Up close with Simple Minds as they celebrate 40 years of music

THEY have celebrated 40 years together, but the passion for making great music has not diminished for Simple Minds.

This band care about their work and sometimes their enthusiasm causes tension.

Making new album Walk Between Worlds, childhood friends Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill rowed over the direction of a song.

Kerr says: “We had one of our biggest fights ever.
Everyone else left the room.
The jacket was coming off — it was serious.”

The huge argument was over a version of the track Sense of Discovery Burchill did not like.

He explains: “Charlie is so polite and tries hard not to be negative.
He really didn’t want to disappoint me.

“But, piping up at the last minute it’s then ‘Whoahhhhhh’ and it all kicked off.

"Afterwards, I went outside and a big Glaswegian guy said, ‘I’ve not heard a fight like that in years.’”

After working out their differences, the pair made up and the track closes the album.

The singer adds: “It’s Charlie’s favourite track now.

"That night I went home and felt embarrassed at some of the stuff I’d said.

“But then I started laughing, as it showed how passionate I was about that song — how passionate we both still are about Simple Minds.”

Kerr is chatting over coffee at a Glasgow hotel.

It’s a day of rehearsals so we jump into his car and drive over to the studio, where the band are preparing for their seven-dates-in-eight-days tour, which begins at Glasgow Barrowland on Tuesday.

Kerr, 58, is in good spirits as we drive over to the studio in the Gorbals part of Glasgow.

The singer points out the places he lived as a child and tells stories from his youth and about his 82-year-old dad Jimmy.

He says with a laugh: “My dad tells everyone he was the one who started the band.”

The release of the new album last week meant celebrations for the group which started out as punk band Johnny & The Self Abusers in 1977.

Walk Between Worlds has given Simple Minds their highest chart position since Good News From The Next World reached No2 in the album charts in 1995.

Simple Minds have been enjoying a renaissance with fans old and new since the 2012 release of X5 — a remastered box set of their first five albums — followed by 2014’s Big Music and 2016’s Acoustic.

And no one is more surprised by their “comeback” than Kerr.

He says: “Honestly, we could not have imagined the welcome that the new album has had.

“Last week I woke up to all these good reviews coming in, which was great.

"People were saying things I never thought people would say again about Simple Minds.
As much as it was positive, it’s also amazing.”

At the studio, formerly the Polmadie Railway Social Club, Kerr tells us it’s the venue where he and Burchill performed a very early gig — a Christmas party for the rail workers’ kids.

As he shows us around he notes: “The stage is still the same.
It was the Christmas party but rather than play any Christmas songs we covered Heroin by The Velvet Underground and I’m Eighteen by Alice Cooper.

“We were so loud and all the kids were crying.
It’s amazing that we are here again to rehearse.”
At the studio the band’s publicist and I are in for a treat, getting our very own performance of new and old tracks.

They include the shimmering Summer, the nostalgic Barrowland Star and the Alive And Kicking-sounding Sense Of Discovery as well as classic early songs I Travel, Celebrate and Love Song.

All sound fantastic with band members singer Sarah Brown, percussionist Cherisse Osei, keyboards and backing vocalist Catherine AD, bassist Ged Grimes and multi-instrumentalist Gordy Goudie.

In between songs, Kerr says: “The shows we play next week will start with some songs from art rock days for hardcore fans to go nuts.

“New and old songs and the stories and chat about the years and the cities we are playing in.”

He continues: “This record seems to tick a lot of the boxes for people who liked Simple Minds in the past as well as now. It’s hopefully a balance.”

He explains how the track Summer was written after the band played a festival in Norway and was partly inspired by Debbie Harry of Blondie.

Kerr says: “I know Debbie and have met her a few times.

“At the festival, Blondie were playing before us and we went to see them.
"But we didn’t get a chance to speak.

“Later, I went back to work on this song and I was sat on my hotel balcony.

“On the far side of the hotel, I could see Debbie Harry sitting with her back to me.
So, when I think of the song, I think of that night and capturing a moment.

“When I checked out the next day, the receptionist said, ‘Miss Harry has left you something’.
And she’d left me a packet of Haribo bears. It was great and she’s so great.”

The album’s central track Barrowland Star is about the famous Glasgow music venue where so many famous bands have played.

Kerr says: “We play there next week, which will be emotional. We’ve performed some amazing gigs there and seen some special gigs too.

“I always wanted to write about this church, this temple.

“Occasionally, one of the stars come off the venue’s ceiling and they are a great piece of memorabilia.

“They are like awards and I have one in my writing room.

“I’ve got one, Charlie’s got one and so did David Bowie.

“When Bowie played there, during the sound check one of the stars fell down and he took it with him.
I think of all of the people who have danced under the stars and these stories made me want to write the song.”
As well as next week’s tour, the band also go out on the road with the Pretenders and KT Tunstall in August.

Pretenders’ lead singer Chrissie Hynde is Kerr’s ex-wife, and the last time he shared a stage with her was in 1985, the year after their wedding, at Live Aid.
So why now? I ask.

Kerr replies: “I’m not sure why people are so surprised about us touring with the Pretenders.
People assume that with your ex there’s always aggro.

“Chrissie and I haven’t seen each other all the time and there’s been periods where there hasn’t been any contact. But now we have grandkids.”

Kerr was married to Hynde from 1984 to 1990 and they have one daughter Yasmin, who is mother to twins.

He also has a son, James, from his subsequent four-year marriage to Patsy Kensit.

Kerr adds: “We are such fans of the Pretenders and I’ve asked Chrissie to tour with us three or four times — finally it has worked out.

“KT Tunstall toured with us last year in Europe and she’s great and a good laugh too.”

Kerr laughs about the time Yasmin was working at a pub and revealed she had only told her boss about her famous dad after six months.

He says: “I asked why six months? Was she embarrassed of me? She then said, ‘No, Dad. Not you.
If I’d said who you were then they’d know who my mum was. And Mum is barred from that pub!”

Kerr says he still has the same desire to make music as he had when he was a teenager dreaming of being in a band.

He explains: “I still wonder where I got the belief that this was possible when I was 18.

“It was the dream and everyone has dreams, but how did we have the nerve to put it into action?
Great music has come out of Glasgow but we didn’t know anyone that had written a song.
We didn’t have a music teacher or a rich daddy to pay our way.

“There were more chances of being an astronaut back then.”

Two weeks ago, Simple Minds celebrated their 40th anniversary.

Have they thought of doing any anniversary or classic album tour?

Kerr says: “This is a long year and we are so full of current stuff that we need to clear the decks with this album first. But there is still a chance we will do something.

“But which album would we tour?
The critics and the cool fans would say New Gold Dream, but the MTV and Live Aid fans would say Once Upon A Time.

“I think in our case we would have to cover the four decades to give a sense of the story.”
The height of Simple Minds’ fame came in the mid-Eighties when they made it big in the US following their 1985 No1 hit Don’t You (Forget About Me), the theme from John Hughes’ teen drama film The Breakfast Club.

Of that intense period, today Kerr admits it was too much.

He says: “We would never have admitted it then, but it was a bit overwhelming and out of our control at times.

“We never had the experience that we have now. There is something about life right now that is really great.

“To get up in the morning and go for a walk in the park — and then you get to go on stage and try and prove that you are one of the best bands in the world.
Life is good.”
Kerr jokes that the only difficulty of his job today is remembering all his lyrics.

He explains: “I was in the park the other day with my headphones on, singing along to some of our songs, trying to learn the words.

“Then a man came up to me and went, ‘Hi Jim’.
I was so embarrassed as I must’ve looked nuts talking to myself, singing along to my own songs.”

After a final cup of tea, it’s time for Kerr and co to get back to rehearsing the set list they plan for next week’s tour.

He says: “We are looking ahead. We are on a roll.

“I think we’ve raised the bar here and that’s exciting.

So, we are not going to drop, we are just going to keep it going.

“The last years we have been propelled and I think we are going to be on a high from all of this for a long time. I hope so.”