Our Secrets Are The Same: Friendship & Fame At The Heart Of Simple Minds
Jim Kerr & Charlie Burchill With Graeme Thomson
★★★★
CONSTABLE
While mirroring the solid, decades-long partnership of Bono and The Edge, Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill’s association goes back further, having met as kids on a building site playground in their Toryglen neighbourhood of Glasgow in the late ’60s. Taking turns to relate their brilliantly entertaining tale (expertly guided by previous Simple Minds biographer Graeme Thomson), from artfully-minded working-class hopefuls to stadium fillers, they prove candid and funny while admitting that they’ve had to be hard-nosed in the past, especially when it came to discarding band members along the way.
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READ MORE: Simple Minds Live Review: Simple Minds Live Review: Kerr and co. bring the Big Music to LA
“The risk of appearing to be heartless bastards from time to time was an unspoken necessity,” assesses Kerr. Of the two, the clearly affable Burchill still remains something of an enigma. “I know him better than I know anyone, including my own family,” the singer states at one point, before later adding that “there are levels to Charlie that I don’t know at all.”
Our Secrets Are The Same: Friendship & Fame At The Heart Of Simple Minds is out October 2 on Constable.
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