with RICKY ROSS over coffee the following day he literally dropped everything and set off to meet one of his musical heroes.

DA: What was the story behind that song?

RR: It was a memory song really. It was a song about growing up and what people may have said or might not have said. In fact I'm still doing that. "In The End", the song on the album about Graeme, is a half-remembered song, it's my take on his last night, but the other thing is I was in the shower and thinking, "they always get the fat guy in the end" and I thought "that's the kind of thing Graeme said. Did Graeme say that?" And it was exactly the same with "The Germans Are Out Today". I'm not exactly sure if my dad would have said that or did say that, but that's the kind of thing he would have said, 'Ah, they won the war you know. Look at them driving round in their Mercedes!" It's all that kind of stuff.

DA: There were also some lines about a borrowed Bible and looking for salvation.

RR: Oh, that bit of the story is about when I was growing up, my dad didn't preach much, but occasionally he had to go and do a thing called "giving your testimony" where you had to say how you'd been saved, and my dad would go up and tell the story of how he went into the RAF and met this guy who let him have his Bible and that's how he got converted. And that was a big story in the house, and we always used to laugh because he joined the RAF and ended up in Leuchars just across the water from Dundee. He ended up in different parts of the world but that was his version of the story. And again that was all really just memory.

DA: A couple of other songs from that first album might indicate where you were at in your spiritual journey at that point in time, "Surprised By Joy" and "Vision On".

RR: That was actually written well before that. "Surprised By Joy" was one of the first of any of the songs I have ever released that I wrote. I'm very good at dates actually, and I can tell you that I think that was actually written in 1978. It was written six years before that album came out, so it was just a very early song of mine. The song is really about Christian conversion and is a very straightforward song based on the CS Lewis imagery surprised by joy.

DA: The year after 'So Long Ago' came out you formed Deacon Blue and signed with CBS Records and recorded 'Raintown'. In quite a few interviews from that time you said the album was about the Protestant work ethic with the main themes being home, faith and work, and that it was also an album about growing up.

RR: Looking back on it I think it is a disillusioned love album really! It's funny, what you think you are doing at the time and what you are actually doing can be two different things. But it's a very sad album I think, looking back. It's one of our more unhappy records although it was a very, very enjoyable record to make. It kind of is about a lot of things really. There is a lot of stuff about work and lack of work and then eventually finding work and what that does to you, there is a lot of stuff like that in it I suppose.

DA: 'Raintown' has probably remained the fans' favourite Deacon Blue album.

RR: I think so. I think because they had nothing before, and it was there maybe two years before anything else came out again it's very fondly remembered and I think if Deacon Blue got together we could still play every single song from it live. I would almost go as far as to say that almost every song on it I would do as part of my solo show. I can't think of one that I have not done. "Loaded" and "Love's Great Fears" which Jim [Prime] co-wrote, even then they are piano songs that I would still play. The bedrock of that album was written round the piano and I played these songs acoustically, a lot of them, before they got to that point. So when I'm going out and doing the show now, it's not a big thing to go back to the way that these songs were written. But weirdly enough 'Raintown' is going to come out and be remastered and re-released this year. Sony have found quite a lot of extra stuff that wasn't released on the 'Riches' compilation. So the plan is to bring out 'Raintown' as it was as a vinyl album. So it finishes on "Town To Be Blamed" and then there should be some extra stuff. In fact what Sony were really saying was we might not include "Riches" in it because we found all these demos of "Raintown" which is great, and also the very first gig we did in London which was taped in the Marquee and on there is, I think, the best version we did of "Raintown". It's not technically great, but it's the most passionate "Raintown" I've ever heard. So I think that stuff will come out with it and I'm hoping that also "Riches" will be there so that everything is in the one place.

DA: I had been going to ask if there was any likelihood of any Deacon Blue rare material being re-released or repackaged.

RR: Well that's it. It will be a really nice package. Hopefully it will be a really nice cover and they are going to reprint the photographs and so on and make a really good job of it. I'm looking forward to it.

DA: There is quite a lot of stuff that still hasn't ever been released on CD whether it be B-sides and 12" mixes.

RR: "Riches" obviously came out but there are a lot of other things that have never been put in the one place, so that may happen at some point as well. I think maybe as each album comes out we'll see what happens.