For most of her life, Alison Craig, now recording as AC Scott, was the one asking the questions. As a celebrated broadcaster and interviewer, she built a career drawing stories out of others. But after a life-altering diagnosis forced her off the air, something unexpected happened: songs began to surface. Written quietly at her late father’s desk and carried across oceans to studios in London and Los Angeles, those songs became Out Of The Blue, a debut that feels less like a beginning and more like a return. We spoke to Scott about finally holding her own record in her hands, the track that still surprises her, and why it’s never too late to listen to the voice within.
Hi Alison, how are you?
Great! Thank you. Am happy as I have ever been just loving this unexpected journey my songs are taking me on.
How are you enjoying this moment of your debut album coming out?
I am very excited about it. I am so proud of this record and as the title Out Of The Blue suggests it has all happened unplanned and unexpectedly. All of these songs must have lain dormant in my mind for so long and it just took one person to say ‘you are a songwriter’ to open the floodgates. The day I hold that blue vinyl in my hand will be one of the best days of my life.
You spent years interviewing people, does it feel strange now being the one answering questions?
Yes. I now realise how all my interviewees must have felt all these years but to be honest I never stop asking questions so getting the chance to talk about me is still a novelty.
After everything that you’ve already achieved and done, did finding music feel like starting again, or like finding something you’d lost?
I have always dragged a piano, or keyboard around with me wherever I lived. Rented pianos in London, dodgy wee Casios, as long as I had something to make a noise with I was happy so honestly..it feels like coming home.
What song from the album still surprises you when you listen back to it?
Party People, I wrote it in 10 minutes and God knows where it came from….someone described it as Leonard Cohen dark disco which I love! It picks me up and makes me want to dance.
You’ve said you weren’t traditionally obsessed with singer-songwriters growing up, yet there’s a real warmth in your writing. Do you think that influence found you later?
Thank you that is lovely to hear. I wrote a diary since I was 12 until a boyfriend read them when I was mid 20’s. That was a violation of my privacy and the end of that relationship. So writing from the heart again has happened just recently in my songwriting. I have always been a story teller and a piano player but I never put the two together until very recently…clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed!
You’ve crossed countries to make this music, recording between London and Los Angeles. Did those places change how you heard yourself as an artist?
I never imagined myself as an artist until I got the endorsements from some real music heavy weights, such as Kate Hyman, Andrew Rollins and Keith Blackhurst, but sailing to the US and driving to Andrews studio in LA was like all my dreams coming true, well worth the 10k drive and 14 day sailing across to the US and back. It made me feel like an artist for the first time.
If someone listening is sitting there thinking, “I’ve missed my chance”, what would you want to tell them?
Listen to your heart not the negative inner voice we all carry, or the throwaway comment from someone that has held you back for years. My Dad told me when I was about 10 ‘aye you can play the piano but you’ve not much of a voice’ which I believed until literally last year. So I would encourage anyone to go for it! You don’t want to be on your deathbed thinking ‘what if….’
