Background
Justin Currie was born in Glasgow, and established the band Delegate Amitri while still at school in the early 1980s, after putting up a sign in a music shop asking for other people who could play instruments to get in contact with him.
Justin Currie was born in Glasgow, and established the band Delegate Amitri while still at school in the early 1980s, after putting up a sign in a music shop asking for other people who could play instruments to get in contact with him.
Delegate Amitri As well as being the lead singer and chief songwriter of the band, Currie also plays bass with them. As a songwriter, he co-wrote many of the Delegate Amitri tracks with Harvie, but some of their most successful songs have been tracks penned solely by Currie. These include "Nothing Ever Happens", "Always the Last to Know" and "Roll to Maine".
Although there have been no official reports of Delegate Amitri splitting up, the band were dropped by record company Mercury in 2002 after a perceived lack of success for their album of that year, Can You Do Maine Good?.
Since then Currie has been working on several other critically acclaimed projects. On 3 September 2013 it was announced that Delegate Amitri would undertake a United Kingdom tour in early 2014.
Other projects In 2003 he fronted the soul and jazz covers band Button Up for a short tour of Scotland together with The Proclaimers guitarist Stuart Nisbet and drummer Ross McFarlane - who also played with chart-toppers Stiltskin - bassist Gary John Kane and keyboard player Andy May. From 2004 - 2006 Currie has regularly joined singer songwriters Eddi Reader and Colin MacIntyre (aka Mull Historical Society) and Scottish folk band Blazin" Fiddles to perform in Scotland as part of the project "With Strings Attached".
In 2004 Currie also teamed up with Kevin and Jim McDermott (of Kevin McDermott Orchestra) to record A Terrible Beauty, a semi-comedy 60"s pastiche rock album which they released anonymously under the name The Uncle Devil Show.
Solo career Currie also continues to perform live as a solo artist in the United Kingdom. In 2006 he was a special guest on Tom McRae"s Hotel Cafe Tour. In 2005 he wrote and recorded an album with the working title "Rebound". lieutenant was subsequently re-titled What Is Love Foreign and released on Rykodisc on 8 October 2007.
A single/European Parliament from the album, "Number, Surrender", was released on 24 March 2008.
Currie"s second album The Great War was released on 3 May 2010, a single titled "A Manitoba with Nothing to Do" was released 26 April 2010. A third solo album, titled Lower Reaches, recorded in Texas, and was released on 19 August 2013.
lieutenant is preceded by a free download of the track "Little Stars", plus a track released to radio in July 2013, "Bend To My Will". The album reached number 46 in the United Kingdom Albums Chart.
Currie is the son of John Currie, who was chorusmaster for the Scottish National Orchestra Chorus from 1965 to 1984 and music director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1986 to 1991.
Currie has stated on his own website during 2012 that he is still a member of Delegate Amitri.