04 May, 2009 May Day! A Call To Arms!
Difficult to say if there is a better feeling than when the sun shines on May Day. I took the opportunity to make the most of the first day in the first full month of spring by doing one of the things I like to do most – going out hiking in the early morning air.
And blissful it was, as we wandered through fields of color including dense olive groves with trees that having survived are more than a thousand year old. Yes, that’s right, and yet they are still producing year on year despite all that nature can throw.
Just staring at them made me consider the truth in the thought that great character is forged through hardships, and that surviving hardships and stormy ups and downs is what creates special depths within the character.
One thousand years of existence puts Simple Minds 30 year anniversary in perspective of course, but there is no doubt that we in our own way have also been through our ups and downs, feasts and famines, floods and creative droughts, as well as all that could be thrown at us. Likewise, there is little doubt that we have come through it and are currently doing all we can to tell our story plus get on with adding new chapters.
The afternoon as glorious as it was outside was spent working on two new songs that I am delighted with. They are coming on really well and I can say seriously that I don’t recall previous times like this when it all felt so prolific. How different from ten years ago when nothing was easy, and ideas were not only elusive but more like getting blood from a stone. No one back then could surely have guessed ten years in future we would be in such form as currently. Or maybe they could, even if we ourselves could not!
I refer particular to those fans that kept faith in us and kept our name alive by supporting us in whatever way they could. Talking about us whenever, and even if there were not so many interested in hearing what they had to say about their band – Simple Minds. They kept their belief that we could produce the sort of comeback that genuinely seems underway.
I especially need to give credit in those years to those who went way further by putting their precious time and energy into creating websites and on line communities based on an appreciation of our music. That gave us the oxygen necessary and the strength to know that others cared apart from us. That caring was crucial.
Neither can I forget those musicians who formed bands to play our songs, putting their heart and soul into diligently reproducing the vital spirit that SM songs need to be played live. More than all of this we could overlook everyone who still turned up to see us wherever in the world we went to play, regardless of the fact that it had been sometime since we last set the sales charts on fire. People spent fortunes coming to see us repeatedly, to be with us on those nights, when their cheering was about all we had left to hold on to.
You never let us down or walked away towards something that might have appeared more vibrant, trendier and wholly more hip. Or if you did you never left us high and dry. Your enthusiasm was always felt and therefore it is you who made sure the heart kept beating and that the engine just about kept turning over.
Never silenced, we are roaring like lions again, and anyone who witnessed the series of shows late last year will testify to that. When and if you should hear just how great Rockets comes across on radio, as is the rediscovered creative power behind Graffiti Soul is, you do need to know that you all played a huge part in how that came to be.
There is still much work involved however if we are to get the band back on the public radar to the degree I feel that many of us would like to see. Personally, I feel that might take another album campaign that is based on something that is at least of the quality of Graffiti, but in the meantime every bit helps including each and very single radio play and each and every press article.
And why is it important to get back the right kind of mainstream attention? Well, it is only important in the sense that if you like me, believe that the music and its effect is that special and worthwhile then why not do all to that is right to get it out there? Just so that as many as possible can be aware and hopefully feel that there is something in it for them to engage with also. It is a communal thing that is what music is in my view!
That maybe all! But it is a big – that’s all! The daily activities that I endeavour are picking up in intensity and in many ways campaigning for Simple Minds is once again becoming a crusade in fact, just as it was in our formative days. And I am having so much good fun with it. Enjoying the challenge. I am enjoying each and every positive reaction. I am enjoying the rejections even, particularly as I am determined that we never take talk no for an answer, no matter where it comes from and no matter how uninformed negative opinions may be.
Nobody owes us anything as I can keep saying, but we owe it to ourselves to go over whatever walls are put in our way. Watch us go then! Or even better, come with us!
Jim Kerr