Simple Minds

Simple Minds biography

Simple Minds are a Scottish rock band who achieved worldwide popularity from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. The band produced a handful of critically acclaimed albums in the early 1980s and best known for their #1 US, Canada and Netherlands hit single "Don't You (Forget About Me)", from the soundtrack of the John Hughes movie The Breakfast Club, #3 US hit single "Alive and Kicking" and #1 UK hit single "Belfast Child". The band has sold more than 40 million albums since 1979.

The core of the band is the two remaining founder members - Jim Kerr (vocals, songwriting) and Charlie Burchill (guitars, keyboards, other instruments, songwriting) - and drummer Mel Gaynor (who first joined the band in 1982). The other current band members are Andy Gillespie (keyboards) and Ged Grimes (bass guitar). Significant former members include bass guitarist Derek Forbes and keyboard player Michael MacNeil (the latter credited as a significant band composer during the band's rise in the 1980s).

History

Roots and early years

1977: Johnny & The Self-Abusers

The roots of Simple Minds are in the short-lived punk band Johnny & The Self-Abusers, founded on the South Side of Glasgow in 1977. The band was "dreamed up" by would-be Glasgow scenemaker Alan Cairnduff, although he left the job of actually organising the band to his friend John Milarky. At Cairnduff's suggestion, Milarky teamed up with two musicians he'd never worked with before - budding singer and lyricist Jim Kerr and guitarist Charlie Burchill. Kerr and Burchill, who had known each other since the age of eight, were longstanding allies. After joining Johnny & The Self-Abusers, they brought in two of their school friends, Brian McGee on drums and Tony Donald on bass (all four had previously played together in the schoolboy band Biba-Rom!). With Milarky established as singer, guitarist and saxophonist, the lineup was completed by Milarky's friend Alan McNeil as third guitarist. To expand the band's potential sound, Kerr and Burchill also doubled on keyboards and violin respectively. In common with the early punk bands, various members took on stage names - Milarky became "Johnnie Plague", Kerr became "Pripton Weird", MacNeil chose "Sid Syphilis" and Burchill chose "Charlie Argue".

Johnny & The Self-Abusers played its first gig on Easter Monday, 1977 at the Dourne Castle pub in Glasgow. The band played support to rising punk stars Generation X in Edinburgh two weeks later. The band went on to play a summer of concerts in Glasgow. Development was rapid, but at the expense of unity. The band soon split into two factions, with Milarky and McNeil on one side and Kerr, Donald, Burchill and McGee on the other: at the same time, Milarky's compositions were being edged out in favour of those of Kerr and Burchill. In November 1977, Johnny & The Self-Abusers released its only single, "Saints And Sinners", on Chiswick Records (which was dismissed as being "rank and file" in a Melody Maker review.) The band split on the same day that the single was released, with Milarky and McNeil going on to form The Cuban Heels. Ditching the stage names and the overt punkiness, the remaining members continued together as Simple Minds (naming themselves after a David Bowie lyric from his song "Jean Genie").

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