Don’t you forget about us
‘Me and Jim have been friends since we were kids – never a problem’
For more than 40 years, guitarist and computer whizz Charlie Burchill has been stoking the fire in the engine room of Scottish rock icons Simple Minds. With over 40 million sales, the Minds have given Charlie and boyhood pal, vocalist Jim Kerr, a handsome lifestyle.
Their great ability has been to adapt through the years – growing from electropop pioneers to stadium-conquering giants of rock. And they can still pack out venues when they scale down for an acoustic tour.
As Kerr’s commanding vocal, shape-throwing and crowdpleasing repartee has captured attention, Burchill’s distinctive guitar sound and musical curiosity-powered classic albums such as New Gold
Dream and Sparkle In The
Rain, along with chart-smashing hit singles such as Belfast Child, Don’t You (Forget About Me) and Alive and Kicking. Their endurance has seen them through to late career revivals such as Graffiti Soul and this year’s Walk Between Worlds.
“We’ve always recognised that the gear plays a big part in it,” Charlie, 58, acknowledges.
“Drum machines and stuff became available and then we would write using them.
“The technology’s got better and when you don’t have to use tape that radically changes the way that you work. Not always for the best, actually – sometimes for the worse.
“The thing about technology is that it can be a great help, or it can be a negative. But it certainly contributes greatly to the possibilities of being able to alter the sound and come up with something brand new.”
Like Kerr, 59, who runs a hotel in Sicily, Charlie spends much of his time in Italy.
And where most of their 1977 contemporaries have fallen by the wayside, the pair’s friendship has weathered all storms.
What strains have the rock’n’roll lifestyle put on their relationship? Remarkably few, says Charlie. “It’s funny because it’s never been our thing, creative friction,” he shrugs. “The BBC did a sort of documentary on bands splitting up. We were the only one in it who hadn’t!
“The thing is, Jim and I, we’re so different. I think that’s been something... we don’t do what the other one does, so there’s a lot of respect in just letting each other get on with it.
“There’s no standing on each other’s toes. We have been friends since we were real young kids and our families are friends too.
“It’s great and it sounds like one of those things, but we never really had any major problems.”
■■Simple Minds are currently touring the UK with The
Pretenders and KT Tunstall
(until September 9). Tomorrow: Coventry Butts Park Arena, Sunday: Durham Riverside