Jim Kerr got a late start on his solo career.
The 55-year-old Simple Minds singer didn't punch out his debut record until four years ago, and he's currently navigating his way through the music landscape as an independent.
Kerr said Iain Cook of CHVRCHES — who just released a new video for "Under the Tide" — played a big role in getting the record done.
"It was a great experience," he told Stereogum. "Exactly four years ago, it was a sad period for me because my mum was on the verge of passing away and I'd come back to Glasgow to be around during the last weeks. I was staying at the house with Mum and Dad. She actually said to me, 'What are you doing sitting around, go and do some work.' She just knew I wasn't being myself, obviously. I thought, 'You know what, I'm probably freaking out just sitting and moping around, she's right.' So Iain and I had a mutual friend and he said, 'I'm gonna take you over to see [him].'
"I'd just previously done a solo record and worked with various people, and I was thinking about maybe doing another one. He said, 'There's this kid that it'd be good for you to work with.' I said cool. Iain was only ten minutes away, and it was amazing because the neighborhood Iain lived in was only three houses away from where we started as a garage band, really, as Simple Minds. It was like coming back full circle, but in Iain's basement."
Kerr also discussed the career trajectory of Simple Minds, who are best known for the 1985 single "Don't You (Forget About Me)."
"They say that artists have two or three themes that they're always going back to or riffing off," he said. "If that is the case with Simple Minds, this idea of movement, or searching, or being on the move: it's obviously been the story of our lives, albeit through touring. But even before we were touring, Charlie [Burchill] and I used to hitchhike all over Europe. We were living out our version of the Beatniks, you know? Our version of Kerouac and all those guys. We would hitchhike to see bands, but then we'd hook up with people and end up in some [situation], living in Leipzig for two weeks or something like that. I guess it comes from a restlessness. Not sort of "ants in our pants," but a kind of restlessness."
The band just released a new song, "Midnight Walking," a couple weeks ago.
"I was thinking of my 17-year-old son and his mates in North London, all of them skint and just cruising/hanging around," singer Kerr said. "That in turn got me thinking of people on the move all over the world, for one reason or other, 'all those people, marching people, trying to find somewhere to go.'"
