\n\tIf you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, The Hollywood Reporter may receive an affiliate commission.<\/p>\n
\n\tHow could we forget about them? This week in 1985, Scotland\u2019s Simple Minds landed an indelible number-one on the wing of a smash that soundtracked the final scene of the era\u2019s seminal teen dramedy The Breakfast Club<\/a>. Also providing big boosts: the second British Invasion, MTV, Live Aid, and charismatic frontman Jim Kerr\u2019s high-profile marriage to The Pretenders\u2019 Chrissie Hynde.<\/p>\n \n\tFour decades on, the band embarks on its Alive and Kicking Tour of North America<\/a> this weekend and find themselves the subjects of a new documentary premiering in theaters next month. Kerr talks to THR about the \u201cwonderful\u201d 2024 festival gig that paved the way to this year\u2019s 24-date trek, how he celebrated the ascension of \u201cDon\u2019t You (Forget About Me)\u201d to the top of the U.S. pops, and why this Scot decided to make his forever home in Sicily.<\/p>\n \n\tThe Hollywood Reporter: You\u2019re days away from the start of the tour, which features guests Modern English and Soft Cell, and arrives at Los Angeles\u2019 KIA Forum May 22. Simple Minds don\u2019t tour the U.S. as often as a lot of your peers do. What made you want to headline a tour this year?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tJim Kerr: <\/strong>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\u2019t the only ones, because, within days, Live Nation were talking about giving us the chance to come back and play in America. There\u2019s 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\u2019t have been happier to get the chance again. So here we are.<\/p>\n \n\tI was at Cruel World. You played during a glorious sunset! And the crowd\u2019s reaction was rapturous. You sound like you were surprised by that \u2014 were you?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s 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\u2019re used to [over there].<\/p>\n \n\tYou\u2019re 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 \u2014 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tOne of the things from day one \u2014 don\u2019t ask me where we got the balls \u2014 was we wanted to be a great live band. What does that mean? It doesn\u2019t mean you just can play well or sing well; it\u2019s much more visceral than that. When you play, something happens \u2014 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\u2019t want to tempt fate here, but that\u2019s been the story of our life, playing live. It\u2019s a two-way thing, of course. There are some acts you go see, you listen and you watch, and that\u2019s cool. But then there\u2019s some acts that [close the gap] between the audience and themselves \u2014 this embrace goes on. Simple Minds are one of the bands that seem to be able to get that going. I\u2019ve no hesitation saying [it], because it\u2019s a different art. Playing a festival, it\u2019s not your gig. You\u2019re one of many, and there\u2019s so many outside factors. You don\u2019t know what the weather\u2019s going to be, you don\u2019t know if you\u2019re going on during the magic hour or not. But we\u2019re 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\u2019ll 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].<\/p>\n \n\tSpeaking of the weekend: Sunday is the 40th anniversary of \u201cDon\u2019t You Forget About Me\u201d going to number one in the U.S.. Do you remember where you were on May 18, 1985?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI do, because it\u2019s not every day you get both a telegram and a fax saying, \u201cYour song\u2019s number one on the Billboard chart.\u201d 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<\/a> 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 \u201cAlive and Kicking,\u201d when phone calls came to the hotel: Looks like it\u2019s going to be number one \u2014 get ready for this.\u201d <\/p>\n When it happened, I thought, I gotta open a bottle of champagne, because I knew it\u2019s not going to be something that happens all the time. Now, I\u2019m a very unusual specimen, as I\u2019m a Scotsman who doesn\u2019t drink alcohol. Don\u2019t 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\u2019s the best champagne you\u2019ve got? He said, Oh, I got this.\u201d I said, \u201cOpen it.\u201d He said, \u201cWho for?\u201d I said, \u201cMe and you, and whoever else comes through the door.\u201d And the first however-many people who came in got a glass to celebrate.<\/p>\n \n\tThere\u2019s a number one song every week, but \u201cDon\u2019t You (Forget About Me)\u201d is a Generation X anthem. I feel \u201cDon\u2019t You (Forget About Me)\u201d is to the \u201980s what \u201cSmells Like Team Spirit\u201d is to the \u201990s.<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tIt was a huge hit in all around the world. Even now, radio stations will get in touch and say, \u201cWe just had our poll of the best song of the \u201980s, and we\u2019ve lost count of how many times \u2018Don\u2019t You\u2019 was mentioned,\u201d 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\u2019s from a movie that\u2019s also so iconic to not only that generation but subsequent generations, with Judd Nelson punching his fist in the air at the end. It\u2019s rather thrilling that we\u2019ve got a song that\u2019s viewed that way, albeit, when it was first brought to us, we were a bit reluctant and wary.<\/p>\n \n\tTalk about looking a gift horse in the mouth!<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tA big part of the reluctance was the approach. It didn\u2019t come from the record company. [The songwriter] Keith Forsey came backstage one night and \u2014 how can I say this? \u2014 he was a little inebriated. We didn\u2019t know who he was. There\u2019s always someone backstage saying they want to work with you, and stuffing a cassette in your pocket, and you think, who\u2019s this guy? And that cassette remained in someone\u2019s pocket for about a month, and we didn\u2019t get in touch with them. Then, when the record company got in touch, we had this song \u201cAlive and Kicking, and we thought, Hey, if you want to work with us, you work with this. And they were saying, \u201cNo, that won\u2019t work with the script,\u201d which, of course, absolutely made sense. But you know, the attitude turned on a dame once we spoke to John Hughes<\/a>, and Keith came over and was a lot more coherent.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat did you think of the song when Forsey first played you the demo?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tThere was nothing wrong with it; just sounded a bit generic. We thought, let\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n \n\tTell me about the new documentary, Simple Minds: Everything is Possible, which premieres in U.S. theaters on June 13th.<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tYou\u2019ll 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\u2019t often see in rock documentaries. And the director, Joss Cowley \u2014 despite us thinking this young kid will never capture the safe case of the times he did. He also captured monochrome Glasgow in the \u201970s and \u201980s, 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, \u201cReally good job.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSimple Minds is Scottish, but you live in Sicily now. How did that come to be?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tDon\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2019s just a different world. I immediately envisioned myself living there in the years to come. Don\u2019t ask me how I would have done that or anything, because no one I knew did things like that.<\/p>\n \n\tAs 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\u2019t get paid. But we went and had the time of our life, and I started going back frequently place called<\/p>\n \n\tTaormina, where The White Lotus was filmed. It\u2019s 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\u2019m going to go there and spend about a year. I\u2019ll be in my Hemingway phase: I\u2019ll get the language, I\u2019ll fish for swordfish. I got the language; I didn\u2019t get get swordfish, but that was it. Ever since then, it\u2019s been home to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, The Hollywood Reporter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,13343,269,13347,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-108461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-john-hughes","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-the-breakfast-club","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114522036848698781","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}