Simpler Pleasures for Simple Minds

“Don’t You (Forget About Me)” was the rock band Simple Minds’ biggest hit. The song, featured in the movie “The Breakfast Club,” reached No. 1 on Billboard magazine’s singles chart in spring of 1985.

But the Scottish group led by singer/songwriter Jim Kerr seems to have been away from the pop spotlight for so long now that it’s easy to forget that the band once seemed poised to follow U2 to a position of voice-of-a-generation status.

Instead, Simple Minds finds itself, in its first U.S. tour in more than five years, playing at the same mid-sized facilities as before--not the arenas or stadiums that U2 filled. Kerr and company played the 6,000-plus capacity Greek Theatre last time through Los Angeles. And on June 19, the group will headline at the similar-sized Universal Amphitheatre, following a June 18 date at San Diego’s Symphony Hall.

That’s not only a big step down from former expectations in the United States, but from reality in Europe, where the band has achieved near-U2 popularity. On Simple Minds’ last tour, a 1989 European trek, the band routinely played to tens of thousands at arenas and stadiums, closing at London’s massive Wembley Stadium.

Rather than be disappointed, Kerr, 31, sounds surprisingly upbeat about making his music on a relatively smaller scale.

“It’s gonna be fun when we play (smaller places) after playing Wembley,” he said in a thick, gentle Scottish burr. “It ties in with it being a new decade, not taking things for granted, not resting on any kind of laurel--not that we had many laurels here to rest on.”

So what happened on the Simple Minds’ road to the top in the U.S.?

The problems started with the 1989 album “Street Fighting Years,” the follow-up to 1986’s “Once Upon a Time,” which sold more than a million copies in the U.S. Though “Street” sold 3.5 million copies worldwide, it failed to find an American audience, perhaps because of what many found to be portentous music and heavy-handed political themes. Also, the band didn’t tour here to promote the album.

“When we finally had success here we disappeared for a few years, then when we reappeared it was with this record that no one seemed interested in,” Kerr said.

Kerr explained that by the end of the 1989 European tour, the band was too exhausted to continue on the road and decided not to tour the U.S. It had been touring and recording almost constantly since forming in Glasgow in 1978.

Personal life, including Kerr’s marriage and divorce from the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, and the departure of two original members from Simple Minds also exacted an emotional toll.

All that contributed to a smaller, more personal focus when the band returned to the studio to record the new album, “Real Life.”

“It was, ‘OK, we’ve gotten a lot of stuff off our chests,’ ” Kerr said of the band’s approach to the new record. “I don’t think we’ve turned our back on (the larger issues) and I think it’s something we’ll go over again in the future.”

And he admits he still relishes the role of being a voice of the masses.

“We weren’t saying anything that anyone with a modicum of intelligence and sensitivity didn’t already think,” he said. “But if you’ve got a microphone in front of you and you’ve got some talent, why not say something other than, ‘Buy my album’ or ‘Buy my ticket’ or ‘Buy Pepsi’?”

A BYRD’S FAREWELL: Gene Clark, a founding member of the Byrds who died at age 49 from natural causes May 24 at his Sherman Oaks home, left more than 50 unreleased songs, his manager Saul Davis said. In coming months, tapes will be listened to for possible release.

At his death, Clark was also working on three songs to be used in the film “Tainted,” which is slated to begin filming in Los Angeles in July. Columbia Records was compiling a retrospective of material Clark recorded for the label, both with the Byrds and after leaving the group in 1966. Capitol Records has also just reissued on CD “McGuinn, Clark & Hillman,” a 1979 album of Clark with Byrds co-founders Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman. Plans are being discussed for a Los Angeles memorial concert involving former associates.