Interview: Simple Minds happy to be back where it all started

In our exclusive interview, Jim Kerr recalls the early days of the eighties supergroup.

Simple Minds have played to fans around the world in a career spanning four decades. Live Aid, The Nelson Mandela tribute concerts, Wembley Stadium, Rock In Rio they’ve played them all.

But there’s one gig singer Jim Kerr will never forget and for all the wrong reasons. It was the moment he stepped on stage with his first band, Biba Rom, and their performance was such a disaster the audience burst into tears.

Jim still laughs at the memory of a children’s Christmas party in Glasgow in 1975. As kids tucked into ice cream and jelly, waiting excitedly for Santa Claus, the glam rock outfit played a set which caused chaos.

Visions of that fateful night came flooding back when Simple Minds prepared for their latest tour to promote their new album, Big Music. They’l playing 59 dates across Europe including Edinburgh’s Usher Hall on April 7 and Perth’s Concert Hall on April 8.

Before setting off, the group formed by Jim and childhood friend, guitarist Charlie Burchill returned to the Gorbals in Glasgow.

The now-revitalised area achieved notoriety in the 1960s for razor gangs, slum housing and poverty. It was pivotal in the rise of Simple Minds. They rehearsed in a new studio, Gorbals Sound, a converted building which formerly housed Polmadie Railway Social Club. It was a venue popular with their parents.

Jim and Charlie were stunned when they walked in to discover the tiny stage where they performed with Biba Rom 40 years ago was still intact.

Jim, 55, told me: “The rail workers organised a Christmas party for their kids. They heard we had a band and asked us to provide entertainment. I think they expected us to play Jingle Bells and festive stuff.

“But our set featured Heroin by The Velvet Underground, I’m Eighteen by Alice Cooper and Virginia Plain by Roxy Music. We were all wearing make-up and mascara. I was dressed in a blue satin bomber jacket, clogs and a red fedora hat. I was going through my David Bowie Hunky Dory phase.

“The noise was deafening. The songs would end and there would be total silence apart from the sound of kids crying for their mammies. When we booked Gorbals Sound, I thought they’d demolished the part of the building we’d played in. But they hadn’t. I had tears in my eyes when I walked in and saw the stage still there. To us it was like rehearsing on hallowed ground.”

Jim and Charlie know the Gorbals well. The Kerr home was in Florence Street while the Burchills lived in Ballater Street. The pair met after both families later moved to a tower block in nearby Toryglen. They attended Holyrood Secondary, whose other ex-pupils include former footballer and Sunday Post columnist Alan Brazil, comedian Frankie Boyle, and pop star Fran Healy of Travis.

Jim got an artistic education when he attended acclaimed drama productions at the renowned Citizens Theatre in the Gorbals.

He said: “The Citizens was as much of an influence on us as all the albums we were listening to. I was a fan of David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Peter Gabriel and Steve Harley, whose gigs seemed almost other-worldly.

“Similarly, we got that from the Citizens. We had an English teacher we looked up to. She said: ‘If you like art-rock music you should go to the Citizens because they do all the classic plays in a contemporary way. They involve a lot of the imagery used in rock ‘n’ roll. So we took a chance on it. It was an oasis for us as there wasn’t much art in Toryglen.”

When Biba Rom failed to hit the heights, Jim and Charlie formed band Johnny And The Self-Abusers, who caused a stir in Glasgow during the punk era. But they split up on the day their debut single, Saints And Sinners, was released in 1977. Undaunted, they put a new group together and pinched the name, Simple Minds, from a lyric in David Bowie’s The Jean Genie. They released their debut album, Life In A Day, in 1979, and the rest is history.

Jim told me: “Simple Minds had their first rehearsals in a dilapidated lamp factory in the Gorbals. Bare walls. No heating. Rain came in through the roof. But we were inspired. We wrote Pleasantly Disturbed and Chelsea Girl there, two of the tracks on Life In A Day.”

Simple Minds went from strength to strength and their string of hits includes Alive And Kicking, Don’t You (Forget About Me) a US No.1 in 1985 and Belfast Child which topped the UK charts four years later.

Albums such as New Gold Dream, Once Upon A Time and Street Fighting Years inspired Radiohead, The Killers, Primal Scream and The Manic Street Preachers among many others.

Big Music is their 16th studio album and the single, Honest Town, was inspired by Jim’s mum Irene who passed away in 2010.

“I returned home to help look after my mum and the lyric came from the last drive I took with her,” said Jim. “The weather was terrible but she wanted to go out. The roads were quiet as a storm was raging.

“We went past the big landmarks of her life and mine first house, first school, first factory, Celtic Park and even Rottenrow, the hospital where I was born in 1959.

“She was chatting away, telling me how much she loved her life and Glasgow. She said: ‘It’s an honest town’.

“I had a lyric. It’s one of my favourite songs on Big Music.”

You know the old clich you can take the boys out of Glasgow. Well, Jim and Charlie are living proof of that.

“It felt right to be working in a studio within walking distance of where we grew up. It reminded us of who we are and why we started the band,” said Jim. “Every night we go on stage we carry our city with us. We owe it all to Glasgow.”

When not on tour, Jim divides his time between a home in France and the Villa Angela, the luxury hotel he owns in Sicily.

He’s still on good terms with ex-wives Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders and Patsy Kensit.

Jim married Chrissie in 1984 but they split six years later. The couple have a daughter, Yasmin, 28.

Patsy, who starred in Absolute Beginners and Lethal Weapon 2 also appeared recently in Celebrity Big Brother. They wed in 1992. Their son, James, 21, works in the fashion industry.

Another love of his life is Celtic FC, he is a fan and active supporter of the club.