Simple Minds, 1927

Is your Sydney visit as short-notice as it appears? It was announced less than a month before the gig. Yeah, it is all very last minute. We were asked to come and play this event in Melbourne that ties in with the city's Grand Prix, which we were more than happy to do – but we said "hang on a minute, we don't want to be going all that way and not do something in Sydney." So it's all last-last minute – it'll just be us being great! [laughs] I would say that, wouldn't I? It's gonna be us at the top of our game.

So things are feeling good in the band, I take it? Yeah, certainly a lot better than six or seven years ago. It was all getting a bit grim and it felt like getting blood out of a stone. Whereas the last couple of albums and the touring we've done, it's gone from strength to strength. What's there not to enjoy when it's going like that?

You were never been tempted to give it up when things got difficult? Nah. When you're [contemptuously] Spandau Ballet you can do that...

Oh, you bitch! [laughs] But no, you can't do that, not when you're born with it. BB King wouldn't do that, and neither would I. This is what we're born to do. Otherwise how could we do it? [Giving up] was never an option. Certainly there were times when we were hoping we weren't getting around like punch-drunk boxers, that's for sure, we were nae gonna do that. But as long as you have one song remaining in you that you think "this is worthwhile", then there was always a next step.

Spandau Ballet are out doing the nostalgia tour thing at the moment: you've never been tempted to do, say, the ‘New Gold Dream tour' or something? Well, I think there's two ways of looking at nostalgia: you can look at it as something you're chained to and someone's forcing you to do it, it's the easy option and it pays the bills – or else you can say "hang on a minute, what is nostalgia, what does it really mean? Well, it means something to do with your past: and we've got something of a story to tell here. We've got a generation that grew up with us, there's this body of work that's interesting, it's expansive, some of it really was cutting-edge, other bits were fantastic pop music, it was a hell of a band playing throughout it. Why would we not want to play that story, especially if we could sweeten and refresh it by putting two or three songs that give a new chapter to the book? Suddenly it all sounds a bit better.

Speaking of cutting edge, it's interesting that in the last couple of years your early 80s output has been rediscovered – critics have been citing albums like Sons and Fascination and Sister Feelings Call as having influenced the current crop of electro-pop music, especially in the UK. Well, of course, it's nice to be referred to in positive terms. There was a period where certainly where no one seemed to want to know – but it's cyclical, isn't it? You look at the BBC and five years ago no one wanted to know about Gary Numan and now he's looked upon as the oracle! [laughs] Or look at AC/DC. They've always been amazingly popular, of course, but certainly no intellectual hack worth his salt would admit to owning an AC/DC album because it was a juvenile, brainless thing – but now it's "oh, hang on a minute, this is quintessential rock'n'roll!" Which it is.

Similarly, you've never exactly been fashionable in the cool cliques. We didn't really follow things, it was far more spontaneous – we'd go from one thing to another. We only ever knew how to do things the way we did things. Like in America: should we go break America? Oh no, you'd better go ask Joe Strummer if he thinks that's cool. I mean, get out of here.

I remember reading interviews with Echo & The Bunnymen in the 80s when [lead singer] Ian McCulloch would spend the entire time bitching about Simple Minds. Yes! [howls with laughter] He always did that, he was notorious for doing that, and we were always pissed off because we loved them, we were big fans. Actually, can I tell you a quick great, great story about that?

Please do. About ten years ago we were playing this festival in Spain, and we were the headliners - we were going on about midnight or something – and we're driving up to the site and looking at the programme and we were like "hey, Echo & The Bunnymen were on at ten in the morning!" [laughs] So anyway it's about seven at night and Charlie [Burchill, Simple Minds guitarist/co-founder] and I are sitting in our dressing room and there's a knock at the door and this Scouse tour manager guy goes "Ian would really like to say hello", and we were like "Great!" and he was like "OK, come on, follow me and you can say hello," and were like "well, if he wants to say hello, why doesn't he come and say hello?" – this should show you how childish we grown men are [laughs].

Sounds very mature. Exactly. So he goes away and comes back after about 20 minutes with McCulloch, and he says to Charlie and I, "Listen, I'm really, really, really sorry," and we go [innocently] "Oh, what for?", you know, pretending we didn't know anything, and he goes, "Oh, I've trashed youse for years, every interview I've trashed youse," and we were just going "Oh, really? We never read them, we didn't notice that." And he says "Well, I'm sorry, and I'll tell you what it was: my wife" – I think her name's Yvonne?  [Lorraine, actually: music ed] –  "she's you're biggest fan and it drove me nuts. And I love ‘The American', I love ‘Love Song', love Sons and Fascination," and he went on about the whole thing. And we laughed and we owned up and said "of course we knew" and it was great, we shook hands and said "see you later". Two weeks later, I'm reading an interview – he's still trashing us! [laughs uproariously] He's very consistent.

Well, given that it was his wife, maybe it was a male competitiveness thing. He's probably read the stories about your prodigiously large... well, talents. [laughs] Oh, I don't know about that. But there are some things I cannot live up to – and that is not one of them. But then again, I would say that. Andrew P Street