Tom and Svein start the actual Driving To Damascus song discussion, and manage to get all of TWO songs into the album this time! You know the drill - look for the ultimate breakdown of music and lyrics, demo analysis, song backgrounds etc. Diving deeply is tough work, but remember that we do it so that you don't have to!

We finally set off to Damascus, probably the album they've been dreading the most to dissect. The reason? There's just so much material, so much emotional baggage, so much to talk about. In this episode, we set the stage for the song discussion that will begin in Part 2. We talk about activities of the band members starting at the end of 1996 and leading up to the album's release. The Stuart Adamson solo album? The celtic album with Carol Laula? Whatever happened to those? We talk about Stuart's move to Nashville and how that influenced him and his writing, we discuss the birth of the BC website, early bootlegs of songs that would appear on the album and the dreaded "too many folds" phrase. Sprinkled throughout are sounds bites of interviews with Stuart from the time period that also help set the stage. Enjoy!

The third and final part of our conversation with Tony Butler is here. This completes his reflections on each and every Big Country album, as he recalls working with Robin Millar and Kate Bush on The Seer, the near burn-out they experienced at the end of The Crossing tour going into Steeltown, the real reason The Buffalo Skinners turned out so hard rocking, how Why The Long Face was one of the happiest times in the band, and much more. A fantastic trip down memory lane, with a lot of wonderful stories shared. We hope you have enjoyed this very special trilogy of episodes as much as we have enjoyed putting them together.

This is the second part of our conversation with Tony Butler. He touches on The Great Unknown album and recalls early memories of meeting the BC guys and joining the band. We discuss Live Aid what-ifs an his development as a singer. Tony recalls working with people like Pete Townshend and The Pretenders, his time in L.A. working on Peace In Our Time with Peter Wolf, and the dreaded synclavier... The anecdotes and stories flow quite freely in this episode.

The time was finally right! We are very happy to welcome bass player extraordinaire Tony Butler to the show. He comes armed with a number of announcements, reveals what he has been up to during his retirement of recent years, and of course talks about anything and everything Big Country from ages past. Enjoy this first part of three TB extravaganzas!

It's the return of the Great Divide egg-timer in this episode! After breezing through recent releases and BC-related activity, Tom and Svein continue to tackle a myriad of Big Country-related questions - but only until the bell rings, when they have to move on to the next one. Enjoy this fast-paced plethora of topics!

Tom and Svein somehow manage to release their annual Yuletide episode after a blizzard of activity. What's more, it's the longest episode ever at more than three hours! They are visited by the spirits of podcast past, present and future as they look back at BC-related releases of 2016, podcast comments and rankings from listeners, play Speakpipes and blab about a variety of subjects. Enjoy this giant Big Country Yule log. Have at you!

Tom and Svein finally finish their latest minutiae-laden Deep Dive, Part 4 of the "Peace in Our Time" dissection. In this one, they take on "River of Hope," "In This Place," and "I Could Be Happy Here." They also play more SpeakPipes and give their final rankings of the album's songs and listener rankings from the Facebook page.

Tom and Svein continue flapping their fat mouths about Big Country's most divisive album, "Peace in Our Time." And they still don't finish. In this episode, they tackle "Everything I Need," "Peace in Our Time," and "Time For Leaving." More listener SpeakPipes are also played.

Tom and Svein pick up the pace a bit - just a bit - in Part 2 of the PIOT Deep Dive. In this episode, they cover the songs "Thirteen Valleys," "Thousand Yard Stare" and "From Here to Eternity." Yes, only three. BC bloviating at its finest.