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About

The Story

Pete Lamb & Matt Morrow

Pete Lamb was born and raised in Govan, Glasgow — one of the city’s most storied neighbourhoods, and a place that leaves its mark on everyone who comes from it. He came up listening to Tamla Motown and the blues, the kind of music that gets inside you before you’re old enough to understand why. Soul, rhythm, and songs that meant something. That was the foundation.

Later came the wider American tradition — the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, CSNY, and the songs of Marty Balin. Music that stretched out, told stories, and wasn’t in a hurry. Pete absorbed all of it, and when he eventually came to write his own songs, you can hear every bit of it in the mix.

Pete has been singing his whole life. The writing came later — but when it came, it came with something to say. Real life experiences sit at the centre of everything. Not fantasy, not performance — honest accounts of what it’s like to be alive in the world. Occasionally that world gets bigger: “Borderline”, from the debut album Strings To Tracks, looks outward at situations in other countries. “Human Cannonball”, from the second album Nobody Else But You, finds the poetry in something as ordinary as everyday life. Pete writes from wherever the song needs him to go.

He has retired from live performance now, and the studio has become his stage. At 75, he is still writing, still recording, still finding new things to say. Back To Back, released in 2025, is the latest evidence.

Matt Morrow

Matt Morrow is Pete’s writing partner, guitarist, vocalist, and the other half of everything Cousti has become. His background is in country-style guitar — the kind of playing that serves the song rather than showing off — but his contribution runs far deeper than the strings.

Matt sings lead and backing vocals across the Cousti catalogue, and brings occasional mouth organ to the recordings — an instrument that, when it appears, plants the music squarely in the American roots tradition both men love. Over fourteen years and three albums, Pete and Matt have built something that sounds entirely like itself: Americana in spirit, Glaswegian in character, and honest in a way that only comes from two people who’ve been writing together long enough to stop pretending.

Matt Morrow, Pete Lamb, Billy Baikie — illustration by Stanley Hurr

Billy Baikie

Cousti began as a writing partnership between Pete and Matt. But the band wasn’t complete until Billy Baikie came in. Matt and Billy had grown up together — learning to play bass alongside each other as teenagers, moving through various bands and jam sessions over the years. When Pete and Matt clicked as writers, it was natural that Billy would join them. Around a year into the songwriting partnership, he did. That was Cousti — the three of them together, the lineup that became the band.

Billy was a founding member, and the caricature illustration on the cover of Strings To Tracks — the debut album — includes him. Although sadly no longer with us, Billy remains part of the Cousti story.

In the studio

Cousti records at Maybank Studios in Glasgow with engineer and co-producer Matt Harvey, who has been with the project since the early days. The recordings are clean and honest — no unnecessary embellishment. What you hear is what was played.