The band are so good, we just get on the wave and surf, says Simple Minds’ Jim Kerr
AS Jim Kerr readily admits: “There’s a bit of a moment going on with Simple Minds just now.”
We’re chatting in the bar of a central London hotel, along with guitarist Charlie Burchill as the singer enthuses about their stellar live shows.
He adds: “It feels like this wave and we are on the top of it. When the sound is great, the band are on form and me and Charlie are feeling fantastic we just get on the wave and surf.”
For anyone who has seen the Scottish band live recently, they are still as vital and powerful as ever and next week they release Live In The City Of Diamonds, the third album in the Live In The City series which captures the band as commanding as ever on stage at Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome.
Then, at the end of this month they head off to Latin America to continue their tour which also takes them across the USA, Canada and back to the UK at the end of June.
“We thought it was such a great tour that we better capture this while we can,” says Burchill.
“We are old school,” adds Kerr. “We see us as a live band, first and foremost. And this venue in Holland is purpose built for recording and filming. The album is a great thing for fans as it’s a beautiful package with different formats, it’s a real souvenir.”
Burchill, who along with Kerr lives in Sicily, adds: “On this tour we are going to so many different places. The American ones are probably the biggest we’ve done in 40 years — it’s really shaping up to be something.”
Kerr says: “You can feel the energy coming from the stage. We also feed off the crowd every night. The band are so good at the moment, they really are.”
“The band really own it live,” agrees Burchill.
“And I would say even more in the past five years when we’ve been playing a lot of songs that we’ve not played much before.
“Cherisse Osei, our drummer, is like the boss.
“She tells you what to do, and she’s really particular. She doesn’t miss a thing. And that makes everyone’s game go up.
“Usually, we try stuff and it doesn’t work, but because the band is so good, it works and it’s a great show.”
Early favourites like Sweat In Bullet, Colours Fly And Catherine Wheel, Hunter And The Hunted and Premonition all feature on the new double live album, along with the band’s biggest hits Alive And Kicking, Promised You A Miracle and Belfast Child.
‘Fans are very protective’
Kerr says: “It’s a good set list. We always throw some in for the hardcore fans as we remember loving David Bowie and Roxy Music and how important music is to your identity.
Now, whole families travel halfway across the world to see our shows. You see kids that have been dragged along to shows by their parents — but it could have been worse, it could have been Duran Duran!
Jim Kerr
“Especially back in the day, before a band gets big, they were YOUR band.
“As well as loving a band you’re cutting out an identity for yourself, just like how Charlie and I were growing up.
“It’s like we were walking around with billboards under our arms, saying, ‘This is the person I am.’
“When we got big success, that’s when you had to share your favourite band with other people.
“Fans are very protective, they want bands to be authentic and elusive and so we have different elements and challenges to meet.
“Recent generations don’t have that snobbery that we had when we were growing up. They don’t mind listening to what your parents are into.
“Now, whole families travel halfway across the world to see our shows. You see kids that have been dragged along to shows by their parents — but it could have been worse, it could have been Duran Duran!”
Simple Minds have been celebrating their 1985 megahit Don’t You (Forget About Me) hitting a billion streams on Spotify.
The song, which was written by Steve Schiff and Keith Forsey for the cult John Hughes film The Breakfast Club, recently celebrated its 40th birthday and is a song that Kerr and Burchill didn’t always feel happy about, having not written it themselves.
“It’s not a love-hate feeling anymore, but more of a love-guilt,” laughs Kerr.
‘Just to have a song that means so much’
“But we did feel guilty and precious about it at the beginning — not for long. It’s been very kind to us and what a gift horse. Just to have a song that means so much to people.
“We didn’t have hindsight or know about Live Aid and how it would be blown-up all over MTV at the start — it was just a little track on the demo and we just didn’t feel we deserved the success for something that we knocked out in a few hours.”
The track reached No1 in the United States and Canada and became Simple Minds’ biggest hit in the US.
Recently they have been invited to perform it on TV on both sides of the pond on The Jonathan Ross Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live in Los Angeles.
Kerr says: “I like to think the parts we added and the way we performed it made it into what it is today.
“When you think of the song you think of the “hey hey hey” at the start and the “la la la” to the ending.”
Burchill reveals: “Our biggest mistake is that we didn’t put the song on an album — that was a huge error.”
Kerr adds: “We made mistakes and it’s all part of growing. We were probably a bit too stoic but that’s because we are from Glasgow.”
Even at the height of Simple Minds’ success in the late Eighties, Kerr and Burchill said they were never allowed to get too big for their boots.
Kerr says: “We used to have this great Scottish sound guy who was a bit like a football coach and very straight-talking.
“I’d complain I couldn’t hear anything through my monitors and he would reply, ‘I wish I couldn’t hear you — you’re crap.’
“Another time we were playing a show in Glasgow and my daughter Yasmin (Kerr’s daughter with Chrissie Hynde) and her sister Natalie came up with us.
“They were only young and on the train there was a lot of fans wearing Simple Minds T-shirts.
“Yasmin was baffled to why these drunken people had T-shirts with mine and Uncle Charlie’s faces on them.
“They were really excited to come to Glasgow not for our show but because there was a Toys R Us next to the hotel.”
“My grandkids don’t see me as anyone but their grandad. For years my twin grandsons thought Charlie and I played for Celtic as they had a photo of us with our football shirts on.
“But then one of the twins was in trouble at school with a kid who had called him a liar for saying his grandad was a rock star.
“When he told me, I said well actually your gran is a rock star as well and not a lot of people can say that.”
Simple Minds return to Glasgow this summer for a special one-off hometown show at Bellahouston Park on June 27 — their biggest show in more than 30 years.
Kerr says: “We always love playing in Glasgow, it’s absolutely great.
“But the greatest thing is next day because it’s so much more than just a gig.
“Unfortunately, our parents aren’t around now, but it used to be the show where everyone would come — family, teachers, schoolfriends, the bin men.
“And you had to see them all the next day too. There’s something about a hometown gig where you want to go above and beyond.
“It’s fantastic to still have that demand and better than no one wanting to go. It makes you want to do your best every night.”
At the very heart of Simple Minds success has been the enduring friendship between Kerr and Burchill, who first met at the age of eight, when their families moved to the same housing estate in Toryglen, north Glasgow.
A joint memoir — Some Promised Land — about their friendship is out in October. Why has their connection lasted for more than 50 years?
When we were remastering our albums. I was at Abbey Road and a guy there was astonished that somebody for the band had turned up. He said band members usually hate each other.
Charlie Burchill on the band's enduring friendship
“The answer to that is because we don’t sleep with each other — yet!” laughs Kerr.
“And so far Charlie’s not tried to take half my money. Yet. That is the cheeky answer. But people always say, ‘It’s because you are brothers,’
“But brothers usually don’t get on, or quite often fall out. We don’t.
“Sometimes we’re not on the same page and you don’t know how to put it across. Then somebody says the wrong word, and It all becomes about that.”
Burchill adds: “When we were remastering our albums. I was at Abbey Road and a guy there was astonished that somebody for the band had turned up.
“He said band members usually hate each other, he reeled off about 20 albums where the bands couldn’t be in the same room together.
“Working on the book was interesting as we were interviewed separately and it’s amazing to see how we saw things differently.
“It was a real interesting idea as we have so much in common and all this history with Simple Minds.”
So, could there be a 20th Simple Minds album on the horizon?
Kerr says: “We’ve been in and out of London these last few weeks. We like to try and put down ideas before we go on tour, so when we finish we’re not twiddling your thumbs.
“Recently, it’s been about anniversaries and live albums, so, yeah, there’s a new record coming — maybe next year. It’s time to do something new and fundamental.”