An orchestra performing in concert behind a popular rock band. An arena full of screaming fans. A major label wooing a young star with a contract full of complex legalities.
All might come to mind when considering the phrase "big music."
Jim Kerr, founding member and vocalist for Scottish rock group Simple Minds, takes the concept to an even grander level, assigning borderline divine status to his preferred medium.
"It was more a celebration of music itself. After all these years of listening to music and watching music being performed and then having the fortune to be able to do it ourselves," he says, explaining the title to the band's newest album, Big Music. "Even after all this time, there's still nothing that does to me what music does."
Simple Minds, at the peak of its popularity, at least had experience with the arena aspect of "big music." Kerr might not regret the spotlight dimming slightly on his group since the '80s—considering the turnover and inherent turmoil that came with it—but he and guitarist Charlie Burchill still write music as if it were meant for an audience of thousands: The new wave synthesizers that broke the band to American audiences 30 years ago continue to reach for the ceilings of the coliseum during songs such as "Concrete and Cherry Blossom," while the vocalist admits the title track might have "a tad more bombast" than the rest.
Entering its fifth decade as a band, Simple Minds attempts to balance its classic sound with more modern trends. Iain Cook, primary songwriter for Chvrches and a fellow Glasgow native, brings a house music sensibility to "Honest Town" and "Blood Diamonds" for example.
Kerr, Burchill and drummer Mel Baynor—the three remaining members from the band's sales peak—realize however that the majority of its European fans will leave unsatisfied if they don't hear "Someone Somewhere in The Summertime" somewhere in the setlist, while Americans will rattle sabers if "Don't You (Forget About Me)," the band's only no. 1 single in the United States, goes unplayed.
They don't mind the requests.
"It's a pleasure. If someone wants to hear it, you should thank your lucky stars. Either don't play it or play it with a full heart. There are songs in our set that we would probably never play in rehearsals or sound checks. And 'Don't You' is one of them," Kerr says, explaining the Simple Minds touring approach before noting wryly: "The promoters wouldn't touch you if you didn't play the hits."
Possessing—and the pressure to tend to—such a catalogue comes with its creative costs, however profitable they may be. Kerr suggested during the recording of 2009's Graffiti Soul that Simple Minds might emerge from those sessions with two albums, the second of which would end up being Big Music, at least in spirit, after a five year gap. The band hadn't filed away actual songs but Kerr came across the finish line of Graffiti ready for another race. It wasn't to be.
A stretch of "Greatest Hits +" tours between 2011 and 2013, along with the curating and mastering for two live albums during that period, ate up the band's time. Celebrate: The Greatest Hits (and a deluxe edition with six more shows worth of live audio) dropped during 2013. Tidbits that would later appear on Big Music, such as "Blood Diamonds" and single "Broken Glass Park," popped up on other compilations but the mass of the new album was laid down during 2014.
More fortunate for fans than the gaps between new material: That aforementioned vigor has pushed Simple Minds to tour "as much as we ever have," by Kerr's reckoning.
The "Big Music + Greatest Hits 2015" tour kicks off during February in Portugal, and when the group gets back home to the UK it has plans to play as many smaller municipalities as possible, versus a few larger venues or multi-night stands. Kerr, as much a fan of stripped-down rock 'n' roll as synth-driven arena largesse, would like to replicate that approach in the United States, the land he hails as the homeland for rock and byproducts. Granted, he would hope to land a second headliner to guarantee the turnout. His ideal partner? Tears for Fears, a dual-booking that would drive the John Hughes generation nearly as bonkers as a rumored Backstreet Boys/Spice Girls tour riled up early Millennials during earlier during 2014.
One way or the other, Kerr promises another U.S. visit soon. He doesn't plan on getting tired of Simple Minds in the meantime. Nowadays "going hard" means more for him than "going big."
"The band just gets better the more you play. There used to be this notion of 'burnout' and I just don't buy into that anymore," he says of balancing the old with the new for his audiences, both old and new. "It's all good."
© 2024 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
