Simple Minds Figures It’s Smart To Recharge

So, Jim Kerr of Simple Minds, what’s it like to be starting over in the ‘90s? What’s it like to be one of the “new old guys,” as you put it?

“Well, I’d love to give you a great headline and say we spent a year with the Dalai Lama or that we walked through deserts,” Kerr says. “But, really, we headed to my studio in the Highlands of Scotland and just got into music again. We felt we had no choice. We had taken the old songs to their conclusion. It was time to recharge.”

The band has done just that with a new disc, “Good News from the Next World,” released last week. It’s a timely guitar-rock record (the group’s once-trademark keyboards are in scant evidence) that already has yielded a hit single, “She’s a River.”

Simple Minds, as you’ll recall, was an anthemic ‘80s rock act often compared to U2. Singer Kerr, who fathered a child out of wedlock with the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, was a serious, socially concerned artist. He even made light of the band’s greatest hit, “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” as a song that was regrettably simplistic even though it sold millions.

Today, Kerr admits he became almost too serious, especially on 1989’s “Street Fighting Years” album.

“If you do that too much, you lose the effect,” he says. “But it’s something that may come around again. It’s still in us.”

Simple Minds slumped in the early ‘90s, but the group has returned with a “do or die” album, as Kerr says. The group cuts loose with torrents of brain-shredding guitar from Charlie Burchill, along with open-heartedly romantic lyrics from Kerr. “Had we made an album that trod the same water, we’d have been dead and gone,” he says. “It was just time for a change.”

Canadian music awards

With five Juno nominations each, Jann Arden, the Tragically Hip, and Quebec classical conductor Charles Dutoit lead the pack of nominees for Canada’s 24th annual Juno Awards, to be held March 26 at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario.

The Tragically Hip, Canada’s top alternative-styled group, has been nominated for top album and bestselling album, foreign or domestic, for “Day For Night”; top group; and, with Mark Howard and Mark Vreeken, top producer. Additionally, the group is nominated in the fanvoted top entertainer category in a list voted on earlier by Canadian media representatives.

Other top contenders in the 36 Juno categories are Celine Dion with four nominations and Crash Test Dummies, Moist, and Neil Young with three nominations each.

The two-hour program, to be televised nationally by CBC-TV, will feature performances by Dion (with David Foster), Crash Test Dummies, Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies, Moist, Charlie Major, Prairie Oyster, and others still to be announced. In addition, there will be a Buffy Sainte-Marie tribute honoring the Canadian singer’s induction into the Juno Hall Of Fame.

Soul Train nominees

Motown’s Boyz II Men leads the field in the Soul Train Music Award nominations announced last week with mentions in four categories.

Anita Baker, Barry White and newcomers Brandy and 69 Boyz each received three nominations.

The winners will be announced March 13 at the ninth annual Soul Train Music Awards, broadcast live from Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium. The show will be hosted by Baker, Patti LaBelle and Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds.

Other multiple nominees are Aaron Hall, R. Kelly, Blackstreet and Aaliyah, with two noms each.

Acts with one nomination include Edmonds, Bossman & Blakjak, Me’shell Ndegeocello, Gerald Levert, Zhane, Tanya Blount, Janet Jackson, Luther Vandross, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Toni Braxton, Jodeci, Warren G and Keith Sweat.

`Live at Leeds’ reissue

The Who’s “Live at Leeds” will be reissued next month with four more tracks from the show, which was held on St. Valentine’s Day 25 years ago.