Jim Kerr tells us about his expansive career and playing Live Aid in Philadelphia in 1985
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00:00Well, I just, in my head, if you're Marvin Gaye, you can sing You Turn Me On.
00:04You're some little white nerdy guy from Glasgow with freckles gone.
00:10You Turn Me On, it's creepy.
00:13But not according to you.
00:15You were a tad bit nerdy.
00:16A bit nerdy, yeah.
00:19That's why Chrissy Hines seems like when you guys got together, I remember thinking,
00:22wow, she's like the leather rock chick, and this guy, that's kind of wild.
00:26Bit off a bit more than I could chew.
00:30Please welcome, of Simple Minds, Mr. Jim Kerr.
00:34Very kind of you.
00:35Thank you very much.
00:36A real pleasure to be here.
00:37And by the way, Jim Kerr, I believe, is actually how you pronounce your last name, correct?
00:41You got it right.
00:42In Glasgow, they would say that.
00:43In Glasgow.
00:43Here, they say more kind of Kerr.
00:45Kerr.
00:46Kerr.
00:46Which is nice, but we're a bit hard on the E, Kerr.
00:50It reminds you where you are, I guess, when you hear your name pronounced a certain way.
00:53Well, my mother's favorite actress was Deborah Kerr.
00:57Ah, that's a good choice.
00:59Nice compliment.
01:00There you go.
01:00I would like to, I'm going to start by throwing a lot of love your way.
01:04I, your performance, and I'll get right to the song that broke the band in the United States,
01:13Don't You Forget About Me.
01:14Your performance of that particular song means so much to me.
01:181986, around that range, was when I was a senior in high school.
01:23The Breakfast Club, the film had come out, and it just spoke directly to a person like me.
01:28The song was such a huge part of the emotional impact of that film, and it has now become my almost,
01:37it's so, it's tangible.
01:40The emotion that I feel when I hear the song, it takes me back to that time in my life that was so important in my own personal development.
01:47I'm actually getting a little choked up here when I'm talking.
01:49And you were, the passion in your voice.
01:54Now, I'm probably going to overuse the word passion as we talk to you, Jim, because that's how I always categorize your vocal style.
02:01You're singing very, very passionate.
02:02And at that time, it rose above a lot of the other things that were on the radio at the time.
02:08And so, number one, I want to thank you.
02:10And I know that song wasn't written by you or your bandmates, but I think what you did with it just went above and beyond.
02:17It's the performance.
02:18It surpassed what that song really was.
02:20Well, it's an honor to have any song that means so much to people, but particularly with that song,
02:26we are aware in the States, actually elsewhere, that that song and the movie meant so much, not only to that generation,
02:33but amazingly subsequent generations as well seem to have, it still seems, those John Hughes movies, he really hit a nerve.
02:41And I know what you mean in the sense that, you know, I'm a music fan as well, and there's still, it's an amazing thing with music.
02:48Even more than film, I think, and photographs, you hear certain songs and it takes you back to a place.
02:54It takes you to the very emotion.
02:56Most definitely.
02:57And, you know, there are certain songs that do that for me.
03:00I can actually, for me, it was always radio in my mother's house.
03:03There are certain songs I hear, I can actually feel the, we called it Formica table, this cheap breakfast table,
03:10because, you know, the radio was there.
03:12We listen to radio breakfast, as everyone does here.
03:15And of certain songs, I can actually feel, you know, I'm right at the table.
03:20And I get a little teary about that as well.
03:22Oh, my God, it's so true.
03:24It's so powerful.
03:25And you, and I'm curious, here I am, a chance to meet you and say thank you in person and so forth.
03:31And you've had a tremendously successful career.
03:33Have you ever had a chance to speak to someone a la David Bowie and say,
03:38that song meant so much to me?
03:40And do you feel a little odd saying that?
03:42Because I feel, I know you've heard it so many times, and I don't know if it gets old to you or not.
03:47And I feel a little embarrassed that I'm saying all this to you.
03:49Well, you bet.
03:50I mean, whenever, I'm not cool when I meet people that have meant a lot to me,
03:54whether it's sports stars or rock stars or whatever, or movie.
03:58I just go up and say, you're amazing.
04:01But some of them kind of don't want to talk about it or something.
04:04Have you ever found that?
04:06Yes, yeah, you get that.
04:07And someone just kind of went, yeah, whatever.
04:09Well, it's confusing.
04:10It is confusing when that happens.
04:13Well, we've talked about this, Jimmy.
04:16It's sort of a liability when you meet people who have meant a lot to you.
04:20You know, and then we use the phrase, they were them.
04:25They were exactly who you wanted them to be.
04:27And it's like the ultimate when you get the person you hoped they would be.
04:30Not everyone can be that.
04:32Some people, you know, sort of have sort of a jaded view,
04:37or they'll kind of frown upon what got them to the dance.
04:40Or the self-conscious of something.
04:41Right, and for whatever reason.
04:43And you'd almost rather keep the illusion than the actual reality.
04:47But when they do sync up and you get both, it's fantastic.
04:51Well, I can talk about both for a minute.
04:52Because as some of you might know, I was married to Chrissy Hines.
04:56Yes, yeah.
04:57Chrissy's the greatest.
04:58I mean, she's just the greatest.
04:59Well, her, the I'll Stand By You, that's my wife, that's our wedding song, yeah.
05:03You guys now share a grandchild together.
05:05We do, indeed.
05:06Congratulations.
05:06And yet, Chrissy, she was the first to say, when anyone goes up to her on the street and goes,
05:10well, Chrissy, you know, she kind of goes right in her shell and she kind of doesn't know what to say.
05:15And it comes across as being cold.
05:17And then she will regret that for the rest of the week.
05:20Genuinely, she'll say, oh, I met that person.
05:22And they must think, well, I won't tell you what she says.
05:25But she doesn't mean it.
05:28Like, she just gets kind of, whereas Charlie Burchill, my songwriting partner and guitar player in Simple Minds,
05:35we were beyond fortunate last week in New York because we had a night off.
05:39And I'm sure you're aware Springsteen was playing on Broadway.
05:43So cool.
05:43Just to get tickets to see the show was enough to be 20 yards from him where he's standing with an acoustic plane born to run.
05:50And the spit was almost touching us.
05:53In fact, we were running towards it.
05:56And then afterwards, we didn't know this.
06:00Afterwards, as we were about to leave, someone came out and said, oh, you know,
06:04John Lund, who is Bruce's manager, would let you go back.
06:06And I'm sure no one will be surprised to hear me say that, you know, Bruce was just amazing.
06:13I mean, he was just, he just wanted to talk about music.
06:16And he wanted to talk about a book that he'd written, of which the show is based on, of which we've all read.
06:22And it was great to have someone as comfortable.
06:26You love that.
06:26Did he relay any particular level of, did he, was he citing some of your work?
06:31Because he clearly, you know, you.
06:33Well, he's so, you know, he's so generous.
06:35We had played in New Jersey the night before.
06:38Okay.
06:38I think John had told him that.
06:40And we played, so it was, we're in his hood.
06:43And he had just spent time on stage saying how he had a love-hate with New Jersey.
06:47All he wanted to do was get out of there, hence born to run and all that.
06:51But, of course, he's still there.
06:54But he knew we'd played, and he was asking about the band and all that stuff.
06:58We have a few friends in common.
07:01And Steve Van Zandt, we did a lot of things with Steve back in the day.
07:05And the Sun City, yeah.
07:06The Sun City thing.
07:07And also Jimmy Iovine, who produced Bont Run.
07:11He just produced a track that you played there, Alive and Kicking.
07:15And also, you know, we'd met Bruce before as well.
07:19I think, and it's the truth, that the people who, you know, I love when directors, film directors come in here, and they're fans of other directors.
07:29Because you clearly have, you just at a core have a passion for music.
07:33That's right.
07:34So you are a fan of other musicians.
07:36Yeah.
07:37And I think that informs your ability to be a great musician, you know?
07:41I would think so.
07:42I would think, you know, I think to do, if you're in love with something, it must be, listen, if you've got a job that you love, no matter what that job is, you've won the lotto.
07:52Because we know what it's like if you don't like your job.
07:54Yes.
07:54So if you are passionate about it, I mean, even today, we're going to go along to the theater half past four this afternoon.
08:01We're going to work on other stuff, you know, songs that we want to bring into the set as the tour progresses.
08:07That's great.
08:08What I was chopping and changing, I'm excited about that.
08:10And it's only a sound check.
08:12Yeah, yeah.
08:12I wanted to ask about, Jim, yours and Simple Mind's history in Philadelphia.
08:17You played Live Aid here.
08:19And what I understand, you were the first band that was approached to play the Philadelphia show?
08:24Well, certainly, I remember getting the call from Geldof at the time.
08:29And it was amazing.
08:31You know, it was a great honor to be asked.
08:33And of course, although obviously we're from the other side of the pond, at the time, the song that you mentioned, Don't You Forget About Me, was really claiming high in the Billboard charts.
08:45And Bob said, you know, you've got to do it in Philadelphia.
08:47We were only too happy.
08:50We were en route anyway to come here and record.
08:53But I don't think any of us were aware that all these years later, you know, in terms of rock and roll anyway, it's still the historical event.
09:02It's our generation's Woodstock.
09:05Joan Baez, I think, alluded to that when she opened.
09:09That was her.
09:09But when you see now, even now, when I see the numbers that were there in the stadium, the stadium's no longer there.
09:19Yeah.
09:20Was that day fairly chaotic?
09:22In a way you would expect.
09:25I mean, I was talking outside.
09:27I mean, everyone was there, you know.
09:30I mean, it was a whole.
09:31The great thing was, I brought across my dad.
09:35Oh, wow.
09:35He'd never been in the States before.
09:38And we sort of, he was wearing a bright yellow Scotland T-shirt.
09:42So I was like, how can you lose him?
09:43He's wearing a bright yellow.
09:44They said, how can you lose him?
09:45We're 120,000 people out there.
09:47But I saw him because he was wearing this.
09:51The bright yellow Scotland T-shirt.
09:52Yeah, and he said to me, come here, come here.
09:55I want to introduce you to this guy.
09:56I want to introduce you to who's here.
09:57Now, you think, you know, Madonna was there.
09:59And Turner, Mick Jagger, and all that.
10:01And we went around.
10:02And there was this guy sitting on his amplifier, just strumming away.
10:07Yeah.
10:08Total dignity.
10:10Bo Diddley.
10:11Ah, Bo Diddley.
10:12And my dad said to me, Bo Diddley, if it wasn't for him, there would be no live.
10:16Legendary, yeah.
10:17There would be no rock and roll.
10:18If it wasn't for these guys.
10:19And, of course, he was right.
10:20So, yeah, memories like that come to the forefront.
10:24You mentioned Jimmy Irving, and I saw the special on HBO about him, The Defiant Ones,
10:30and he talked about producing Born to Run and how frustrating it was because Bruce was such a perfectionist when it came to putting that record.
10:36And eventually somebody had to tell Jimmy, it's not your record, Jimmy.
10:40It's Bruce's.
10:40Let Bruce do what he needs to do.
10:42What was it like for you guys working with him?
10:45I mean, we've been so lucky.
10:46We worked with Jimmy, Bob Claremont, Trevor Horn, Steve, Steve Lillyway, all these people.
10:52But Jimmy was, Jimmy just said this way.
10:55It's funny because I can tell you, the jury was out.
10:57Some of the people around us didn't quite get Jimmy.
11:01Really?
11:01Because Jimmy was, he was more a kind of ringmaster.
11:04He couldn't go in and tell you technically what was wrong or what was right.
11:08It was all feel.
11:09And he had a great kind of meter on him with that.
11:12That feels great.
11:13That's where you should be.
11:14But he made you feel great.
11:17And if you felt great, then you're going to perform.
11:20He gave you confidence.
11:21And in some ways, we've never met anyone like Jimmy in that sense.
11:28He would be, you know how in sports you get a coach, I say this, that make journeymen believe they're much better than they are.
11:36Right, right.
11:36Jimmy did that to us.
11:38It would seem like some producers are more musicians and some guys are more directors when it comes to instructing a band.
11:45And he seems like more the director kind.
11:46I'll tell you a funny story about it.
11:48And this is the way he is too because Alive and Kicking, we put together the demo.
11:53See, we were all a bit weirded out with a successor, don't you forget about me.
11:58Because it started, it'd become this kind of colossal thing, the movie and MTV and everyone was all over it.
12:05It was just a confluence of things going on.
12:06And Jimmy was like, you know, what are you going to do to follow it up?
12:12It's a monster, it's a monster, what are you going to do?
12:15And we were like, I don't know, relax, we'll come up with something.
12:18And so we came up with this, basically the structure for Alive and Kicking, he's like, that's great, that's great, that's great, that's great.
12:24You know, get it down, get, that's going to be amazing.
12:27And we all felt that.
12:28But I had done a gate vocal, kind of sketch lyrics, that I meant to come back and finish off.
12:35And the first lane, and it's, you know, you turn me on, so I go to do it for real and I change the line to something else.
12:44And he goes, hang on a minute, hang on, where's you turn me on?
12:47And I said, you can't sing, you turn me on.
12:51That's terrible.
12:54That's garbage, you turn me on.
12:58I won't be able to go home to Glasgow if I sing that.
13:01People will just rip the out of me.
13:05And he went, you're going to change that?
13:07And I said, yeah.
13:08And he went, my wife loves it.
13:09All Vicky's friends love it.
13:11Everyone loves it.
13:12You can't change it.
13:13I said, I'm changing it.
13:14And he goes, he starts taking out his car keys.
13:17He says, here, take them because I'm going to lose my house here.
13:20You're going to cost me a fortune.
13:22You're going to cost me a fortune.
13:23You're going to cost me a fortune.
13:23And he was kind of half serious.
13:26Yeah.
13:27So it stayed.
13:28Hey, listen.
13:29And it kind of works.
13:30It works.
13:31It works as long as I don't think about it.
13:33But it's funny because, you know, you as the artist are going to be hypercritical.
13:39And it's something that we have to think about, even on our level,
13:43of just doing what we do, you know, like program directors or whatever,
13:47listen with different ears.
13:48Yeah.
13:49And the hardest thing, I think, and probably what distinguishes a good producer
13:52who has, who is able to produce hits, listens as the consumer hears it.
13:57Yeah.
13:57Well, I just, in my head, if you're Marvin Gaye, you can sing You Turn Me On.
14:01Right.
14:02If you're some little white nerdy guy from Glasgow with freckles gone,
14:08You Turn Me On, it's creepy.
14:10I'm, uh, but not according to Jimmy.
14:12You were a tad bit nerdy, Jimmy.
14:14A bit nerdy, yeah.
14:16That's why Chrissy Hines seems like when you guys got together,
14:19I remember thinking, wow, she's like the leather rock chick,
14:21and this guy, that's kind of wild.
14:23Bit off a bit more than I could chew.
14:28But you've got to give me kudos for daring to dance.
14:33Yes, yes, absolutely.
14:34Jim, it's an honor to meet you.
14:35Thanks for being here.
14:36Thanks, guys.
14:37Thanks, all of you.
14:38Our pleasure.
14:39Jim Carr, guys.
14:40Yay!
14:40It's all the fun things, Steve Schell.
14:41Yeah!
14:44Thanks, Jim one.
14:48Bye-bye.
14:51Bye.
14:51Bye-bye.
14:55Bye.
14:56Bye-bye.
15:10Bye-bye.