Jim Kerr

Jim Kerr was born in Toryglen in 1959 and is best known as the singer of Simple Minds. He married Chrissie Hynde, the lead singer of The Pretenders in 1984 (divorcing in 1990). His second marriage was to actor Patsy Kensit in 1992, with whom he had a son in 1993. They were divorced in 1996 and Jim now lives in Sicily.

Simple Minds was formed in 1977 and achieved worldwide popularity from the mid-1980s to the early-1990s; the band’s five number one albums were critically acclaimed. The band is best known for the single Don’t You (Forget About Me), from the soundtrack of The Breakfast Club. Simple Minds has toured extensively and garnered a reputation for being an exciting live act in concert, taking influences from David Bowie and Genesis. They were categorised as part of the ‘New Romantics’ alongside groups such as Duran Duran. Many of the band’s songs from the late-1980s reached number one in a number of European countries and entered the Top 20 in Canada, New Zealand and Australia. It was The Breakfast Club that brought Simple Minds to the attentions of the US and Don’t You (Forget About Me) reached number one in America and around the world. They performed in song at the Philapelphia Live Aid concert. The band has also worked in collaboration with Amnesty International, giving all of the income from Ghostdancing to the charity.

The band’s subsequent 1985 album, Once Upon a Time, reached number one in the UK and number 10 in America, spawning a series of international number one singles. In 1988, Simple Minds headlined the Freedomfest concerts in Europe and America alongside artists such as Gabriel. The concerts were organised to highlight the injustices of apartheid in South Africa. The band was also the first to sign up for ‘Mandela Day’, held at Wembley Stadium as an expression of UK solidarity with the then imprisoned Nelson Mandela, producing a single especially for the event, entitled Mandela Day.

Simple Minds’ political activism continued with songs covered the Poll Tax, the Soweto townships, the Berlin Wall and the stationing of nuclear submarines along the Scottish coastline.

The band underwent extensive changes in personnel during the 1980s and 1990s, but the original line-up reunited for the 90^th birthday tribute for Nelson Mandela in London’s Hyde Park. They also embarked on a short UK and European tour, but the reunion was short-lived and no recordings were made.

The band, in its present form, still tours and records with new releases expected in 2011 as well as concerts in the UK and Europe.