Yes, I know! It SHOULD be a piece of music. And I honestly never thought I’d do this but…. I started listening to this late last night and it was such a great interview. Wow!
Mark – you are one lucky guy! I know this will never be me….no matter how professional I ever get this site. Jim will just be “no way, no how!” to the notion of me ever interviewing him. And…you know…what would I get out of him anyway? He’d just look at me with them eyes and I’d be fucking putty in his hands.
Things I need to highlight and/or address with this interview – let’s call them “spoilers”….?
The notion of him not missing the touring as much as he thought he would made my blood run cold. I wasn’t ready for that. If he had kept going the way he was, I would have prepared myself for the “R” word! I actually haven’t cried in WEEKS – I know! I peri-menopausal woman and I haven’t cried in I don’t know how long but…man I came close to it listening to that last night. Almost as if he was about to say “I really don’t miss you lot at all! I’m keeping myself more than busy, thanks.” Hit me like a ton of bricks. Still not sure I’m recovered to be fair. But…life moves on! Whatya gonna do about it?
The book. And I don’t mean Themes For Great Cities. Having said that, I am slightly surprised to learn he’s not even taken a cursory keek over it. Or Charlie. Charlie I get that more so. Jim I fully expected to be right in it! But I guess if he feels it would cloud his…memories and clarity (oxymoron?) over things for his own book – which he seems still to be working on, then that’s fair enough.
And more so on his own book – SELF-HELP?! Well there’s your cotton-picking-motherfucking curveball right there! I have been joking for several years now that Jim’s book would be less “memoir” and more …. fiction/work of art. And well, perhaps it MIGHT just be that?! Let’s face it…it’s a fantastical story. He likens their beginnings (Simple Minds’j to “you had as much chance as being an astronaut”. Which simplifies it in the extreme because… not really. There is A LOT of work involved in being an astronaut. A lot of mental and physical strength. It’s a job for brains AND brawn. Elite human beings. And I am pretty sure that, statistically, there are far fewer astronauts around the world than there are songwriters, singers, musicians….even if you qualified it by it being SUCCESSFUL music artists – anyone exceeding, say, 20 million album sales or some such. It’s a faaaaar different skill set! So I’ve got to pull him up for that comparison. Jim, my darling – it’s fantastical – but with all the will in the world, you’re not just going to walk on into NASA one day and say “I wanna be an astronaut” and succeed. You need to find yourself a better comparative yardstick. Love you! ?????
Anyway, I wildly digress!
Whatever the book is…however he formulates it and presents it, he knows he’ll have an audience. And at least he has admitted it may never actually see the light of day. Perhaps for those hanging out for it to be released – those that have children, they may like to pin their hopes on one of their offspring working for NASA?
And I have to give kudos to Mark Millar for his interview technique. He got Jim really spilling the beans on certain things. But my favourite bit from Mark? “Most people at this point would ask you about Don’t You (Forget About Me) – but I’m not. I know the story. So I’m going to ask you about one of my favourite Simple Minds songs. A beautiful song. I’m going to ask you about Banging On The Door.” HELL YES!!! And not necessarily because he asked about Banging On The Door. It could have been ANY OTHER SONG – just, the fact he did it at all, and like that!
Anyway, I think I’ve sold this magnificent interview enough. I’ve been riding on a high these past few days, feeling quite happy with myself over how my interview with Graeme Thomson went and feeling that…maybe, just maybe…”slowly slowly, catchy monkey” but then Mark just blew me out of the water with this and brought me right back down to ground zero and showed me how much I still have to learn. But the defeatist feeling is gone! There’s some envy there, for sure. But I am picking myself up and dusting myself off. I am learning to be more Beckett. To “fail better”.
Enjoy the interview. It’s braw!
