...

MH: So is this a Kerr/Burchill title?
JK: It is indeed. The melody's ten years old and it had been lost in the midst of time. We were frustrated way back then because we always thought it was a great melody but I guess we weren't quite sure where to take it next. And there's many ideas, they go on the back burner and sometimes when it's meant to be, it's meant to be. It was actually Simon Hayward who works with us on our Electrosets and stuff, he started badgering me about it: "There's this tune and you have to do it. It's so good.” And so as we were coming to the last stage of the recordings, we were doing in Dublin, I brought it up again to Charlie and Andy Gilliespie who was in the room at the time and we put it on and the melody was startlingly good and we thought it would be great if we could crack this.
JK: It's amazing sometimes. You put in the work and sometimes it adds up and sometimes you're disappointed but rarely does anything go to waste if it's that good, it usually announces itself in some way at some point later on in the future.

Jim Kerr and Martin Hanlin
17th November 2013

JK: "The title track itself, Big Music, which is another Andy collaboration – Andy and Charlie – but this time the track goes back to... I think the music's almost ten years old – or the riff is. It was always good but I could never quite come up with a lyric I felt was good enough."

AG: "And we were working on it in Ireland – just the three of us actually. And I came up with some synth stuff and we pushed and pulled it around quite a bit – I'd been working on the track before with Charlie."

JK: "I'd got a weekend off that I was really looking forward to – in fact I went to see Prince play in Monteux. Meanwhile Andy was left working on the music and I said 'By the time I come back, I'll have a lyric. I'm sure about it.' I don't know where I got the confidence from but I'll thought go and see Prince and I've have an amazing time. So I went to see Prince and he's Prince and he's great but I was very frustrated because he never played any of the songs that I wanted him to play. I know the feeling quite a lot – people come to see Simple Minds and say 'Well you never played this or played that' but Prince literally never played any of the songs I wanted to hear. And I was enraged – I was furious. I could understand the artistic side of it but as a punter... I remember standing during the gig and just thinking 'Give me the music. Give me the songs. Give me these songs that make me feel ecstatic. Give me these songs that change my world.' Because Prince is one of these artists that indeed could lay claim to that."

JK: "Anyway, by the time I got back to Ireland, I'd scribbled all these lines listening to the backing track of what became Big Music."

AG: "He went in and he'd basically cut his lyrics and the vocal in one take. It was fairly obvious that there was something special happening there."

JK: "And I was quite happy by midnight on the day back that we'd nailed a lyric and a tune that finally seemed to match and go together well. And really it's just about a passion for music, for playing music, for listening to music and in our case, growing up in within this life of music."

Band Interviews
Big Music Deluxe DVD

Martin Hanlin
The Real McCoy
KX 93.5