Jim Kerr

love affair that began with Italy. I was very fortunate in the sense that my parents sent me on a school trip to Italy when I was thirteen, and even then, I mean compared to Glasgow, the city that I'm from, growing up there in the sixties early seventies, I think the best way to describe it is to see that

it was a monochrome existence. And as soon as I got off on the plane in Italy, I discovered the world was in color, and I said, well, you know what, when I'm an old geezer, I'm gonna come and live here in one day. I always had it in my mind. Um, however, at the age of about twenty. We're very fortunate not only to be in a band, but in a band it was already getting quite a lot of traction throughout Europe. Italy was one of the first places that embraced my band,

and I got to another country very well, north and south. Now, the south is a different deal from the rest of the country. Back then, everyone says, you don't want to go be going down there. You don't want to be playing down there. The Marfael steal your guitars and Marfa will steal this. You live a horrible time. Well, we went down at the time of our lives. And how many years now, well, oh my gosh, thirty years more. Um So, still he has been a part of my

life lately. I mean I am now fully Italian resident. Brexit was a final straw for me there. I thought, no, I'm not being dragged out of Europe by some buffoon, and so um I am. You could say I'm almost Italian national, which not many people emigrate to Sicily. It's usually a history of immigrating from Sicily. But I'm very fortunate to people they had accepted me and the stories within stories within stories, Okay, why Sicily as opposed to shall we say the mainland? I think the best way

to say this. I mean it's a bit, a bit of a vague word, but Sicily is cosmic. The history of Sicily. I mean, that's what it all kicked off. That's going back to, you know, way before the Romans, It's the Greeks. It's an It's an amazing place. I mean, where I am in Sicily, you could say that Africa's probably nearer than Rome. So you've got that continental drift, you've got all that history. I mean, it's mind boggling and right in the middle of the island. And there's

a story there as well. Um, there's a huge volcano, Mount Etna, that I see every day. Um my grandfather used to talk about it. He was in the Highland Infantry. He was insicially during the war and I think he had the time of his life. Yeah, I think he had a story there as well, because every time he had a couple of whiskeys, he would go on about how beautiful the Italian women were and how great the Italian people. When I would say you were there in

the war, what about the fighting? He said? He said, I didn't fight with anyone. Um, it's the greatest place. And he kind of planted the seed, you know when your kids and people are talking about volcanoes and all that stuff. I think he planted the seed. And all these well, all these years later, Um, if only he would know, if only he could have known how things have ended up. So Um, there's a lot of thoughts that I haven't quite joined them up. But that's only

the short answer. Now you own a hotel there, Well, that's right, Um, I think let me see a run about where am I? Twenty years ago? Um, things weren't looking too great for simple minds. I mean, the wheels had come off, A new generation had come along. Um, it's the expression you use. A lot or cheese had been well and truly stolen. And to my songwriting partner Charlie, he says, I only I only felt this way for about two days, but I definitely felt plan bes needed now.

As I already said to you, Sis, Italy was in my heart and I thought it was the time when the career was going down the tubes, divorces and all that it happened. I thought I'm going to go down there for a year. Get the language see what evolves, you know, And I thought, you know, we've been doing this for ten twelve years. Even the Beatles couldn't make it last more than ten years. I didn't want it to the last moment. Ten years. I mean the other

thing we also felt, We didn't feel. We weren't embittered or anything like. We felt no one knows is anything? What a great time? Maybe that's it? So um all that sounds very practical, but there is the other sage you think, well, who am I? What am I going to do? How do you be ex? Gim care? How do you be how do you be ex simple? How do you be an ex rock star? There's not really

a guidebook for that. But I thought, I'll go down and I'll just maybe I was in my hemmingway face, I'll go down and I'll be I'll fish for tuna, I'll get the language, I'll fall in love. Well I didn't fish for tuna. I did get the language, and inevitably I felt in love. Was all as a woman involved, as I'm not, um so, there's always a lover involved. Um So, all of that came to be and I

was loving it. I was staying in this Uh, friends, apartment the basement of his place, and I felt so full of vitality and I thought this, this is the place for me. And just as I was thinking that, a piece of land became available next to us, and I thought, hmm, bed and breakfast. Maybe I could make that work because it had a planning permission now, and from a family of builders as well, back in Glasgow. And I spent a few years in building sites just

before getting into music. And you can imagine when I told the bank manager back in Scotland, and when I told our accountant that I was going to buy land in Sicily and I was going to build what has become a hotel. They said I was crazy. They said it is the worst place. Italy was the worst place in Europe to invest. Sicily was the worst place in um Italy to invest. And I said, okay, I hear you, I hear you, I hear you. I won't do it. I got up pretty much the next day and signed

the papers and we haven't looked back. Okay, so why build as opposed to just buy something? Well, the old hotels they come with all these planning permisss. Sorry you you can't get planning permissions you know, when you go in those those old, ancient places, I mean, it's very hard to make it work in terms of well, unless you've got gazillions. This place was available with a certain kind of planning permission for a certain kind of building. Is not the most beautiful building, but it has the

most beautiful views. And that was a big, big part of it. And obviously I had friends there as well, a partner who shall we say, had all the right contacts, and you know, I mean there's a whole book in in that. But it wasn't all plane sailing. I mean some nights I woke up in the middle of the night in the colts were thinking what the heck have I done here? But as soon as the place opened, it's been open now twenty years. People go there with

people who content fifteen years on the trot. They love it as much as I do. And it goes without saying. I'm not involved in the running of it. Thank God for that. It would be more like faulty Towers if I was involved in the running of it. Um it's run by professionals, and and we keep adding to it as well. I have to say. During the two years of pandemic. Obviously it was closed, and we keep adding to it. I mean the futures calling though, I'll have

to decide the years to come. Just cause it's my passion doesn't mean I says my kids passion, And you know, I'm not going to be here forever, so there are decisions to be made. But but it's been great for me um as much as it's great at the end of the night when people come to a concert and you send them home, happy, revitalized, you can imagine that equally.

So perhaps even more so the people that come on holiday to a place and you you know, they came in from London, or they come in from Stockholm, or they came in from whatever, and you know they look a bit gray and their shoulders are down, and a week later they're full of color and revitalized. And uh, to be of service is a great thing. So how many rooms does it have and how many people can stay at one time? Well, we when we started it

was fourteen that was the original planning. We're up to just just under fifty now, so yeah, mostly double rooms. And where do you live? I live nearby. I mean it's that thing I don't go in every day because you go in every day you just see things that are wrong. People are having a whale of a time, but you justly see things that are wrong, and you think I told you to fix this last week or you know, or haven't we got that together yet? I mean that makes me sound like I'm a perfectionist. I'm not.

And then I look around and actually see people chilled and having a great, great time, and I think, well, maybe it's not so bad. I mean it's not. I've gotta see. It's not some rock star seehy hotel. It's a nice place. It's got sold. Um, people feel good sitting there and um. So you know, sometimes I do a blitz. I go in when they're at least expecting me.

I don't tell them when I'm going in. Let's go back to your inspiration for building it at the moment you thought Simple Minds was reaching the end of its life. If Simple Minds had reached the end of its line, how are you doing financially? Obviously need something to occupy your time. But if you were, you set for life when Simple Minds was, you know, up in the air. Well, we were very fortunate because we've been looked after I

have to see. I mean, um, we've done well, particularly the last say that was twelve years up until that time of thinking maybe the game's up here behalf of that. It was very lucrative. Um but as you know, a divorce here and a divorce there on a tax bell here, an attax bill there. But since I was young, I'd always made pretty good investments as well and properties, and um,

we really had been looked after well. Good accountant. A woman called Sandra Dodds who was probably more like miss Jean Brodies you more like a headmistress to us, who kept us on a straight and narrow you know. She would tell you, what do you need two cars for? Are you crazy? What are you talking about? A boat? What's this? What's that? And she would basically kick her ass.

And at the time she would talk about pensions. When we were you know, we would only twenty two and you think, penchion, I'll never be sixty five, Well I'll be sixty three next month. Um. So um yeah, if we would have been we would have been okay, had we remained sensible. So we're in an era where people are selling their rights. Do you still own all your rights? Just recently up until just recently above UM, but no, we have now sold their rights very recently. So what

happened recently? It was time there was an offer there. It was time we looked at what the publishing had been bringing in. We looked at the offer, We looked at how we could be intelligent. UM. The way we set that up over about a period of two years. It was a lot of back and forth. We thought about our kids, We thought about investments that we have and how we could possibly do better. We considered everything. It was time as basically the answer, and who did

you sell to? B MG? And did you sell a hundred percent? Or do you still retain anything we sold? And that's the publishing. What about the record royalties? The records now they're they're still there, But of course we don't own our records. We get the royalties, as you say, but I don't own them. So what do you do with the money. I haven't done anything yet, Bob. You know about some training shoes last week. I guess what I'm saying is, when you have publishing, they pay you

every six months. Probably your deal with be even though they can not to pay of what your rode and then then you get a check, you pay the taxes and then you can put it in the stock market. You can leave it in cash. So you know, have you just left it in cash waiting to see or you invested it. It's so recent and we have conversations about it every week about what's the next move. But guarantee we won't be going and spending it on post cars, that's for sure. What Scotsman. So why does Scots have

the reputation of being cheap? Is that real? No, it's not. That's something to do with Walt Disney. I think one of those cartoon things where you and um, I don't know, but uh and my experience that is not. But we like to play up to it. We like to have fun with with that. Um. But it's certainly not real. Okay. So, prior to Brexit, Scotland was constantly talking about seceding from the UK. Now subsequent to Brexit they're talking again. What's your take on that? I mean, it is a strange thing.

We grew up to tell you, it was really we grew up in a place industrial Britain and everyone in Glasgow really there was only one party for us. It was the Labor Party. But that was the industrial age, and of course you could see the political figure who presided over most of her my generation's career was none other than Margaret Thatcher, who a lot of the working class would say was a nemesis. I mean, my take on it was that a lot of those old industries

people had stolen their cheese as well. Globalization came, shipbuilding could be done elsewhere, iron could be done elsewhere, and a lot of these places didn't move with the times. And then they were left the industries needing constant subsidies. Margaret Thatcher comes along and said, no, no, no, those days are gone. We're going to close all of this now. Again, in a practical sense, comes to business, you would say, well, that's the way it goes. But there were communities left overnight.

Not even any empathy. I mean, I know you have that in the States as well. Just nothing. Um so she everyone I grew up with in Glasgow. I don't think hate is too strong a work to you. They hated her and they couldn't wait for the dawning of

new labor. A new labor finally came with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and people in my generation thought okay, we'll see a much more sympathetic, we'll see a much more intelligent But I have to see from my perspective the time they came in within weeks it looked like that was a fallacy as well. Basically the right and left they had all come into the center, into the middle, and in the case of Scotland, in the case of Glasgow, most of the population of Scotland's in the central belt.

They turned their back on labor the war as well, and this idea that Blair was bushes puddle didn't go down well and the Scottish Nationals started to play a card then and everyone almost as a protest vote, because you know, no one was really thinking about what's the currency going to be as the oil going to run out. Everyone was just saying, we want nothing to do with these people in ten Downing Street anymore. And to a

degree that's still the case. I mean, the true nationalists will tell you that Scotland can exists in the same way Denmark and Norway in Finland do. But let's be honest, Norway, Denmark and Finland have had a long time to practice at in Norway, Denmark, in Finland, you can't just turn it over night. I there would be a general look at the upheaval with Brexit. I mean there would be another colossal upheaval. Um. People would really have to think about that. I don't know if they do. I mean

what we really wouldn't need. I think with respect to the people that's in charge, they're just now you would need a supervisionary to pull that off with some applume. I don't see that supervisionary from where I'm standing. But you've got to remember I'm not there anymore. I'm in Italy. So you talk about living in Italy. You know, we've been exposed for a long time of people who are tax exiles from the UK. The stones other acts are

their tax advantages? Do you live in Italy? I mean a lot of the European countries now have incentives, but but I would still pay a lot more tax in itly than most Italian people. Okay, And just to be very specific, irrelevant of Scotland's place in this, what do you think of Brexit? Oh? Horrendous? I mean, no one really took it serious. That's the problem. No one took it serious. Um, And we woke up that day I mean,

I think I think I'm rating seeing this. The biggest disappointment I believe i'm rating seeing is the demograph young kids didn't turn out to vote, ironically, and it was their future that was a stake why they didn't turn out to vote. Um, the anti Brexit movements they put together. There was no campaign that she thought this is a joke, it'll go away. And and I think we heard that about Trump as well, did we not leading up to it? This is a joke, This isn't gonna happen, This is

not gonna be um. I mean, everyone seemed to be against him, the media, tech, you name it. Everyone was against him. It seemed apart from a lot of people on the ground who wanted to kick out at something. That's what it looks like Brexit. And I would imagine there'll be some parallels with the Trump voughte. Okay, now you know there's all kinds of issues with visas and equipment. Now in terms of your being members and equipment, are you sourcing that all from Europe? Or do you have

VC issues? Are you caught up in the Brexit world. They tell me it's been a nightmare. They tell me everything is ten times harder. Um, that's coming from you know, our production guys. I mean even today I have to say, it's like a whole catalog and stuff you've got to deal with. Um. I came off a bus today, fourteen hour drive from Luzanne. Now you said, well do you have to take the bus? No, normally we wouldn't with that kind of drive. But traveling just now anywhere between

just as chaos. Some air travel and airports trying to get their act together after the pandemic. But also I mean even getting on a plane two weeks ago to Oslow. When we turned up in Oslo, people were UK passports. We were in a queue with everyone else for about fifty minutes just trying to get into Oslow on on an otherwise quiet Wednesday afternoon. Whereas for the last well, all my entire life you just walked through. Um, so it's it's still um. It just seems a real message.

It seemed like, um, well, as you know, the slogan for Brexit was just get it done, and it sounds like as though that was all that was going to count. There was no thought about and what's next, and what's next and what's next? So um, everyone's left, everyone who was traveling, everyone who does business internationally with Europe um as paying the cost right now, you know, and something, Yeah, it'll get sorted, it'll get sorted. But I don't see

any rush towards that. I don't even know what it means. Um, I have to see I spend my time in Europe. Of course I live in Europe, most of our friends. I find the whole thing embarrassing. So you talk about this moment approximately twenty years ago we said, hey, is there a future for simple minds? What turned you around? Said?

There is a future? Well, funny enough, probably probably about two years after turning up in Sicily and thinking those thoughts, Um, you know, nothing seemed to be on our side with without a record deal, we're without a publishing deal, without management. Um. I really felt this is this is going to be a tough one. No one in the media was interested.

But there was a couple of things came along. An amazing thing social network where if you were a band and you would fans still in the world, you could talk to them direct, so you could say there was a glimmer of hope there. But actually what happened was the phone started to ring if you're a good band, if you're a great band, and I would like to think we're certainly the former, and we challenged to be the latter. Every night it seemed the phone would ring,

people started asking us to play. Now. The thing was, yeah, but how are we going to play what kind of things? I mean, I don't want to be disparaging, but we didn't want to do those eighties kind of sad you know what I mean, all these eighties acts bundled together. We definitely didn't want to do that. Um, So we turned a lot of things down. But what we did do was we started to write songs again. I mean, the big, the real big thing was at that point

you find out who you really are. And I'll say to you like this, if you're in the back of a van or mini boss driving past the stadium that you once sold out, on route to a club that is not sold out, you really find out a lot about yourself. First thing you find out if you've got the stomach to continue, you ask why you do it? And he said, well, what's the answer to that. I remember when I was a kid looking at the old

blues guys. I think, you know, I mean, I mean, those guys didn't even get paid initially for the longest time. John Ley Hooker and Chuck Berry and those guys didn't eventually be be king. But you looked at them and they were the only old guys then, and it was written on their face why they did it. It's who they are. Well, we found out then that that's also who we were. We were by that time, twenty were

by that time fifteen years in. How do you stop writing songs when that's what you've done since you were thirteen? You somehow have to silence the voices that are telling you this is pointless. It's never gonna be the same, It's never gonna be what it was. And you have to decide what are we gonna do here? Are we gonna go around like just punch drunk boxers because we don't know what else to do, or are we gonna

recome it like we did when we were kids. Now, when you're a kid and there's nothing else in your life, you're eighteen, you're seventeen, you commit everything that nothing else in your life. You can't believe you're getting the chance to make music night. Indeed, that's all we ever wanted to do we've got a record deal. Finally that was possible. But then you know, you get older and you've got a room in your life or other kids, success comes along,

you've got some money. You you know, you're living a much softer um. Are you gonna You've gotta turn your back and all that and going to a crappy old rehearsal room again and re engage and going there Monday,

if Friday and work through. Back to the songs, back to try and make the band great again, back to finding a great manager, back to finding a great age And are you really going to engage when you don't have to because you've got enough pastor you've got enough of I mean, you know there's billionaires out there, but I'm very fortunate as much that at the time in my life. I've always felt rich because I always felt I had enough. And when I say I had enough,

it's more than people I want to school. So the thing was, can we engage? Can we really try and draw something out of ourselves here? And that's what we decided to do. We were flat lining. We had to get up, we had to get off the table. We had to we had to get the ignition going again. We had to we had to turn the cat around, get it going in the right direction, and then we had to find out how many miles we could take

it down the road. And well, here we are whatever fifteen eighteen years later, and it's gone down the road and it's gone great. Okay, Simple Minds has been through many personnel changes and the two continuusing members of yourself and Charlie Burchill. When you said you got an inspiration to write songs, was that something individually? Did you call up Charlie? Did Charlie get ahold of you first? What actually happened? Well, I've known Charlie since we're eight years old.

We're both from Glasgow, we're both from southside of Glasgow. Um. At the age of it, we moved into this new housing ski well you call them housing projects, but as a housing scheme, a high rise, high rise apartment which they just started building in the major cities and the UK and particularly Glasgow. I mean those buildings quite soon

got a bad raw, but we loved them anyway. The first day literally moving in, my mother said, you know, as you did at that time, only want one brother, she said, get out and play, going out and discover the neighborhood. Now they were still building this housing project cement sand bricks, and we went down the street and there was these kids playing on this huge sand castle and the kids sitting at the top. I later discovered his name was Charlie Burchell, and we said, um, you know,

can we play? Yeah, you can play, let's play. So that was the first time I met Charlie. But the real key moment with Charlie was, and I remember this clearer than he does apparently, was but three years after that, at the age of eleven. Um, you remember this because they I think it was an idea that came from the States. Do you remember, Um remember with cigarette packs you got coupons and if you if you saved them up,

you could there was a g catalog. Well, Charlie's mom saved up a ton of Embassy coupons and she got charlie six string Spanish guitar. And I still say to this day, if Mrs Burshell hadn't done that, you know, I'd be driving a taxi. But I remember Charlie getting because he was the first kid I knew that had a guitar, and it was a summer's night he was in the street with that. Everyone was looking around um and it seemed like within a few months he could

play t Rex songs, she could play boys songs. He could and you know, to me, it was just it was magical. And that's really how we how we started to hang out. I mean we were in the same class at school. There was a few of it. Everyone was starting to get into music, but there was a few of us who were really into it at that time, the same time, age or twelve ago. My first job disgusting, really, but my mother got me a job cleaning the back store of a butcher's shop, amongst all the blood and crap.

But here's the thing. The first week I got paid five pounds, well five pounds. Then to give you, they give you some perspective. I bought my first concert ticket sixty pence and it was for the matenee of David Bowie. Ziggy started us tour. Now sixty pence had five pounds.

I was Frank Sinatra. I could take you an album cost one twenty and pretty soon I had this huge album collection that matched Charlie's Elder Brothers collection, and him and I would swap and we would be everything from Bowie to Roxy Lou Read, all the prog rock stuff, Um, Alice Cooper, the Doors just we're told a lot of people you've had on the show, Todd Rungren Sparks, Um, on and on, and there was a few other guys in class as well that had that same overwhelming passion

and really simple minds grew out of that. Okay, let's go back to the beginning. So what were the circuits dances? Financially if you growing up, what did your parents do for a living? How many kids in the family. Well, my parents were my dad was he worked in construction. My dad or my uncles there were some of them were tradesmen, some of them laborers. So it was building sites, cement and sometimes a Saturday if he was building a garage for someone or we would go and help and

would get some extra pocket money. But we grew up with those kind of physical guys. Um and Mom on the other hand, she was from a family of nine. All the interesting thing was being in Glasgow were obviously Scotts, but Glasgow is such a strong Irish community. Grandparents on both sides were Irish, so it was almost brought up with an Irish culture inside of Scotland, so we weren't quite sure who we were. We knew that London seemed

the long place away. Um we weren't Irish because it was real Irish people, but we were definitely brought up with this culture. Mom she was a machinist. She was she worked in the factories, heavy garmentree police uniforms, army uniforms, hard working girls. And I was thinking today because you know I was, I knew were going to speak. And my earliest music memory was Mom would get paid once a month and my aunt would take us up to

meet her at lunchtime. And two things great about that was would go to this car where we had nicker Boker Glories which were just wow ice cream and fruits. And then she would go to the record shop and she would buy a single, usually the Beatles, um, sometimes the Rolling Stones, and we go home and she'd put it on, she'd dance, and um, that was the first music I was conscious of. On that side, he was also a big, big music fan. He liked people like

fat Dominos. He liked a lot of the country stuff we called the country and Western then Patty Lane, Jim Reeves, all of that stuff really big in Scotland, Johnny cash Um and a lot of Irish rebel songs. So that was that was the kind of music that that was the background. People would work hard, they would enjoy themselves on a Friday and Saturday night singing and dancing. Glass was still like that. People Glass region spend their money. Edinburgh's old money. Um, they hold on to it. That's

the cliche. But Glasgow, and it's the time I grew up, it had more dance halls than anywhere else in Britain. People just love to have a ball. If probably Glasgow probably, I mean to your American audience, if you could imagine probably Detroit or New Jersey type of environment. Okay, so how many kids in the family. Well, there's two brothers. Um. I was the eldest. I am the oldest. UM. But the interesting thing was you'll find this interesting because you

you mentioned the band. But at the age of five, kid upstairs from us, because we lived in a tenement. Then kid upstairs his parents split up and it was kind of odd. It was very odd at that time, it was unheard of, but it was his Motherhoo had left and he was left. He was loved with it

dad and as dad remember his dad coming down. I remember clearly there was a bit of a commotion and basically my mom said his name was Joe Joseph was going to be coming for lunch and dinner and and he might be staying for us with us for a while, and which he started great. Another friend, Joe was already my my friend. Well, Joe stayed with us for about the next fourteen years. And Joe also was in a band called The Silences, who you mentioned just recently. Another

music fan. Another another one who wasn't prepared just to listen to records, wanted to actually get around to making them. So essentially it was like four boys eventually four boys and uh and the one one family. What kind of kid were you? Were you popular? Did you do well in school? How did it end with school? I think, going back, the first thing that really marked me out young I had a very quite pronounced speech impediment, a

stutter or stammer. There was no one else at school had that, and I wasn't bullied or anything like like that, So I'm not gonna go down that that road. But yeah, you know, people got used to that. But whenever I went outside of you could say my safety nead of people who knew me, I would I would be quiet. I was very quiet, and I think I realized this later on. UM being being quiet forced me to have this.

I think I also had a great inner dialogue. And I also made me listen much more to people, because if you're not talking, you're listening, or you should be, or you're noticing. And only recently I thought, God, that's that helped me a lot, you know, in terms of being a writer or or UM. At the time, it didn't seem to be an advantage. But anyway, it was super announced that, you know, they wanted to send me to UM, a different school, and my mother was having

none of that. UM. But other than that, I was popular. I was popular at school. I was kind of I was pretty bright as well. I mean when I when I tried, I would I would get casual one year. The pressure would be on to do well, and I would do well, and then I'd get casual the next year and the results would go down. So I enjoyed school, I am. The teachers were great, as I said to you earlier, even on a school trip to Italy. The

age at thirteen. You know that teachers would take us there and show us the world um or begin what became a hunger to see the world. So I was I enjoyed. I I really enjoyed school, enjoyed the cameraderie. Um. But the big thing was going back to Dad. That was a construction worker. As I said, you know, it was all about the pubs after work. And but the one thing so different from Dad and all his mates was he was a reader, a real reader, educated himself.

And I remember him taking me to the first library when I was six and getting me signed up and him telling me, you don't know what you've got in your hand. Well, the first thing you told me. He was so proud because the local library, the local library was funded by Carnegie, who everyone in America, of course is aware of Carnegie and what he did there. But he was a Scotsman from dun Firm one. He told me, this man has done this, He's built these libraries. What

you have in here, this is a golden ticket. Kids around the world would die or have this. And I remember him, and boy was he right. I mean he was he was banging on there. So that's a kind of that's the kind of background. Okay, I'm six years older than you, so what do I remember. I remember we had transistor radios, we were listening to sports. We're kind of aware of the uh, you know, the popular music. Then the we all wanted to be athletes. The Beatles

came along. Everything changed. Everybody bought a guitar, everybody wanted to be in a band. So when you grew up, you talked about meeting Charlie etcetera. Did you think you're gonna be a musician or did you think you're gonna be somebody else? And when did you say this is it? This is what I'm gonna do. Well, no, I mean you've been six years older. You you remember the Beatles,

you know, appear on TV. For the first thing, for me, the Beatles were more my mom's thing, even though because you know, they were just your mom and dad danced to them, and so it wasn't until for me it was seeing Mark Boling where that was the first thing that I thought, this is main Mark Bowland appeared on top of the Pops and you know it was like the coming of Jesus. Well we thought it was Jesus, but it was probably more John the Baptist Jesus was

still come. That was ziggy Stardust. But seeing Bowling, Uh, that's when we started buying our own records, not our modern dad's records, are not our big big Brothers records. This was our thing and that was something. But it really began with a life thing because having the money to go to concerts. Now, um I told you about you know the boy ticket that the the other great memory was seeing um you know when you turned up and for some reason, tours with start in Glasgow. I

think the agents would say send them up there. You know whoever it is, the Glasgow audience is a great one to get a start with. Well, I remember it would go like this. Let's say it was Genesis with Sell in England by by the Pound. They would be on the whistle Test. They agree whistle Test, which was our rock program on a Tuesday night. The Wednesday, I think Enemy would come up on the train from London, so we had the New Musical Express talking about the

tour coming. Thursday would be Sounds, the next magazine Friday would be Melody Maker. All this build up and tours would begin on a Friday night and usually I would be there in those years. But I like telling people this story. This is I really looked out. There was a kid in my class who said to me, you know you're gonna know all this muse all this weird stuff, gigs and all that. He said, I can get you into any gig you want to go to, which is

quite a statement. And I said, how come? He said, my brothers the head of security at the was the Glasgow Greens. Then I can get into any gig. I said, your kid, yeah, let's school. And indeed we went and his brother would open the door and we we got to see the Stones come through, Bob Marley came through, you name it, um Zeppelin, the Who. And then eventually his brother took quite a shaming to me. He said,

you're really into this. I tell you what. Um, sometimes we need a few kids to run out and get beer and cigarettes and all this for the bands, and you know, like a runner, you know, come up and you can do so. We then got to see sound checks and we got to watch on the side. We were just just kids and my There's there's a lot of stories that came from that, but the one I like telling the best is that the band that I loved at that moment, I really loved them as a

band called Mott the Hoople. I know you you. I think they're spoken to Ian and they were my band. And he said, well, you know, Thursday night, Mott the Hoople come up after school. I didn't even he didn't even go to school. I ran up. I remember getting the bus into town and the head of the road cruise said, no, not the Hoople aren't gonna sound check. Uh, they're doing Top of the Pops. They're not doing a sound check. Um, go over there and help the support band,

help the drummer. And I said, who's the support band? And he shrugged and went, I don't know. A band called Queen. And so I remember clearly being on the stage and then it just before Queen had come through with seven seas Awry, Freddie was already in the suit, the black and white suit. I already knew on hearing the guitar, what what is this? And so I stood by that night and watched Queen Blowmat the Hoople off the stage like like there was no stage, that's just

one and ignored. But in some ways it was like this is getting to your question. And someone was like it was amazing education. Did I look at Freddie Mercury or David Bowie and think I could do that? Not at all. Did I look at that world and think I've got to get involved with that world somehow? Yes I did. I would have been happy to be in a roadie. I would have been happy to be in a tour manager. I've been happy to being a manager.

And um, it didn't dawn on me someone with a stutter, a starmer who was afraid to stand up in reading class. Why would you throw yourself in at the front plane and make an absolute laughing stock yourself. No, that wasn't on the agenda. Okay, I've never been to Scotland. Actually is Scotland? I mean it's not wouldn't be identical to Kenna the United States, but some countries, even though they bud each other, it's like having a glass wall and

you look at the other side. Was Scotland fluid with London and UK saying oh yeah, I know, to mere Chest or wherever it was that like a big leap. Well again, it's funny enough it was. It was a big leap. London was a hell of a leap, you know. And of course not so much in Scotland, but you became aware as you get older of a class system now already explained to you that this is a phenomenal figure. Um,

we were from manual workers. The percentage of people in Glasgow who went to university that came from parents who were manual workers is something like not point three percent. So there was this feeling of oh, we just don't do that stuff. That's the class system, that's the way all above us. We're gonna have to find some other hustle. And so there was we we you know, and then people with those plumbing accents and Eaton and Oxford and

Cambridge and all of that stuff that could have been Mars. However, there was a kinship with people in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham who who were all in the same kind of industries. There was a kinship there. But the biggest thing, you know, transformative events in my life, one of the greatest things. People don't do it anymore. We discovered at the age of fourteen this thing called hitchhiking, where if you went down to the motorway and stuck out your thumb you

could go on some kind of adventure. And indeed both Charlie and I started to do that quite a lot. Initially it was hit shaking too. There must have been a year when the local venues in Glasgow we're getting re refurbished or something. So the bands we wanted to see where coming north that was stopping at Newcastle. Let's hit shake down to Newcastle and see aggy pop and we would hitch shakedown I mean lesson two hundred miles.

But of course when you got there sometimes you didn't even see the gig, but you met someone that became friends, a whole other adventure. It it's um. It was almost like for a lot of people the world ends at the bottom of your street, but for us, the world began at the bottom of our street. And I remember getting this is quite cute a letter from a friend who had moved to London, and he said, there's this thing called punk rock, the Sex Pistols, and it plays

every week. You've got to get down and see this hitch hikedown. You can stay with me. Now, what year woul dat have been? We already had were already sort of tuning into the ramons Paris Smith's first album. We knew about this punk thing, but up until then it was a New York thing. New York that was of course prior, but this English punk thing, the Stranglers. We heard John Peele was starting to play the Stranglers and we could really feel somehow the gates were opening something else.

So Charlie and I hitch hiked down all the way to London and we started to see these bands at the Marquee and and hoping anchor Elvis Crystello playing UM and Enemy was starting to rate about this stuff. And I remember, after going, I think I want to see Elvis Corstello in It was a tiny pub and it was it was electrifying, you know, he was just so wired.

The band was so wired. And then on the way back it was the first ever festival I want Bob Dylan was playing in Black Bush at the Clapton and with the greatest respect, I couldn't relate to it anymore. After seeing Elvis Costello pumped up and playing those I just we that's where it is. After seeing the Stranglers, that's where it is. Um it's really m And of course before we knew it, this um let's call it the punk Revolution had cutlet wildfire through the UK and

for the first time. It really was the the lunatics had taken over the asylum in a way that I could never imagine before. Before we knew it, kids like us were starting bands. Kids like us, we're starting fashion labels, kids like us were making documentary, starting fanzines. Suddenly it felt like m It felt like the shackles were off. It didn't matter what school you went to. It didn't matter if you had a rich daddy, it didn't matter

if if you had a manager in London. And the liberation of all that set certainly set me on course, and people are my A lot of artists from my generation set us on course to you know, still to where we are today. Okay, it's unbelievably hard to make it talented, is it? Most fifty percent? So needless to say, you and Charlie made it. Who was the driving force? Was that you? Was it? Charlie was a third party? Did you ever waiver say Okay, we've seen the future,

We're gonna go, We're gonna get there. I mean, you could say it's all about music, and certainly Charlie plays the music. But I've got to give great credit also to the guys in the band Michael McNeil and keyboards. Denck Forbes was really a guitar player who played basslines as well as a guitar. The everyone was chipping in, but as you know, there needs to be a vision of a writing. There needs to be a vision. What kind of band are we going to be? What's the

ethics gonna be, what's the ideal is gonna be? Was the looks gonna be, Who's the producer we're gonna work with, who's the artwork? It was me and it still is me, and um, Charlie's absolutely cool with that. I mean, on top of the fact that I write lyrics and melodies. But it goes back to this thing and I just didn't want anything else in my life. I mean, in those young years, I have to see now, I really

regret it. I was horrible with the girl friends and and and the wives and all when they when anyone came, when anything that caused work to stop. I was an anti social because I was just so into it. Um And I'm still so into it. Um. But I I I kind of well if if the people who knew me around and they say that when I whenever I turned up with my demo, cassette. Listen to this, this is what what we're gonna do. There was all there was always some kind of plan there, There was always

some kind of vision there. Um. I don't know how I was able to do that. I don't know, you know, because there was no there was no rock school, there was no there was no you couldn't go along to the guy along the road whose uncle was in a band and could show you how to do There was nothing. So it was all on and sheer instinct. Um, but

I am. It's amazing thing. On Sunday there we played a gig in France and this time there was a lot of eighties bands playing playing there and names you'll know, Madness, the undertones um oh m D. And the amazing thing was you talking to those guys. They all went to school together. Now, I'm not sure what other industries where I guess it doesn't happen now. Bands really even happen now, But they all went to school together. Now, I'm not

even sure what other industries that ever happened. I mean, of course we know about Bill Gates and you know the how Microsoft began and a rather Apple and and those guys they were, but it is amazing. I mean, of course that goes back to the ly Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the Who and all of those bands. It was really it was a school thing and everyone has their part to play and it um fits together

to a point where it stops spitting together. Okay. You know when bands get together and they start to rehearse, and it's probably you. There's always someone say okay, we gotta get gigs, we gotta get an age, and we gotta get a manager. How did that all come together? Well, I remember, you know people talk about, you know, in the early days was also thing of you know, selling out and you know you're treating this like it's a business. I'd be like, what are you talking about? It is

a business? For example, business skilled business, lesson one or first over a gig playing in a pub in Glasgow and we couldn't believe we're even getting the gig, but the owner gave us the gig a Monday night that would be otherwise empty. We filled it with our friends and I went down a storm and you know, we

looked around. We get paid fifteen pounds. Basically it went something like it costs about five pounds to rent the van, five pounds to rent the p a, five pounds to get a couple of guys to help us, a driver or whatever. Basically, it costs us twenty quid to put the gig on and we got paid fifteen. So we were bankrupt on the first night. That was us. Now, as soon as the gig finished, I just thought, how are we going to get to the next gig? You know, we're five we're five it down. How is this going

to ever work? So I remember going upstairs and I got I got sent upstairs. He was upstairs the office to challenge him. It's pretty funny. It's a little Greek guy. And I said, listen. He said, you bands great, come back, you can play every Monday. I said, no, you this won't work. We're bankrupt. What are you talking about, I explained, and said, you have to pay us more more money. No, no, no, I'm not paying what I said. You have to pay us more. We'll fill This place would've been empty, and

I've been here on Monday nights empty. You have to pay us more. We can't make it work. Finally he said, all right. It was a steakhouse that the seller was the music upstairs and we're reading steak and stuff. He said, I'll do you a deal. I'll give you twenty five pounds if you turn down. And I said, we can't turn down. We can't turn down. People have to feel it. We can't turn down. It's too loud. I said, what makes you say it's too loud? You're up, Pierre, He said,

the peas are bouncing off the plate. He said, people are complaining up here, the plates are rattling. Well, we played there for the next six months and every time I'd go back and hit him up for more because we were then wanting to spread, going playing Aberdeen, going playing Dundee, going playing, studdling, and it became a real lesson. It became a real you know, a real uh lesson. It was. It was already a company. And that's a dirty secret, okay. The dream of a band is to

get a record deal. So you had a manager. It was associated with the airs. Do you get a record deal? How did that all come together? Well, that was an amazing thing. Um Our parents, they were great. Our parents chipped in to give us a hundred pounds to go into a studio in Glasgow to make a demo type um about five or six songs, and I had a friend in the local record shop who said, I can get you the name of all the and our guys. We didn't really we didn't know what in our guys.

We we came in you but he said, no, you just take it down. You give him your tape. He'll give it a listen. You know. We were so green, but at least being he worked in the record store, he was the cool guy. He gave us a name, you know, Island Records and whoever the CBS so we had. I had checked down with my friend David Henderson. Well go around there again. Can we see that in our guy? No, are you crazy? You're an appointment? No, no, you've what

are you crazy? So um usually be girls at the front desk, you know, and we would say, oh, that's a drug, you know, and maybe you'd like a cassette and bob. It took me two weeks to hitchhake home. But believe it or not, but tell you my hedgehake home. A couple of people had called that the girls had been playing the music and the recess usually you know, the interns and the receptionists and stuff. They and our guys walking through on the way to lunch. What's that

song called? Who's this? As? These Glasgow guys anyway? Big time? We had no manager. Obviously by time I had hedgehacked home. My mom said, oh, a couple of guys have called for you, And I said, well, who was it? Oh, I don't know. I didn't have a pen at the time. I was making your dad's dinner, right and I would say, well, was it CBS? No, I don't think that was it? Was it? E M I No, that sounds familiar a christ you know. She said, if they like you, they'll

call back. Well they did, and don't ask me where we got the hootspa for this. But two or three called back and they said, listen, we want to bring you down play a gig in London, do a showcase. Uh, we'll let the rest of the people in the company see now. To hear those words was so you know, people would have died. The local bands where we were would have died to hear the words. To every one of them. I said, no, no, no, no, you've got to come up here. What At that time people didn't

travel the provinces. You had to go to London that's why a lot of Scottish bands failed. That we go to London sudden they would be broke and then they would fall out. They'd be living in a squad. I knew all that. I said, now you've got to come up here. Now we don't, We're not gonna. I said, well, you know, we play up here. I knew. We played every Sunday night in a place called the Mars Bar. And by that time, not only were we getting good, people would come and see it. They knew every word.

So when they in our guys eventually made their way up and they did, it was like every song was a hit because the audiences knew all the choruses and and we had worked it out really so well. You know, we had our own little light show. I mean it was I'm talking about a tiny pub, but in our mind it was Madison Square Garden, and we already knew and you're gonna laugh at this, the I and he

we already knew the label we wanted. We wanted to be an arista why lou Reid, Patty Smith, iggy Pop, and it was an American and our guy there, you you may be known, guy called Ben Edmonds who who I really liked us, so we eventually saying and we thought, God, we're in the coolest label out. I remember going down to the Plush Offices and Marble Arts thinking home of lou Reid, Patty Smith, Iggy Pop. They only have one

huge portrait on the wall. When we walked in Barry Manilow, I thought, what is this and then I realized that's Botty that's paying for all of this, because none of the other three were. Let's be honest, um, but yeah, that was It was a dream to get a record deal. It was a dream too for someone who hung out and record stores all my life. To the first day when you see your single in the window of the store and I can't tell you that thrill of that,

it's something that will never leave me. Okay, Now, all those early albums didn't come out in America. The first thing we saw was New Gold Dream, which was on A and M Virgin through A and M. It was hard to follow what went on before, even though all the press SAIDs I mean, so what was going on when you run Arista? Well, unfortunately not a lot in terms of sales. I mean, what happened was there was there was always a couple of says to simple means.

I mean, we really started out wanting to be an art rock band for for lack of a better term, and indeed we still do, to be honest with you, but we couldn't help ourselves in the sense it there was always a few pop tunes in there that would make us different from Magazine, that would make us different from Wire, um, that would make us different from the early ultro box um. But there was always this what is it gonna be? And our first album came out

and based on based on the live work. I mean even before even before we played in England, our album was out and in the chart just in Scottish sales alone. But that was the life thing. The record came Now radio weren't up for it. Um. We didn't like it either. The debut album I remember thinking, I mean, it was a great experience. We worked with legendary producer John Leckey and I remember when you think about this, well, but

John in his well, it was a wisdom. Um. We recorded in this residential place with the Rolling Stones mobile truck and John thought we'll do that. That was a thrill to be inside the Rolling Stones mobile truck. But we'll save the budget and I'll take you to Abbey Road for ten days. Now. I guess he was thinking what an education that will be, and it certainly was, because as soon as we went into an Abbey Road I completely froze the magnitude of the whole the magnitude.

I thought, who you know that you're walking past? Where you know the Beatles plugged in here and we're pink Floyd did? I thought, who the hell needs us? It just we should have stayed in Glasgow and stayed in the little studio and worked on a much raw sound. I mean not all the guys thought that. Some of the other guys thought this is great, but I it was like being a rookie and you know you're already playing the World Series or something. You haven't even up

until then. We've only been in a studio in Glasgow for one hour. I mean it was like, what is this? So when the records were making the record, thank so the engineers and the production, I realized, now it sounded good. What has sounded? It sounded professional, but it was hollow. It didn't have the vibe and I we weren't. I was. I seen me the only one with the problem, but it just didn't make me feel as the demos were feeling.

So it was the first case of demo whitis. We should have just worked on the demos, so we we didn't like the first record, but we always kept this thing of playing live, and even though we weren't getting radio play, we would go round and round, and at first there'd be two men and a dog, and then you go back a month later and there'd be ten men and a dog, and then promoters were starting to say, listen,

I haven't seen that reaction that you got tonight. So we always kept alife then going, even though the first two or three records. But by the third record, and of course now this is insane, you wouldn't even get the chance to make one reagon. Now it the third record, we were in a heck of a lot of debt um and looked like we're gonna get dropped, and who

knows what was going to be. But just at that moment, this new romantic then came a lot where anyone that had a synthesizer and a bit of a disco beat um in our guys, we're up for you know. Duran Duran we're coming out Spando Ballet, We're coming out these the dance charts and billboard. Um. And we had a couple of songs that started to feature in that. And I have to say by that time our favorite record label had become Virgin. That's so much great stuff from

sex Pistols, xtc um, so on and so forth. Um, Virgin started to kind of put out the feelers, well, if you get dropped, we're here. And we didn't get dropped. To be honest, we had to buy ourselves out. Um. That was a bit painful, but Virgin picked us up and they were the greatest label to be with, and then threw them eventually in Them, which was another great

grit grit label to be with. But the thing with Simple Minds in Europe, UK and States, it was always out of kilter because as you you said, those for three records were released in America. So who bought you out of areas to yourselves or Virgin version brought us out?

The the the bought us out I think for thirty five grand and the first record we did with them, Clear the Debts, and from then on in the next four or five or number one albums, Okay, so as I say, from an American perspective, new Gold dream comes out comes out on Gold. Ye know, it really gotta push. What was the perspective from your end? It was exciting. I mean it's still you know, it gotta push college radio. Great friends of hers and especially the younger kids that

ain't Karen Globear. Jeff Gold was a kid then when Isaac's people like that on our side, um starting to push. But even with that, Bob, it didn't make a dent like it did everywhere else, I mean American Canada and make sure we got played there and started to started to feel like what we're getting places, you know, selling out the Massy Hall, and and and Australia. We were having hits, it seemed everywhere else. Let's just say we were at the door. We were at the door of

going into the bigger league. Of course, there was this thing just about to come over the horizon called them TV, but no one knew about that. Then. Okay, how do you end up working with Steve will lily White? What's that experience like? And how do you end up with Waterfront? Well? That was I mean Steve at that time, that really was not very many um not going to see young ish rock producers and Steve he had made a bit of a name for himself, especially with Peter Gabriel's album,

that Third Album which blew all our minds. But then of course the YouTube records, Big Country. There was a point where it just seems Steve was the only guy everyone was using drum machines. There was a point where it just seemed like Steve was the only guy that could make a rock record in the UK. M that's not quite true, but that's how it seemed. He everything he from XTC, you to UM so it was always imminent and then we ended up playing well, we ended

up playing a few festivals. But this time when I said we're going through the big league, same same life, we started to get asked to beyond some of the bigger festivals in Germany, Holland, Belgium, and then you would get to meet really get to meet some of your contemporaries and people would hang out. One of the festivals, it was a two day festival where we finally caught up with you too, and Steve was there with them

the first day. UM, I gotta get this right. They went on before us and the second day we went on before them, and that was a heck of an experience. They had just come back from the States with a gold album with War and to say they were main blowing was I mean, there were I could I couldn't work out whether the noise were coming for it only looked like when you see now the huge show. Back then, it looked like there was just a vox ump um

and they were mind blowingly good. Um so good. In fact, I remember someone said to me recently, Um, did you did you think then they would become the biggest band in the world. I said, well, I knew they would become the biggest band in the world. And she said, how did you know? And I said, because Bono told me they would. Um with that level of self assuredness and confidence. Um. But anyway, Steve was there, He's a charming guy, had made great, great records, and we were

we were wanting to be for sound up. Were brought in a much heavier drama and it all seemed to be It all seemed to be right. So what was the experience like in how you know my favorite song from that album's Waterfront? How did that come together? But

that's a song that was written. Really, I mean it's it's it's even hard to cause it's not a song in a traditional sense, but um lyrically, it's about the rebirth of our city, or city Glasgow, as many cities, originally began as a fishing village and it goes through, it grows, the industrial age comes, the city grows, it gets rich, the river dies all that pollution. Then the industrial age ends. There's rust everywhere, there's no more work.

Guess what, the salmon's back now. I'm not saying the whole city could live in salmon, Bob, but there was something in this about renew, rebirth. Take me to the river. Um. When I got the music. Usually the way it works, as I get the music, and nine times out of ten, I'm blown away with it and I can just hear an atmosphere in it. I see a picture in it, and usually it's in sync with some words I've been

thinking about or something. And the first time we played that song was at a festival and the song hadn't even a song. We hadn't even finished right in the song, but sonically it was so strong we thought we could just start with this as I kno with and see where the audience goes with it, and well they went mental. So we knew we were onto something and Steve brought a great, great focus to it. But it was the base players melody Derek Forbes. I've got to say that. Now,

what else? You'll be on the phone to me tomorrow. Okay, So I have you right here. There's a lot been written about tell me the story of Keith Forcey. Don't you forget about me? How it happened? Did you like it at the time? Did you not want to do it? Word was that you resented? That was a hit? What was going on? And what are your feelings about it today? Well, everything you said there is true. There was, there was. I can tell you our story, of course, I'll tell

you our story. I now keep hearing everyone else's story, and I think I don't think that's true. You know, I keep hearing that it was offered to this person, and offered to that person, and offer this person. It may well have been, but I'm maintained if it was offered to them, it was offered while we were refusing and Deli dallow and you might say the whole approach was wrong. We you know, we're all we're young, we

were brattish. We thought, why the heck would we do someone else's song, especially when we had just written this thing called Alive and Kicking, which wasn't out yet or recorded, but we thought it was the Bee's knees, and we thought, why would we do someone else's song? What's this about? Well, it turns out that Keith had come to see us play,

had come backstage. There's a lot of people backstage. I didn't get to meet him, but he had given the cassette of the song and said, you know, the record company is going to be in touch with you soon. He had given it to the keyboard player who put in his pocket and didn't listen to it for weeks. So it was going nowhere, and we started getting this these calls UM basically in him, in him, we're kind of saying we should have pushed harder with New Gold Dream.

They saw the success it hid everywhere else. We should have pushed harder. Um your next record. And you remember the great Charlie Minor. He was on the phone, you gotta do this, you gotta do this, this will set up your next record. Great. For those who don't know, he was one of the greatest promotion guys ever. Um, when Charlie got on the phone, it was like, oh, this is serious. He said, this movie is gonna be great, and um, this will this will set you up so good.

You'll love it and you'll love the song. And I said what song? And he said, UM, I thought you were I thought we were writing this song. None all the songs there, they've got the song for the movie. It worked with the script. And that doesn't sound good. We're our own songs. We'd never the idea of doing someone else's song was alien to us. Anyway, we listened to the song, and we don't think it's a bad song.

And I gotta say to you the other day talking about the how the way songs turned up on the internet now that the original demos, I love to listen to the the Jerry Rafferty song and how that dispute was. What a great thing to hear that. I played that

track actually about twenty times the demo. Um. Anyway, we listened to it and Keith was singing this song don't You Forget About Me, which to me sounded much more like the Psychedelic Force, who incidentally is a band we all liked it didn't sound like a simple main song. It didn't sound like a lyric I would write. Um, we just couldn't see, you know why. And we really dragged our feet. And I'm not sure about this, not sure,

not sure. And the way I remember it is that Keith eventually turned up, and the story was, you see, I already I know will come to him. I already had in my men. I wanted to work with Jimmy Iovine. I thought we needed someone really to pushes and writing better songs. But Keith turned up, and I see, I know you're not going to do the song, but maybe we'll work in future, and all that well alone, behold, we love Keith. Doesn't so much love his song, but loved him. And you know, you hung out a couple

of days and they happen. Why not just try? He would, very he would, very shrewd kind of codjoulders. Let's goin for a couple of hours. If it works, who knows, If it doesn't work, you get the record company off your back. Shrewd. Well, we went in and you know, literally was about two hours, and we mocked up the start to their song with a he he has and then we this whole breakdown thing. There was no words

for that. So I started to sing the corneyst thing that came in my mind, La la la la, And before we knew it, it was there, and I'll kept saying no, no, I got it back. I can't leave that quota like that. I have to sing meaningful worlds. But they weren't having none of it. And isn't it strange? You know? It's the way life throws up these things that were not You try, you're very hardest, it's something it doesn't work, and then something you couldn't care about.

You just do it and it becomes, you know, kind of a song of his generation, and some might even say subsequent generations. So how do you feel about it now? Well, the first thing I feel is the first thing I feel is this is where it's childish to have any problems with it. What I feel about it now is when we went in that day, we put our heart and soul in it. That was the thing, and we put our heart and soul in it. Every night we played because that song has given the world over so

much pleasure to people. Do we play it as sound checks? No? Do we played at rehearsals. No. Are we grateful for everything it brought to us, Yes, but I also think we had a problem. Is it's a stupid problem. We felt, God, We've got all that success with that thing, and we didn't We didn't deserve it. I think there's a feeling that we didn't deserve it. Um. Only therapists could work that out, Bob, but none of us go to therapy. Okay, so how do you end up working with Jimmy Ivy?

You know, he just seemed again as a fan of music, so many great records. His name seemed to be there. I mean the obvious obviously born born a run and then a Smith's Tom Petty dire straits. Um. I mean that's not bad right there, I have induced I have his name kept popping up. The one thing I felt after working with Steve, which was the record prior to working with Jimmy and Bob Clear Mountain. We can't leave

Bob out in this, um, I felt Steve. The record we did with Steve was a game of two halves. You know, the first half I think has got great tracks, but the second half not so. I mean one of the reasons was we were constantly touring, and we would take six weeks to do a record and we will be bluffing it. But you can only bluff it so far. And I thought, we need someone to really put his under pressure with the songs. And someone must have told me that that was Jimmy's thing, that he really beat

you up before you got anywhere near the studio. And and I was up for that kind of I was up for that that kind of challenge. But unfortunately we couldn't get Jimmy to bait for the longest time. And he tells the story of he had gone down to Australia. I think you remember, well, I know, you know he's

brilliant Colin hey men at work, who you know. I also had this kind of freakish success in the States um and I think they weren't playing ball with the American record Company as I held it, and they wanted to send someone down, and Jimmy got the offer. He went down. When he got to Australia, he found out that those Australians don't take anything from no one. So Jimmy told the story of he was making his way back to the airport and he was in the taxi with a kid Driver, what do you do? And Jimmy,

I'm a record producer. Really, who do you work with? Well? I worked with Springsteen and I work with you two and blah blah blah. Now we haven't been able to get Jimmy on the phone anyway. Taxi driver kids, sister, Jimmie, this is my band and he plays on Waterfront and Jimmy went, wow, that's that band. Um. And of course we met up at the time he was I remember going down to the studio he was working with Lawn Justice and we were so keen, you know, and he said, so,

what do you got to play me? I should I haven't got anything yet, you know, we're just Oh, you haven't got anything. And he said, well, you know there's that song you've got that. Don't you forget about me? Song that's on fire. You better have stuff and I said, we will have stuff. We we will, We'll have stuff, will have good stuff. The bands and forum just now, h yeah, I've heard all that before. He said, I've

heard it all beat before. I'm not going to near you until you have the songs that you can play me the songs. And I said, okay, I'll be back with songs. Um, he said one. I said, about six weeks. He said, he said, You're gonna have ten great songs in six weeks. I said yeah. He said, are you fucking Bob Dylan? I mean, I've been looking for you. I've been looking for you all my life. And I thought, oh God, I'm in with someone tough here. And that's

the way it started. And and I have to say, um, at the time, Jimmy, we didn't know this because although his name was involved in those records, it seemed to be the jury was out. What he actually did. I later found out, Um, so what he's a vibe merchant, or he creates a culture or whatever. Well, all of that's hugely important. A Shelley Yakistas does it. It's Bob

clear Mountain that does it. But I have to see, even to this day, I have been, by far has been the best motivator, coach, all around good guy I came across. And I'm not saying that just now because we're best friends. I haven't spoke to Jimmy for gazillions of years. But when I look back now, I mean what a coach Jimmy was, And and he knew the thing he knew was maybe technically he couldn't articulate it,

but he knew when it felt right. And for me, whether it's movies, whether it's music, where there's books, whereas people you hang out with, whether it's food you eat, it's all about how it feels. It's all about how it makes you feel. And God, Jimmy was so great. So you had phenomenal success with that album. Why didn't you work with Jimmy again? Because I think we we I think we were good at very few people did

we work with again. I mean, you get a lot of bands that don't get wrong with the producers or the resenter producers are, or they see them as something that's forced on them. Quite often, that's that's the case. We loved other producers we worked with, but I think we got the best out them on the one we we we got it. Okay, that songwriting thing, I got that. Now I'm never going to do that again. That that lessons learned? What else is out there? Well, you know,

Trevor Horn comes knocking. That's not bad. I mean when you think of the records he was making and so um, you know it was time for the new adventure. Okay, so that album with Trevor Horn has Belfast Child tell us the story there, Well, Trevor was. I mean the thing about Trevor is when you think back then, you think of those record breaking I mean everything he did was epic um where it was yes, whether Frankie goes

to Hollywood, whether it was ABC seal. And he came up at the time, we're working in this studio and the countryside. And as soon as he comes and he goes to his um, why have you never made some kind of Celtic sounding record or song? And I said, well, that's the stuff I grew up hating. UM. I mean I didn't want to know about all of that stuff when I grew up. I wanted to know about New York. I wanted to know about Detroit, I wanted to know

about Los Angeles, wanted to know about the doors. I don't want to know about my grandmother's highland home and her music and all that stuff. And he said, well, I think you're making a mistake there. So he planted a seed. And we were working one night, took a break for dinner, and I came out in the base player we're working with at the time, A fellow called John Giblin, a bit older than us. John, and he he didn't know folk music, and he didn't know a

lot of the Celtic stuff. As I came into the room, he was there alone and he had taken the base off he could play a bit of keys and he was playing the most hauntingly beautiful melody. And I just sat down listened and at the end I said to him, when did you write that? I assumed he had written it, because he had he had written a couple of things for us. I just assumed he had written it. And he said, oh, about two hundred years ago. What are you talking about? He said, no, I didn't write this.

This is from a traditional Irish air called she Moved through the fair And I said, really, well, just that week there had been it was before the peace process in Belfast, there had been a horrendous incident and it was all over the news. Now, growing up in Glasgow on a clear day and just down the course from Glasgow you can actually see Ireland literally, so we grew up with all that on a doorstep, all that sadness and tragedy of those years, we felt very close to it.

And with that album, Street fading years. I guess I was better at thirty. Then. I guess at a certain time, you you kind of you feel the need, you want to write about the big themes, the big subjects, and at that I'm Mandela apartheid, human rights on a door step Belfast. And when he came up with that Irish well, when he presented that Irish melody, he said, go and check out the song. Someone back and I got obsessed by the song. I I, of course, it's the days

before the internet. But I I ended up with so many versions and I thought, I wonder if you can just rap your own words to it? Because it was obviously public domain. I wasn't a publishing issue. And I thought, I wonder if that is I wonder how kosher that is? Um, Because for some people in the folk world it's a sacred cove, but for other people that's a very nature of folk music that they often changed the worlds, and every generation came along and they adapted and they put

their own things. So eventually I thought, fuck it, Um, I'm going to write my own story. I'm going to write my own song to this melody. Um. Trevor thought I was a great idea, and in a sense what we put together was it's almost the version of Stairway Heaven because that also begins very folk, and then the song expands, you know, the band, the solo, and then it well again it's a case of well, we'll do it, but it will never work. Well it goes to number one.

I don't know how many countries I went to number one. Unfortunately it wasn't for America. But it was Trevor who pushed this into that and then for the longest time we didn't play it, who started playing it again. It seems to have found its time because even though thankfully situation in Northern Ireland has changed dramatically, the real lessons to the song is about the victims of Irelan somen war and right now as we speak, certainly in Europe,

um that's very prevalent. So whenever we play the song, yeah, it's about Belfast, but it's no longer about Belfast, It's about wherever war is going on. Okay, the next album you work with Trevor's guy, Stephen Lipson, um you do Let there Be Love, which is my favorite Simple Minds song. So I'm gonna ask you how that came together well. I mean Stephen was when we realized working with Trevor that Stephen was such a huge part of it. I mean,

Trevor wouldn't deny that he was a brilliant programmer. He could play as well, Steve, you know something, he would just give me the guitar, you know, and he would play Elaine and other people you like, hang on a minute, but it would be a great idea. So he was

also a collaborate or Um. We were under pressure, Bob, because after after Belfast Child and that Street Fighting year's record that didn't do anything in America thankfully did well elsewhere, we were under pressure to try and get back to a more classic Simple Minds song in relation to a sort of alive in kicking or something. So if I was being crude, I would say that we we threw ourselves and they're trying to get something in that vein

again and it worked. I mean again, it's a song when we played live, very soulful verse, but big soaring chorus. I mean they say that writers only have one or two themes, whether you're Bob Dylan or whatever, and there's always been a great optimism simple Minds music I think a great feeling of don't give up, keep the faith, and essentially under a lot of the lyrics to those songs, that's that's the message. Okay, you know I love the

next five good news. But if you look back at this period, which ultimately leads to your h the Danu mar In pulling away, would you do anything different? I mean what what we would have done different was not leave so much time between albums. I mean, you know, if you leave two or three years between albums, I mean, you're asking for problems. But there was reasons for those

gaps as well. I mean, we as a touring band, if you tour for a year and when we throwed, it would be the best part of a year because you know, that was still how we made our coin, and that's still the life we wanted to live. So if you tour for a year, m the time you come off of that, and by this time, we're getting older and and and you know, you have other things in your life. Kids, wife's obligations, parents are getting older. Um,

you've got to give time to that. Then you got to right and then it's you know, before you know it, three years is gone. Um, and a new generation comes along, so, UM, that is it. But I but I don't know. You can't have it all. Maybe some people can, I don't think. So you can't have it all. Something has to give, and you lose out in one area, you hope your life gets enriched in another area. Um, A spaces is made.

So it's kind of hard to Um, it's hard. I mean I also think I also think we were running, you know, we were starting to run on fumes too. I mean, how many songs have you got in you? How much? You know? Sometimes you just have to head for the hills and give people a break. People have had enough for you, time to you know, time to move on and and see. I think the trick then

is it's getting back to super talking. You've got ahead for the hills and try and not do anything too desperate, you know, because it's uh, be patient, get all the things in your life. Stock up the pool again, because what are you going to write from. You have to you have to fill up the well. You have to get hungry again. Um. Your question was what would we two different? What I would say is I'm glad. I'm

glad of something that we didn't do. We didn't get embittered because you know, sometimes you meet people that can have had it and they lost it, and um, it's everyone else's fault, you know that what all those them something Although the record company didn't do this, oh the media wrote that all this. Sometimes you just got to take it on the chin. You know what, are you gonna run home your mommy? It is what it is.

So you ultimately did get married and have kids. How did you keep that marriage going for so long as a road musician. What are your kids up to today? Well, I don't know if it was. I mean, of course it's subjective of what is long. But you know, one of the big stories in my life would always be was meeting Chrissy Haynd and marry and Chrissy Haynd. I mean, at the Chris, he's older than me. She she's she's your age, Bob. I think maybe a couple of years older.

She's eight years older than me. Um, meeting someone, I mean everyone has this image of Chrissy and I have to say it. You know, she she does live up to it most of the time, but there's a whole other side of our But she's a pussy cat and when I met her, I was twenty four. She was there too. I don't even think i'd even met. I don't think i'd ever even live with a girlfriend before that, or a woman. But my band was sailing, we were having hits. I was maybe there was a piece of

me thinking this is a piece of cake. I need a real challenge. Well, believe me, I got one. And but looking back now, I mean, amazing girl from Ohio. I was such a fan as well. I mean, what an artist she is. But she'd been around the block, and kind of no one I hung out with had been around the block more than me. I need. I didn't have any older brothers or sisters. She was at Kent State. She had all that. She from Ohio. She knew all the Midway. She had an amazing taste in

music through listening to the radio. She in New Country, she knew blues, she knew rock. She's the only person now with to this day who would say, Bruce Springsteen, give me a break. It's Mitch Rider you want to see. Um. I mean she there was such an education there. Um really great, great woman. But mh. You find out that the thing that excites you the most quite often it's not the thing that's good for you. Um. That can be heroin, or it can be junk food, or it

can be relationships or whatever. It wasn't meant to last long. To be honest, you see. Um hey, it makes sense, Maddie. Someone in the same industry, they'll understand. You know, if you work in a kick shop, Mary, whatever the other person work, you'll understand you're from the same line. But it's very hard to make it work together. Um. I didn't even know who I was then. I was still a kid. But we have not only a kid, we have grandkids and still in touch and still good good dialogue.

And I'm still a fan. And how about Patsy Kensit after that, well, Patsy Patsy. I I was the elder one, and I think at the time, well, you know, I'm smitten. My kids loved her still do Um. I think I helped her out of a jam. Sometimes sometimes you love somebody because because you you think you can do something for them that makes you also feel good. And that was the case there. I'm still a fairly young young man, and I think a part of me felt it felt good.

But you're right, then you're going tour and then you're not there for this, and you're not there for that, and then resentments begin and and I mean, and I I I mean, I have to see I'm I can't be very selfish. I really can. I'm very selfish with my time. I'm very selfish headspace, and I spend a lot of time alone. Um. I love my band and I love being out in the road, I love playing. Um maybe it just wasn't for me, Okay, but you're in a long term relationship now, right, Yeah, for the

longest time, I've been with a Japanese woman. And when I said a little both finding someone who's good for you, who can organize everything as well as make you feel good, and everyone loves And also, I mean, the other thing is it's so great to be with people from other cultures. A lot of people will tell you that's not the case.

You should be with with your own only. But it's been so enriching, not only to live in places, but I mean, we are I'm so gladgo through and through the rock I made from his Glasgow, through and through. But it's been shaped by your experiences, by the people who have been with different cultures, to get a language to go to Japan to spend time there. I mean it's been sort of walting. Your band has a lot of live albums, and I gotta say, the one in

the Silver Box just unbelievable. And of course it's different from what it was prior to the Internet. You know, when live album was something rare, was treated like a regular release. Now there's all this stuff on YouTube, you know, And he thought, I mean, the Stones go on put on a live album from every tour, but most people do not there any thought about how many live albums, whether to put it out, not to put it out. No,

I think you should always put it out. If if if if, I mean if you go to hardcore, I'm in the Grid, the Grateful Dead, they're They're the ones where I think you should put as long as the quality. If you believe in the quality, um then and if you're a great live band and you're always adding stuff or you've different versions or or then it it merits it. I think every every couple of tours, let's let's say, and we're still from that thing. I mean, going back to it when I said to you as a kid

at sound checks, what did I learn at that scene? Bands? I mean, you know, you got all these gigs, and you see people who are good, and then you see bands that are artists, bands whatever, who are great, and the difference between good and great is colossal. Some people can make the room jump up and down. Some people can make the walls reverby, some people can the gig finishes, you're still thinking about it two weeks later, and then

there's other bands come in the plane. You think, oh, that was good, and you don't think about it again the next day. Well, we knew from the early days what kind of band we would like to be in, and and we still wrestle with that challenge, and we still documented, and that's where the live albums come in. Well, yeah, let's go back to your point about you can be selfish. Selfish has a bad connotation, but what you're saying is you need your alone time. Does your present girlfriend of

long standing does she respect that or have you adjusted? Also, of course there's the conundrum of needing your alone time and then getting on stage two thousands. Well, first of all, the partner I've had for the longest time, we spend a lot of time apart. I'm in Sicily. She comes out a lot but we have a place also in Niece. She has her own life there, but of a business there, and never once has there been a complaint. She's busy. She does our thing and when we see each other

as great. When we don't, when we're not with each other, we're doing our own things. We're growing up, we're adults. Um. I think we've at a certain age. You should get smart about things. There has to be space. There's got to be space, and certainly for for me, I spend I mean, I get up. It's the irony. I thought I'd get in a rock and roll band because I could lie in bed all day, and I find that I'm wide awake at five in the morning. Doesn't matter

what it is. Um I never thought you would be able to listen to rock music or right rock song at five in the morning. Just doesn't seem the right thing. Believe me, you can. Your brain is sharp, it's clear. The rest of the world there's not up yet. You can get more done in those three or four hours than the rest of the day. Um So, And I'm I'm very I'm very protective now of that. I said selfish, But you know, this is the stuff that brings home the corn. This is the stuff that puts food on

the table. This is the stuff that puts a roof over our heads. That's the way it works. There has to be time. You've got to read, you've gotta listen, you've gotta think, you have to room or try things and get them wrong. It's a full on commitment. And Charlie's the same now his kids are grown up. Um, it's it's a full wee go there Monday Friday, we work Monday Friday. And and of course we don't have to do that. We don't have to in terms of being able to eat for the rest of our lives.

Are We're into it. That's what it is. It's a sacred thing. If you have an art, it's it's sacred. And your archets jail. Your archet's jealous on you as well if you stop doing that. The muscles, the creative muscles, and I believe there's such a thing. You know, they're not long and this integrating. Um, it's hard to get back on a horse. So you you really have to keep it. You you can't do it half measures and anyone around you. That's the deal. Like certainly understand the

selfish alone time. I mean, when I'm concentrate, I'm thinking like a percent fair. I don't like to be interrupted, and the average person just can't understand it because they're just used to go out. I go for days whereout speaking to anyone. I mean, I just go for days whether they're speaking to anyone. I mean, I'm also very I'm also very lucky it there is people who put up with it um um. But I like a lot

of time alone. I mean, in sicily, as soon as I've done my three or four um hours in the morning working, whether I'm up in the hills, well, I mean, so you come back to a biblical landscape. They only sound up. There's goatbells and crickets. But I don't meditate the way people conventional meditation. But that is my meditation. You go walking, you hill walk, and you get into a pace you're breathing. Problems come at the forefront before you know it. You've got to I've got an idea

about that. Oh, I mean, I find all of that. That's the only way I know how a function. I mean, unfortunately, I've asked my my kids, you know, because every well, Dad, you were never there for us were there, you were all You're always there, you were always there somehow managed to make it work. Um. But certainly in that thing, I mean on the on tour, if it's a night off, I'll never go out with the band, or and I go on my own, I go walk around the city,

or I go whatever. Um. At the gig between four o'clock and well after the sound check two eight o'clock, I don't speak to anyone. I don't see anyone. Um. The great thing about of course, you get to save your voice. Um. And then when it comes time to spring into action and be present, whether it's on stage or whether it's the participating in life with your friends or whatever, I'm fully there. I'm never there, and I'm never there but not there, if you know what I mean.

But that's the deal exactly. So a lot of you know their legendary stories that people become successful, they buy their parents a house, they buy them a car. Did you do anything like that all of that? And it was with the greatest pleasure. I mean, I'll tell your story here. That's pretty good because you know, Richard Brownson gets a bad rap. But I'll tell you this. So when I was living in Uh. I told you, I

grew up in this high rise flat. And even when the band was still touring and just starting to break through and being in the newspaper, has been on TV, I think had their first hit, but we had all that debt to pay off, so we didn't have money. But I came back home and and I didn't have a place in my own lit because we were always in tour, so why would I So I'd come back

home and crash mom and Dad's council apartment. Well, I came home and the irony because parents were always afraid when we get in this business, that would be drugs around and we would all end up. They saw heroin before I saw heroin because at that time it came into Glasgow and it was starting to come into the housing projects and schemes. Anyway, I turned up and a couple of houses you know, had become hangouts for drug

drug addicts and stuff. So I thought, now, it's probably about fifty pounds a week then and I heard about this you can get a mortgage thing, and you know, and back then, of course, the bank managers before the computer says no, the bank managers were kind of allowed to um, go on a hunch, and my manager at the time said, go along in the bank manager, simple mains everyone in Glasgow No, simple mazer. He'll know you and he'll listen to you. So I saw this house.

Mom and dad loved it. I couldn't see to my dad. Incidentally, I was buying it for them because you too too much prayed. I said it was for me and they would look after it while I wasn't tour because it just would have felt wrong. So we saw this house. I think it costs sixty grand. Great part of Glasgow Garden. All of this just beautiful. Can't believe that no one from our family has ever had a place like this.

So I go along the bank manager and I think I'm all prepared, and he said, yep, yeah, my my daughter loves you and you know she's been at the gigs. I know you're doing well and blah blah blah. What what's going on? So I explained to him. I explained the situation and he listens to every word. Then he says, um. He says, well, that's great. I know that house. I

live in the area. I know the house you're talking about. Great, so great, How are we going to do this, and I said, well, you know the mortgage, you're gonna we're gonna look at the mortgage and he said, yeah, what are you gonna give me? Meaning deposit? And I said, what do you mean is you had a guarantee. I think I was twenty two at the time. My guarantee, Bob. I tookout all these live reviews that that we're saying, you know, simple Mains, Band of the future, Simple Mains,

They're gonna be huge. He looked at them and went, that's what you're gonna give me, these three or four bits of paper. I said, yeah, look, I mean it's it's we're happening. And he said, no, that's not how it works. You need to give me a deposit fift I said, well, I haven't got any money. He said, well, you know, I don't know what to say. And as I was getting up, he said, do you know anyone way any money? And I said no, no, I don't um anyway. Two days later I got a call from him.

He says, I can't believe it. Richard Branson just phoned me. He's going to cover it. He's gonna cover it. We're on if Richard Branson is going to cover it. We're on and to this day I will always be thankful. I mean, you know, we have the whole thing with record industries, and we know the record deals where you get screwed for people say well, at least the bank

when you pay them back. Well, you know, banks would never have given your money and make records, but Richard Branson did and I will forever be grateful to him for that. So, yeah, all of the band looked after their parents and their stuff, and and you know now it's to do with the nieces and the nephews and the sons and daughters, and we try to help out there as well. So you have a new album in the pipeline, you obviously you're making the music because you're

driven to do that. What are your expectations? Most of your contemporaries, if there's a together, don't even put out new music. So you're doing this. Are you saying, well, this is what I do, the fans will like it, or you know, there's the old paradigm of having a hit. Who even knows what it hit is? Today? Top forty is certainly in America does not play this kind of music. They're play popper hip hop. So I restate my point,

what are your expectations? We'll go back if you have the music and you you just have to make it. That's it. If you've got songs, I mean, how are you gonna stop? If it's still in you and still wants you know, wants to be held. When I say wants to be held, I want to hear it, Charlie wants I wants to hear it. We want to test or say where artists. This isn't just a scam where artists. We've been doing this since we're fourteen sixty three. We've been writing songs out of the lace. What are we

just gonna give that up? When you love it, when you enjoy it, when it's how you see the world. No, but we know the realities and you have just pointed out many of them. As it happens again with simple Mans. Were fortunate. Our records do break even. Okay, it's the hardcore and they buy them and all the formats, but they're made with budgets and it works. The biggest thing

is it refreshes everything. Now, I know you're not going to go and tour and play the whole record, but if you two killer songs that can and think, you know, if it's got to live up with your whole catalog, and that's a great, great thing. It revitalizes everything, rejuvenates everything, and you get to feel that you're just not in a museum. You know that it's not just a museum. I mean, I know people do and affair on them, they go around. But we're artists, we're creative people. So

that's how we express ourselves. That's how There's always this this thing of you know, one more swing at it, one more swing, maybe we'll write that song. Um, And for us it worked. So there's no way up until now we have ever thought of given that up. What about the issue of playing that music live? Well, as I said last night on this tour, I gotta tell

you we were out for four months. No Um. During the week we played about anything between four or five people, and at the weekend it gives up to ten or fifteen. It's not bad. We played twenty three songs um. Right now the new album isn't coming out to October. We play a couple of songs now. The songs we play are not the slow, moody songs that the songs were the big chunky choruses that even if you don't know them, audiences go, I don't know this, but I I like it.

I'm getting it. So we always we play those those songs. And we played one last night for the first time, a song called first You Jump, And today among all our social networks, everyone's talking about it. Within our gang, everyone's talking about it, and oh, we had twenty seconds of the song. We had this it um it keeps the heartbeat going. So we've had this whole COVID situation, but generally speaking, how much do you want to play live? How many dates in a year? And can you and

where can you play? And where would you not have an audience that you wish you could play? Well, you know, it was great the last few years to get back to America because there was a point what I thought maybe that was not going to happen, and there was a tour book there. Obviously didn't happen with the COVID no that, but it had the radio cities in it

and what simple amazing radio city. Wow. I didn't think that's something I would see again, and others, I mean, yeah, there is still something about is that I wish I wish at the time we had appreciated more, um working in America, really getting you know, so much of that stuff is kind of mythical to us. We grew up

with the movies, we grew up with the music. I love going to those old halls now that are re refurbished, and you look at the people who played them, not just musicians, actors and and and it's a guy in the band, a big, big Beatles fan. He'll go the Beatles played here in nine. I say, like, screw the Beatles, the Marks Brothers played here. I mean it just I wish we had worked more in America. Now, um we were,

We are getting the chance to go again. We will go again, but probably for us it would be better to to to you know, hook up with another band and and if you're going there, you may as well try and get across to a bigger audience. That's about the only place that that I wish we had worked more. Tell me about two peak experiences. Whether it'd be meeting someone, hearing your song on the radio, playing a gig, Well,

there's that great thing. I'm meeting your heroes and you should never meet your heroes, or meeting your heroes, and um, not only have I met many of my music heroes, I've I've got to even stand at a microphone with them. Are the ones that spring to mine is Peter Gabriel who took us on tour and and you know the humility and the sheer artistry of that guy, that was really something. Lou Reid, who we managed to do a cameo on one of our records, well, to me, that's

the equivalent of having Picasso. I mean that was just mind blowing. But the story we tell a lot of a good, great story because for people our generation, David Boye was the guy, and I'll tell you a story of them. You have heard of the famous studio. It's actually in Wales called Rockfield Studios and it's a country studio. So um, we were booked in to go there and

we turned up and it's really rural. There's two studios and we're booked into the little studio and as we're turning up we're thinking, I wonder who's in the big, big studio. I want to watch stars there. It was the most unlikely thing, but Iggy Pop was there? What Iggy Pop in the Welsh country side? This is eight, not seventy nine. Maybe, um, Iggy pops there. We're all Iggy fans. We can't believe it, but you know, um, it turns out one of the guys in the band,

Barry Andrews, we had met him on tour. He was a bit of a fan. So when the Eggy sessions we're finished, he would come over and tell us what was going on. And at the time Iggy was always getting the confused on the wagon. He was clean and he wasn't drinking, and he wasn't anything well until we turned up. That was because at midnight every night, it was always like a a cat creeping over the wall. He would come out of our place. And we were

young guys. We brought a lot of things with us to the countryside, including pretty girls and and all the other goodies. And then he would come in every day and we just canna be like, you know, we just sit at the feet of James Austerberg and it just just agreed it. And one lady says something about, oh, well, David's coming up on Saturday, and we're sure, what I wonder if it's the David we're all thinking of, But yeah, David's coming up David's coming up again Saturday afternoon, said

that's you know, there's a limit? Does a Bentley pulling up outside this country? Lane? Boy gets out. I think the album was being produced by M James. I forget the other guy's name from the studges um um anyway, without hours or punt of this chaos boys taken over and all manner of breaknast. We're hearing as kind of through the wall, but we don't think we're going to be pretty to any of it. And run about midnight, Eggie walks in again, and I can't believe it's a vision.

It just seems so unlikely. Boys with them. He's wearing this black we call him boilers suit, like a kind of industrial suit. He's got a ton of hy nicking in his hand and a huge bit of shedar cheese. It's the most unlikely. And they came in and they're looking for something to smoke, and they're looking for and her crew have got plenty of that. And then Boy said, tell you what, asking what are you doing? What's this? He said, listen, we're working in this song and we

need a chorus. We need like a football courtus, we need a chance, we need ten people, Why don't you all come in so we get to trip through into the next studio. I mean, can you imagine Bob none, none, None of us had a camera. No one had a camera. Back then, no one walked around with a camera. So we go in and Boie is very much taken over. It's a song called play It's safe. I mean, unless the record was there, I would still be thinking I

was imagining all of this is so unlikely. But he guesses around the microphone and it's the chortus, and every wants to jump in and sing this quotas and bit by bit, but we start saying like people who don't sing professionally step back, and at the point there was only iggy boy, I can't believe I'm seeing this, and myself standing at the microphone. And as I say, if that record hadn't been released with the credits on it, I could see people thinking that never happened. But it

did did happen. So that was a particularly great moment. But I think the moment that really tops it all was when we played At the time it was called the Nelson Mandela Birthday Parties seventieth birthday were they were still calling for his freedom, and we had a big part of that. We wrote a song for it and Lo and behold again. Less than a year later, Mandela walked out and he came to London to thank all the artists who were involved. And that was a really

special moment because little Stephen Bonsan was there. Gabriel every you know, when you do those events and when you write those songs, you're fully committed, but there is a voice in your head saying does it matter? Does it really matter? Does can music really change? Were old events and to him and delacy he explained to all. He said, listen when it was a great thing. He said, when there was no voice allowed, we somehow always held the

voice of the artist. Now that may have been the writers, the poets, the painters, the songwriters, and that was quite an amazing thing, um to be in the presence of him. Well, on that note, I think we're gonna call it a day today. Man, Jim, you're unbelievable, You're intelligent, you tell a great story. I could talk for hours more. I want to thank you so much for doing this My pleasure, Bob, keep up with good work. Love listening to the podcast. So many of the people you talked to, people who

influenced me, or it's it's it's just wonderful. And also a few places where we can listen to this kind of thing. So I say that really is a fan of the show and and of the writings. Well, I'm smiling broadly. People can't see that on an audio podcast until next time. This is Bob Left sets h