How could we forget about them? This week in 1985, Scotland’s Simple Minds landed an indelible number-one on the wing of a smash that soundtracked the final scene of the era’s seminal teen dramedy The Breakfast Club. Also providing big boosts: the second British Invasion, MTV, Live Aid, and charismatic frontman Jim Kerr’s high-profile marriage to The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde.
Four decades on, the band embarks on its Alive and Kicking Tour of North America this weekend and find themselves the subjects of a new documentary premiering in theaters next month. Kerr talks to THR about the “wonderful” 2024 festival gig that paved the way to this year’s 24-date trek, how he celebrated the ascension of “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” to the top of the U.S. pops, and why this Scot decided to make his forever home in Sicily.
The Hollywood Reporter: You’re days away from the start of the tour, which features guests Modern English and Soft Cell, and arrives at Los Angeles’ KIA Forum May 22. Simple Minds don’t tour the U.S. as often as a lot of your peers do. What made you want to headline a tour this year?
Jim Kerr: Exactly a year tomorrow, we came over for one show in Pasadena: the Cruel World festival. We were putting a toe in the water, seeing how that would go, and we were blown away by the reaction we received. And we weren’t the only ones, because, within days, Live Nation were talking about giving us the chance to come back and play in America. There’s been a huge imbalance in terms of the touring that Simple Minds have done through the years elsewhere and in the U.S., and we couldn’t have been happier to get the chance again. So here we are.
I was at Cruel World. You played during a glorious sunset! And the crowd’s reaction was rapturous. You sound like you were surprised by that — were you?
That’s right. I know we have great fans here, and people who know the band usually really love the band. But there was something in the air, and we sensed it before we went on. When we looked out there, there was already a much bigger crowd than we expected. And when we went on, like 14 minutes later, it felt like, Oh, God, are we in Europe here?! Because it was more the kind of situation we’re used to [over there].
You’re humble in saying all of this, but 40 years ago this July will be the anniversary of Live Aid. Bob Dylan played that day in Philadelphia, as did a reunited Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. But Simple Minds got one of the biggest reactions from JFK Stadium — you personally held the crowd in the palm of your hand that day, even though the band was still quite new to the American audience.
One of the things from day one — don’t ask me where we got the balls — was we wanted to be a great live band. What does that mean? It doesn’t mean you just can play well or sing well; it’s much more visceral than that. When you play, something happens — you transcend. We dreamed that we would be able to do that, and within a few years of playing, wherever we went, we were able to get audiences in the palm of our hands. Now I don’t want to tempt fate here, but that’s been the story of our life, playing live. It’s a two-way thing, of course. There are some acts you go see, you listen and you watch, and that’s cool. But then there’s some acts that [close the gap] between the audience and themselves — this embrace goes on. Simple Minds are one of the bands that seem to be able to get that going. I’ve no hesitation saying [it], because it’s a different art. Playing a festival, it’s not your gig. You’re one of many, and there’s so many outside factors. You don’t know what the weather’s going to be, you don’t know if you’re going on during the magic hour or not. But we’re really strong at festivals. We can just put everything to the side and get on with it and and sweep the audience up. And we’ll certainly be looking to do a lot more of that in the the weeks ahead, starting next weekend, when we start the tour [May 16th at Cascades Amphitheatre in Ridgefield, Washington].
Speaking of the weekend: Sunday is the 40th anniversary of “Don’t You Forget About Me” going to number one in the U.S.. Do you remember where you were on May 18, 1985?
I do, because it’s not every day you get both a telegram and a fax saying, “Your song’s number one on the Billboard chart.” I was in the south of France for my sins. We knew were going to work with Jimmy Iovine and Bob Clearmountain; we had a lot of the music down, but Iovine was really pushing for me to commit to the lyrics, and I was lagging behind. So I went to Southern France on my own, and I was just sitting on the rocks there with my Sony Walkman, writing the words to what became “Alive and Kicking,” when phone calls came to the hotel: Looks like it’s going to be number one — get ready for this.”
When it happened, I thought, I gotta open a bottle of champagne, because I knew it’s not going to be something that happens all the time. Now, I’m a very unusual specimen, as I’m a Scotsman who doesn’t drink alcohol. Don’t let the impression I was a goody goody; everything else I was up for, but alcohol just never suited me. However, that night, I went down to the bar in the hotel, where there no one there except the barman and me. I said, What’s the best champagne you’ve got? He said, Oh, I got this.” I said, “Open it.” He said, “Who for?” I said, “Me and you, and whoever else comes through the door.” And the first however-many people who came in got a glass to celebrate.
There’s a number one song every week, but “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” is a Generation X anthem. I feel “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” is to the ’80s what “Smells Like Team Spirit” is to the ’90s.
It was a huge hit in all around the world. Even now, radio stations will get in touch and say, “We just had our poll of the best song of the ’80s, and we’ve lost count of how many times ‘Don’t You’ was mentioned,” which is remarkable, considering the amount of great songs from that decade. I guess the thing is, not only did we have the song, but it’s from a movie that’s also so iconic to not only that generation but subsequent generations, with Judd Nelson punching his fist in the air at the end. It’s rather thrilling that we’ve got a song that’s viewed that way, albeit, when it was first brought to us, we were a bit reluctant and wary.
Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth!
A big part of the reluctance was the approach. It didn’t come from the record company. [The songwriter] Keith Forsey came backstage one night and — how can I say this? — he was a little inebriated. We didn’t know who he was. There’s always someone backstage saying they want to work with you, and stuffing a cassette in your pocket, and you think, who’s this guy? And that cassette remained in someone’s pocket for about a month, and we didn’t get in touch with them. Then, when the record company got in touch, we had this song “Alive and Kicking, and we thought, Hey, if you want to work with us, you work with this. And they were saying, “No, that won’t work with the script,” which, of course, absolutely made sense. But you know, the attitude turned on a dame once we spoke to John Hughes, and Keith came over and was a lot more coherent.
What did you think of the song when Forsey first played you the demo?
There was nothing wrong with it; just sounded a bit generic. We thought, let’s go in [to the studio] for a few hours; nothing ventured, nothing gained. And it was a few hours, no more. Yet here we are all this time later talking about it.
Tell me about the new documentary, Simple Minds: Everything is Possible, which premieres in U.S. theaters on June 13th.
You’ll see a pattern here, as we were reluctant to do that as well. We just thought, how do you do make it in any way unique? But there is a great humility about it that I don’t often see in rock documentaries. And the director, Joss Cowley — despite us thinking this young kid will never capture the safe case of the times he did. He also captured monochrome Glasgow in the ’70s and ’80s, where we came out of, dreaming big. And he captured all of that. And then, you know, it, it in a condensed way. It gives the story of the bands, the ups, the downs, the sideways and stuff. And by the end, we had to put our hands up and say, “Really good job.”
Simple Minds is Scottish, but you live in Sicily now. How did that come to be?
Don’t ask me how my mom and dad scraped together the money, but they did, and we went there on this school trip when I was wasn’t quite 14. Getting off the plane in Italy, I realized the world was in color because, being brought up in Glasgow, which I loved, it’s just a different world. I immediately envisioned myself living there in the years to come. Don’t ask me how I would have done that or anything, because no one I knew did things like that.
As it turns out, Italy was one of the first countries that really embraced Simple Minds. But the one place no band went was Sicily, because the mafia was going to steal your equipment and you wouldn’t get paid. But we went and had the time of our life, and I started going back frequently place called
Taormina, where The White Lotus was filmed. It’s a stunning place, and the history is incredible: Roman, Greek. By the end of the 90s, when Simple Minds were less busy than we would like to have been, I thought, I’m going to go there and spend about a year. I’ll be in my Hemingway phase: I’ll get the language, I’ll fish for swordfish. I got the language; I didn’t get get swordfish, but that was it. Ever since then, it’s been home to me.
