Jim Kerr of Simple Minds on Live Aid, Celtic and playing in Ireland
Charlie Burchill and Jim Kerr of Simple Minds. Picture: Dean Chalkley
It’s a moment Jim Kerr won’t forget. Walking on stage to perform Don’t You Forget About Me and Promised You A Miracle during Simple Minds’ slot at Live Aid back in July 1985 at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. “We were on for 15 minutes and I spent 13 of them thinking about the fact that we’d just been introduced by Jack Nicholson,” he recalls.
Kerr was unaware he was going to be presented by the actor until the last minute. “I just kept thinking Jack Nicholson, I can’t f**king believe it, this is while we’re being broadcast to one of the biggest television audiences ever [1.9 billion]. He was everything you would want him to be, immensely warm and friendly, I’ve found that with all those guys, De Niro, Pacino, they might be movie actors but they are so real, that’s what’s appealing about them.”
No wonder Kerr is in the mood for reminiscing. He has recently resumed a 40th-anniversary tour with his band that had ground to a halt when the pandemic hit. Upcoming dates include an appearance at 3Arena in Dublin on April 17.
“Before we knew it we were back at home and haven’t played live since,” says Kerr. “We thought we’d be back in the summer but here we are two years later. Playing live is the centre of our lives, we’re a live band and our crew are like family, it was a lot to put on hold. Charlie [Burchill, guitarist] and I kept writing-we have a new record up our sleeve which will come out at some point.”
Our chat takes place just after Celtic successfully kept this season’s title hopes breathing by beating Livingston 3-1 during an away fixture. Kerr watched the game in Taormina, Sicily, with his Japanese partner Yumi, where he owns a hotel. Coincidentally, the soundtrack to Sky Sports' broadcast of the game included Simple Minds’ 1995 single Hypnotised.
Kerr says both Yumi and himself have enjoyed watching the current crop of Japanese players at Celtic. “I can relate to the culture, I’ve been with a Japanese woman for 22 years now and she loves the Celtic. When [Shunsuke] Nakamura signed [in 2005] we were invited to meet him at the club. They are great characters and never let you down.”
The conversation turns to current Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou. “I’ve got a lot of Australian pals. One of the first places that Simple Minds broke was over there. I know their character well so when I first saw Ange I felt like I knew who he was. He has that very straightforward aspect to his character, you can’t mess someone like him about and I like that.”
Kerr was born in the summer of 1959 and began life south of the River Clyde in a Govanhill tenement before moving to a high-rise flat at Toryglen. It was here where he would meet future Simple Minds guitarist Burchill at the age of 8.
“Sometimes during rehearsals, Charlie will play an old riff. I’ll say: ‘Who is that Roxy Music or something?’ It turns out it’s one of ours. Part of it is getting older but when you have over 300 songs things get buried, sometimes you hear a guitar, keyboard or bass part that makes an impression again.”
Kerr is looking ahead to dates in his hometown of Glasgow and Dublin: “Like Glasgow your heart beats a bit faster when you play Dublin,” he says.
As well as having Irish Catholic roots on both sides from his parents Jimmy and Eileen, Kerr spent time living in Killiney, with his then-wife Patsy Kensit and son James. From a previous marriage to Chrissie Hynde he also has a grown-up daughter Yasmin. His former Irish home was sourced with some local help. “The guys in U2 set it up for me,” he explains.
With Bono having joined Simple Minds on stage in both Glasgow and Dublin during the mid-80s, what are the chances of the U2 frontman joining him for a number at the 3Arena? “You’re not asking for much,” laughs Kerr, “I met up with Adam [Clayton] for lunch recently so you never know.”
It’s often said Simple Minds were a significant influence on U2’s enduring 1984 album The Unforgettable Fire. “We’re big fans of U2, at that time it was great when you toured with bands like U2, The Cure or Echo & the Bunnymen, you’d get talking to them and the thing is; we all could have been in each other’s bands. Geographically we were all from different places but if you went through our record collections it would be the same stuff and I just assumed it rubbed off.”
Kerr admits there was a strong competitive aspect at the time which resulted in some verbal right-handers landing on the band. “It could be brutal, I used to take solace in the fact that they wouldn’t say it in a Glasgow pub because they’d get a sore jaw, but because it was music it was acceptable to denigrate somebody in the press. We were all young men trying to jockey for position and looking back now, our contemporaries all had their strengths and weaknesses but there were insecurities there too.
“Some bands had certain qualities that were more to my taste, I was a music lover and it was exciting to compete with them. If the radio was taking only two singles on the playlist then you wanted to be one of them, if there was only one record sleeve going in the record shop window you wanted it to be yours. The thing about all those bands is we are still going now.”
Simple Minds' concert comes just weeks after Echo & the Bunnymen played a 40th-anniversary show in Dublin. With The Cure performing later this year there appears to be something in the zeitgeist. Kerr turns his attention to a more recent meeting with Ian McCulloch.
“We were both playing this festival in Portugal, there was a knock on the dressing room door and Mac comes in and he’s great, we were delighted to see him. He goes: ‘Listen, I’ve got to apologise, I used to say all this stuff in the press about you. I say: ‘We didn’t know about that’ …lying through my teeth. He goes on: ‘I met my wife at a Minds’ gig and all I ever heard was about was Simple Minds; it drove me nuts'. Well, I can understand that. Two weeks later he does an interview and says: ‘Simple Minds; what a bunch of wankers’." Kerr is laughing: "I think it’s an act.”
Unlike his contemporaries, Kerr managed to record with the art-rock triumvirate who influenced all of the aforementioned bands singing backing vocals in-between David Bowie and Iggy Pop on the latter’s Play It Safe from his 1980 album, Soldier.
Kerr would also achieve a further coup when Lou Reed appeared as a guest vocalist on the Simple Minds single This Is Your Land, from their 1989 album Street Fighting Years. “We sent him a note and he said: ‘Yeah, I’ll do it.' It’s a bit like Jack Nicholson and almost as brief. We went over to Paris to meet him and he came down to the studio for an hour dressed in a leather jacket, smoking a cigarette. He was very camp and couldn’t have been sweeter. Someone at the label said he was a nightmare to work with but in all honesty, he couldn’t have been better.”
We know what Kerr was thinking about in the first 13 minutes of that Live Aid appearance; what was he thinking in last two? “I was thinking about my trousers; I had on these white trousers flapping in the wind that looked like I should have been on a yacht. I was thinking; wrong trousers.”
- Simple Minds will play the 3Arena Dublin on April 17
