Quotes from Jim Kerr

I think within our music there is a real strong idea of search, search for identity, search for place, search for time, search for love, search for knowledge.

I'd always been interested in the idea of the outsider.

I don't think you are ever prepared for success with bands like Simple Minds and U2. It wasn't until your fourth or fifth album that you really got that big-league success. It doesn't happen overnight, so you get used to it.

It was the mid-80s and we were on the verge of making it big all over the world, having just released Sparkle in the Rain. However, as with many U.K. bands, the U.S. was proving tough to crack.

You don't know you've got a hit when you write it - because music is all subjective, you know?

I'm a natural-born enthusiast.

When you're young, you believe in the most basic things. You believe that there are good people around you. And you don't just take things for granted, like the ocean or the sky, or even being able to dream, to have a vision, to have ambition. As you grow up, all that gets knocked out of you.

Like most classic bands, we only do an album every three or four years but that leaves a lot of down-time. And I don't like down time.

Mandela Day' was done in half-an-hour.