CONVERSE with a rock star before sundown at your peril. They can be sensitive in daylight. Take Dougie Vipond, for example: musician, broadcaster, beating heart of Deacon Blue, and a man who begins our early-morning interview by getting nostalgic for his bygone flowing hair regime (“Everyone had a diffuser in the 90s. The body it gave you. I'm baring my soul here...”), and winds it up, three coffees in, recalling a time he recently played the drums in floods of tears (“I was howling”).

Then again, we're here to celebrate a family reunion, and such events are always emotional.

Back in the early-mid 1990s, two of Scotland's best-loved bands called it a day. Dundee's Danny Wilson and Glasgow's Deacon Blue both split (the latter would reform in 1999), and this gave rise to a fierce, harmonic power-pop rabble who called themselves the Swiss Family Orbison. Danny Wilson's Kit Clark was chief vocalist and songwriter, and their motley clan spanned, among others, Keith Matheson (guitar, vocals, songwriting), Colin Davidson (bass) and Gregor Philp (guitar). Vipond joined them shortly thereafter.

Their ramshackle, glorious family unravelled as the years went on. But they're still all close, and they're back together, to play three special shows this week, and to commemorate a super group whose history has (thus far) embraced two decades, two albums, and sporadic, raucous derring-do – from winning over John Peel with their eponymous 1997 debut, through gatecrashing the Isle of Arran on the lookout for an ad-hoc gig (they played on a farm), to serenading Kirriemuir with a concert in the midst of a pub brawl.

“That was Dougie's first gig with us,” Philp recalls, in the morning light. “The place was called Hooks. We were thinking, 'Cool – Kirriemuir, Peter Pan, home of JM Barrie – it's going to be a theme pub, its going to be brilliant!'” A beat. “It was potentially the worst pub in Kirriemuir. Which is saying something. I remember getting there, it was winter, there was snow, and a couple of guys were rolling out the place as we were coming in, knocking lumps out each other. At five in the afternoon.

“And I remember Dougie setting his drums up, in front of the toilets,”

Philp continues. “He put his stool down, and he just kind of sat there, in the middle of the pub, and he was looking round. And then he just smiled and went – 'The last time these drums were being set up was at Wembley Arena'”, he laughs.

Vipond is quick to shed light on the memory. “I was totally delighted to be there,” he assures. “Deacon Blue had split up by then, and I'd started doing work on television, but I really wanted to drum. And then Kit phoned me. And I absolutely loved Danny Wilson. I adored them. I used to watch them live – I remember I saw them at the London School of Economics, in the mid-1980s, and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen. It was quite theatrical as well.

“Kit, for me, was a real star,” Vipond adds. “Gary Clark's got the voice of an angel, Ged Grimes has an incredible musicality, but when I saw Kit, on-stage, I was thinking, That's a superstar all right. A flawed one,” he laughs. “But aren't they all. He was playing all these different instruments, dancing around, adding extra elements to the show. So when he phoned me and asked if I wanted to play in his band, the Swiss Family Orbison, I was like – 'I'll be there in a minute'."

There's a melodic rage that courses through much of the Swiss Family Orbison's fired-up indie-rock – galvanised in part, perhaps, by the fallout of the late-1980s / early-90s Scottish pop implosion, as major labels shifted their focus (and support, and finances) elsewhere.

“Yeah, I think Kit in particular felt a bit spat out,” suggests Vipond, of Clark's post-Danny Wilson years. “I think that a lot of these songs reflect that. There's a real beauty in the songwriting on the two Swiss records because in terms of melody, and chord structures, it's all quite bright and cheery – even thought the sound's distressed and quite hard – but the lyrical content is as dark as the back of that fire.

“I mean, Suicide's on that first record,” Vipond continues.

“Musically, I love that song. I actually think the recording of that, on the album, is probably the best I've ever played on any record. At the end of Suicide, it does this Beatles thing, where the tempo all goes to hell, and the way Kit sings – it's just so hurt and angry and pained, really pained – it's amazing. Keith always sings beautifully too – he's got an incredible, tortured quality to his voice.”

“For me, I think Thick As Pop is an even better-sounding album,” offers Philp of the band's as-yet unreleased 2008 follow-up (they're gearing up to crowdfund its release on vinyl). The album fell by the wayside at the time, as the Swiss Family Orbison went their separate ways – although they never officially split.

Since then, Matheson (who played with Davidson in Dundee's Big Blue 72) has performed with The Pearlfishers, and Philp has joined Vipond as a full-time member, and co-songwriter, in Deacon Blue. All we need to bring the family full circle is for Danny Wilson to reform, with Vipond and Philp as new recruits.

“Danny Wilson did actually get back together, for [Big Blue 72 keyboardist] Chris van der Kuyl's wedding,” Vipond says. “They asked me to play with them at that. It was the biggest honour in the world.”

Philp sniggers into his teacup. “He was greeting while playing the drums.”

“Of course I was greeting,” Vipond laughs. “In the rehearsal, at the gig, and at the wedding. I was howling. I told you, I absolutely love that band.” He drains his coffee and straightens up. “But I have also said to them that if Danny Wilson reform, and I'm not on drums, I will kill them all.”

The Swiss Family Orbison play Glasgow Oran Mor, Glasgow tonight and Dundee Fat Sam's on Sunday.