Regrets? Only those dreadful trousers I wore to Live Aid

SIMPLE MINDS return with a new album but the same defiant attitude. CHARLOTTE HEATHCOTE spoke to Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill about 30 years at the top.

BACK TO THEIR BEST Jim Kerr performs with Simple Minds BACK TO THEIR BEST: Jim Kerr performs with Simple Minds

I’ve got my mojo back,” smiles a jubilant Jim Kerr. His band Simple Minds, who have sold about 25million albums, recently celebrated their 30th anniversary but went back to their Glasgow roots on their new album Graffiti Soul.

Celebrated for hits including Don’t You Forget About Me and Alive And Kicking, these days Simple Minds are essentially Jim and guitarist Charlie Burchill, firm friends since a shared childhood in Glasgow’s tough Gorbals district.

They’d already decided to spend last summer recording the album in their home city but then Jim’s mum was taken ill.

She’s now on the road to recovery but Jim explains: “I thought I’d be staying in a hotel and seeing her for lunch but I found myself back at the same kitchen table in the same house where I grew up. So after all we’d been through I was a 50-year-old man back living with Mum and Dad.”

At the same time, both Jim and Charlie are also currently single, with none of the family or relationship commitments they say have distracted them from music in the past.

As a result Jim found himself “putting more time into the band than I had for the past 10 years” yet Graffiti Soul is also a more instinctive record since the band that once spent a year recording their albums turned this one around in just nine weeks.

The result is an ambitious stadium rock record with echoes of U2, full of conviction and indelible rock riffs.

“Nine weeks doesn’t give you time to fiddle around and screw the thing up,” says Jim, dryly.

Despite their productivity, there’s no chance of the pair making a permanent return to Britain.

Jim lives in Taormina, Sicily, where he owns a hotel; Charlie’s based in Rome. The British climate means they’ll never move home, especially now they can get Radio 4 online.

Both live alone and like it that way, although Jim remains friendly with both of his ex-wives, Chrissie Hynde and Patsy Kensit (he has a daughter, Yasmin, 24, with the former and a son, 16-year-old James, with the latter) and it has been reported that his marriages fell apart because he put the band before his family.

Although Jim says, “I’m not sure I would have put it like that,” he stops short of contradicting it.

“The thing is timing. When the doors opened we had to go through them. That was the choice we’d made with our lives, not only in terms of giving them meaning but also making them pay for themselves. That involves a particular commitment so we were all over the shop. You don’t get to choose when you fall in love. We were young, that was just how it was.”

Jim has no desire to marry again. “I’m not ideal marrying fodder,” he admits.

“I might decide I want to go to India without having to check in and see if it’s all right. I go to bed at 8pm and get up at 4.30am. Who the hell is gonna live with that? I love women, I really seriously love them but I need to do my own thing.”

Romantically speaking, he’s far from lonely though. “I have a couple of ‘friends’ who don’t mind me coming and going,” he laughs.

These days, his relationship with Chrissie Hynde sounds very grown-up and there’s something heartwarming about the fact that he’s still friends with her parents.

“She’s great,” he says, although at least initially the harmony was for the sake of their daughter.

“If the mother’s happy, the chances are the kids will be happy.”

Even when Jim and Charlie were married, they used to go on holiday with each other.

It’s five years since Charlie separated from his wife and he too is enjoying his own company too much to settle down, meaning their most enduring relationship is with each other.

“We’re best mates and we’re also like brothers who hang out together,” says Jim. The passage of time has made them “something more than brothers”, even though they can’t agree on why that is.

“I think because we’ve got so much in common,” suggests Charlie, while Jim demurs, laughing, “I would say it’s because we’ve got nothing in common and we’re totally different.”

Last year the band met Coldplay, who asked them what advice they could offer, band to band. Jim advised them not to split up.

Easier said than done, surely? Simple Minds have certainly come close.

“The light flickered,” admits Jim .

“Charlie’s stoic and I’m the drama queen. No one wanted to keep running for the hell of it, becoming a shadow of ourselves, but we never strayed too far from playing live . We always wanted to be a great live band .”

There aren’t many bands who fulfil such ambitious goals.

However, they concede that with hindsight they spent so much time on the road that their songwriting started to suffer.

Jim also speaks of the lines blurring between the music he wanted to make and what he felt was expected of him, admitting that Simple Minds delivered records, which he won’t name, that were “half-baked” just because they had a tour coming up.

“You convince yourself that the half-baked side was an artistic move but, eight years ago, it was like getting blood out of a stone. We were insecure and uncertain about everything. Through the years, you see yourselves become an industry.

"You have lives outside of work – which is great, you’re one-dimensional without it but it detracts from turning up for work. Then, two albums ago, we started to feel we were going in the right direction again.”

Charlie agrees: “In the first 10 years, you’ve got no responsibilities and it’s just music, music, music. Obviously you then have to divide your attention.”

Jim is defiant about their more challenging period, though.

“Even the greats: John Lennon stayed at home baking bread for three years, Bob Dylan went to Joshua Tree, Springsteen went to Nebraska then said, ‘What the hell am I doing in Nebraska?’ But we wouldn’t have changed anything anyway. It was very exciting.”

Perhaps that defiance is why his favourite song on the record is This Is It, which he describes as having a touch of I Will Survive about it. In fact, Jim insists his only regret is a trivial one: “I wouldn’t have worn the trousers I wore at Live Aid.”

Graffiti Soul (Universal) is out tomorrow.

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