Bryan Adams on Summer of 69 and Scottish shows

With its nostalgic imagery of carefree summers, and a driving beat and memorable title, rock anthem Summer Of ‘69 is still played every day on radio stations 40 years after it was released.

But as he prepares to return to Scotland for a series of gigs, Bryan Adams says his song didn’t achieve its legendary status easily.

“The irony of that track is that when it was released in the UK, it failed to make the Top 40. Radio 1 refused to play it,” recalled the Canadian singer.

Indeed, the single debuted on the UK singles chart at No. 59 in August 1985 and peaked at No. 42 two weeks later. Yet it is now the song – along with Everything I Do (I Do It For You) – synonymous with the star.

“It’s taken a long time for the song to become what it is today,” he continued. “Originally the title was The Best Days Of My Life, but it wasn’t an easy record to make even though I had a good skeleton of a song. I recorded it twice and demoed it three times. Although it was good, it still wasn’t right.

“One night I went out to a bar to see this ska band and noticed drummer Pat Steward. I asked him if he’d like to come in and record with me the next day. That was all I needed to turn it into an exciting record. And Pat’s still drumming in the band today.”

Bryan Adams in Scotland

This month marks 40 years since 65-year-old Bryan performed a memorable gig at Edinburgh Playhouse as support to Tina Turner, with whom he had recorded a duet called It’s Only Love for his fourth album, Reckless. He closed his set that night in March 1985 with Summer Of ‘69.

“I remember that Edinburgh show as being a great gig, and back then it was surprising as my UK record company had told me a couple of years prior that my type of music would never get played here,” Bryan recalled. “So it made me laugh when things started happening.”

He’s been back in Scotland – from Inverness to Kelso and everywhere in between – many times since that gig, and four decades on he’s still pulling in the crowds.

An acoustic show scheduled for next month in the Highlands capital sold out so quickly that he added a matinee performance, which also sold out.

And he’ll bring his full band to Glasgow and Aberdeen in May for his Roll With The Punches tour, named after his latest album, for what he says will be “full-on hairy rock band shows”.

Having already toured Australia and New Zealand this year, and with European dates to follow his UK gigs, he says he still enjoys being out on the road.

“I do love it and having a band and crew that I love really helps,” he said. “[My guitarist] Keith Scott and I have been friends since I was 16, and we often reflect on life on tour – what we’ve been through and how lucky we are to still be out doing it.”

The title of the album and tour, he says, were inspired “by what I’ve been through the last couple of years and finding out who my friends really were in the music business. But the really exciting thing about it is it’s the first album release on my own label.”

Being his own boss

In the past 18 months, Bryan set up Bad Records and became his own manager, deciding to take complete control of his career.

“It seemed that after Covid, everything started to unravel. I noticed things I’d never noticed, and I couldn’t understand how we were doing decent tours and losing so much money,” he explained. “On top of that, I felt like a chair in the front room of the record company. So when my contract was up, I started my own label, left my manager, and started on my own. It felt like I was getting out of school!”

Prior to releasing his new album, he put out two songs on his label that he wrote in the early 80s for rock legends Kiss, which had been a formative moment in his young career.

“It was fun to revisit those songs and release something unexpected for the fans,” he said. “I was 21 when I wrote with Kiss, and back then I was struggling to pay my rent and had to borrow the bus fare from my co-writer Jim Vallance to get to the studio.

“So when the offer came, of course I leapt at it. In those early days, things were slightly unclear as to whether I’d be a songwriter or a singer. Anyway, it wasn’t a stretch writing with Kiss – I loved hard rock and still do.”

Photography

These days, Bryan juggles being a rock star with being a renowned photographer who has shot everyone from Queen Elizabeth II to Cher and worked on advertising campaigns for huge brands like Fred Perry, Jaguar and Hugo Boss.

His work has been published in Vogue, Vanity Fair and Esquire, and he was given an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society.

But he wasn’t welcomed into the profession with open arms at first.

“Basically, you’re not allowed in,” he said.

“And when I say that, it’s just the way it is, particularly in fashion. I had to start my own magazine – Zoo – to create a playground for myself and, from that, ended up working for many of the people and magazines I wanted to work with. I do devote quite a lot of time to it, with video production taking up a significant portion of that time.

“It’s been a real ride.”

The rock star has entrusted the audio files of his legendary songs to a Scottish music tech start-up business.

It was announced nearly two years ago that the Grammy winner had become a co-founder of Glasgow-based Songbox, a music-sharing platform that allows audio files to be securely stored and shared.

The technology works by users creating a playlist and sending it via private link. They are then told when a file has been received and if it’s been listened to and for how long.
It was invented by Scottish musician Michael Coll, who was frustrated at never knowing whether the song demos he had sent out were being listened to.

Bryan started using the software in 2021 and was so impressed he decided to give it his full backing.

“I lend my name to it because I really believe in what Mick Coll has created,” he told The Sunday Post. “It’s the best way to share music safely instead of clogging up your computer with a million MP3s. It’s an awesome music app.”

Bryan Adams: Roll With The Punches tour – P&J Arena, Aberdeen, Ovo Hydro, Glasgow, May 11 & 13