A MEMBER of Western Isles punk-folk band Peat & Diesel was charged by police with a different kind of rock’n’roll.
Thousands of TV viewers were surprised to see the band’s Innes Scott get charged by police with a suspected heavy load of cement and gravel mix in the back of the flatbed pickup he was driving.
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To make matters worse, eagle-eyed cops claimed Innes was not wearing a seatbelt.
And when they asked him to pull in outside Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, Innes was wearing a Peat & Diesel hoody with his name in big letters on his back.
The Lewis-based band has become well-known for its songs telling funny stories of life in the Western Isles.
It was formed by electrician Innes, fisherman Boydie MacLeod and delivery driver Uilly Macleod.
But on BBC‘s Highland Cops latest episode on Tuesday, Innes had a different kind of starring role.
The accordion player was told to drive to Stornoway harbour where his load was said to weigh more than 400 kilos over the limit.
“Two years ago I was going past with no seatbelt on with this pickup and you stopped me,” said Innes.
“And guess who was in that vehicle? Me,” replied the officer.
Innes thought he had “less than a tonne” in the truck.
At the ferry terminal, it was claimed to weigh 440 kilos over its permitted weight.
“You’re joking,” said Innes, who hurriedly made phone calls for a vehicle to help overload the excess saying: “I’m in a major predicament now.”
He was filmed receiving two charges as help arrived.
In 2019, a year after playing their first gig, Peat & Diesel appeared at the HebCelt and Belladrum music festivals and performed a sold-out gig at Glasgow‘s Barrowlands.
It is a long way from Stornoway, but the band also played at Glastonbury last year, not once, but twice over the weekend.
Glastonbury organisers describe Peat & Diesel as a “raucous Stornoway Celtic punk trio”.
Before forming the band the trio would meet up at one of their homes in Stornoway on a Saturday night to play tunes.
They soon put together enough of their own material to launch Peat & Diesel and start gigging.
Their songs telling funny stories of life in the Western Isles were hit with local audiences, and their videos on social media quickly racked up tens of thousands of views, exposing the band to an even wider audience, and Scotland‘s music industry.
They shot to fame in 2019 when they won “Live Act of the Year” at the Scot Trad Music Awards.
A year after playing their first gig, the band were high in the Christmas charts and their next album also charted.
They sold out a gig in Glasgow’s Barrowland in a single day and more than 7,000 tickets across venues on their debut tour.
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They are well-known for songs like ‘That’s the way we do it in the Western Isles’.
Their UK tour next year is already sold out at many dates and on January 23 they will be the first act to play the Emirates Arena as part of Celtic Connections.