I know Parkinson’s will stop me

Del Amitri singer Justin Currie has revealed that he has Parkinson’s disease, which he accepts will eventually stop him from performing.

The 59-year-old confirmed the news in an interview with the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, when he said that he is now in a position where he can no longer “play the way I would expect to”.

He said that the diagnosis has demonstrated that “you think you’re invulnerable until something proves you’re not.”

“I know it will get worse. At what rate, nobody knows. So I know I’m going to have to stop. The idea is quite grim.”

He added that Parkinson’s has changed his personality, “in not necessarily negative ways.”

“With any form of disability, you become aware of disability in general, and you become acutely aware of that line that disabled people have been saying for years – that there aren’t able-bodied people, there are just a lot of people who are not yet disabled.

“So I quite like that. I quite like the idea that we’re all going to go through some of these difficulties at some point in life.”

“That ridiculous cliche, ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’, that’s not true.

“If you lose a leg you are not strong. And I am not stronger for having Parkinson’s, believe you me.”

The Glasgow pop-rock band formed in 1980 and are best known for their ‘80s hits including ‘Nothing Ever Happens’ and ‘Roll to Me’.

They released a total of six studio albums before splitting in 2002. A 2013 reunion eventually resulted in their latest full-length effort, 2021’s ‘Fatal Mistakes’.

The band are currently on tour around the UK, supporting fellow ‘80s Scottish act Simple Minds on a run of shows that began on March 15 in Leeds, and has three remaining dates: at Bournemouth’s International Centre on March 26, Cardiff’s International Arena on March 27 and finally Glasgow’s OVO Hydro on March 29. Any remaining tickets for the shows can be found here.

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