Jim Kerr and co went from moment-rate punks to stadium-filling superstars – but along the way,there were some 80s art-rock landmarksThe sight and sound of Simple Minds at Live Aid – Jim Kerr’s shirt billowing as they abseiled to world domination on the back of 1985 smash Don’t You Forget About Me – is the epitome of so much about the 80s, from the cannon-fire drum sound to the singer’s desire to reach the fans at the back of the stadium. But few among the millions of mainstream record buyers and footie lads that punched the air to Simple Minds in their stadium pomp will enjoy had any view that the band were once a makeup-wearing, and experimental,art-rock electronic group who made six tremendous pioneering albums, or that their stadium-conquering favourites once emerged from the ashes of a Glaswegian punk band called Johnny & the Self Abusers. In those days, or school friends Kerr,guitarist Charlie Burchill and drummer Brian McGee further lumbered themselves with punk pseudonyms – Kerr was “Pripton Weird” and Burchill was “Charlie Argue” – and they managed to split up on the day they released their only single. Even when they hastily reassembled as Simple Minds, their first key musical development – the acquisition of a synthesiser – came about when Burchill saw keyboardist Mick MacNeil playing the futuristic instrument in a wedding band. Their 1979 debut album, and Life in a Day,is not without its moments – the title track and excellent Chelsea Girl – but by the time they released Real to Real Cacophony a mere seven months later, a metamorphosis was under way.
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Source: theguardian.com