Across the summer you are performing at over 15 outdoor concerts in the UK. What makes performing outside so special for you and the band?
• For us, it’s more about putting on the best show we can – come rain or shine, indoors or outdoors, but it’s also a great change of scenery to be playing at a beautiful cricket ground or at a racecourse as we will be this year. We’ll definitely be hoping for good weather but that being said, some of the best shows we’ve ever played have been when it’s poured down with rain!
You have sold over 50 million records, with more hits than most artists can only ever dream of having. You have recorded 11 studio albums. How on earth do you choose which tracks to perform each time? Is there a reason behind certain songs choices, or are they chosen simply because they have stood the test of time and still entertain audiences the world over?
• The set list writes itself, but even I’m sometimes surprised by how many hits there are to choose from. All those big songs we have, they’re popular and well known all around the world so we never have to try and regionalise the set list. At every show we try to do a good job; people know the songs, and it’s a great feeling to see the audience singing every word back to us.
How does it really feel to stand on stage, and sing songs such as ‘Money’s Too Tight To Mention’, ‘Holding Back The Years’, ‘If You Don’t Know Me By Now’, ‘Something Got Me Started’, and , ‘Stars’ to name but a few! Songs that have captured the public’s imagination. Can you grasp the effect these songs still have with audiences from the stage?
• Sometimes when I’m performing ‘Holding Back The Years’ I have to pinch myself when I look back to when I wrote that song. I was on the dole, living in Manchester at the time and I never could have imagined that it could intertwine itself into other people’s lives and affect them the way it has. It’s a real privilege to be part of that.
You are still writing and recording new material. How did you find yourself approaching the process of writing Simply Red songs and does it still excite you? Do you actively try to write a Simply Red song, or do you simply write where the mood and creative process take you?
• Well, it was a bit of an accident really. My manager came ’round to see me in the summer of last year and said, “I want to make you aware that next year will be the 30th anniversary of the beginning of Simply Red. What do you want to do about it?” I said, “What do you want me to do about it?” And he said, “I thought you should do a tour“ So I kind of thought about it a little bit, and I agreed, because 30 years… You don’t do that very often, and it seemed like a good number. [Laughs.] So I agreed. And then I started wondering, ‘What would Simply Red sound like in 2015?’ And then that got me to thinking… ‘Well, probably the record company will want to release yet another greatest hits’, and then I thought, ‘Well, maybe I could do one or two new songs…’ So I started writing, and when I got to the third song, I thought, ‘I can take on a challenge here: I can try and see if I can write 12 songs for an entirely new album instead of regurgitating another greatest hits’. And here we are!
Big Love was your last album. Are we right in thinking the album is about family relationships? You’ve settled down over the last few years and taken time out to be with your child. Do you think you are a great father to Romy because of your own father’s dedication to you?
• Yeah, that was part of the reason why that was the last Simply Red album. You know, I wanted to be around my daughter. I had a very particular upbringing myself, being brought up by my father. I lived with my father for 18 years, and he never married again, so it was a very unusual kind of upbringing I had, with no typical family. But my father showed incredible devotion to dedicate his own life like that. It was very unusual in 1963, you know? It’s kind of unusual now, but then it was just unheard of! So I reflect on that in the song ‘Dad’, which is about losing my father a few years ago. So it’s about that, and it’s about birth. I have a seven-year-old girl. I’m married now. Even the dog’s a girl! [Laughs.] So I’m kind of in a completely different world now, being surrounded by a family of girls, and…I’m really writing from both sides of that, trying to capture that feeling, because that’s really all I can be inspired by at the minute. That’s what I’m doing; relaxing and enjoying my life, focusing on just living, really. So it’s natural that the lyrics and the theme would be about family and that world.
Will you be bringing the family out on tour with you this summer?
• Touring is effectively me going back to work, so while I’m sure they’ll be coming out to see a few shows. I think it may get a little boring for them at this point! Plus, we have to work around school term for my daughter so that limits the amount she can visit while I’m away. Luckily, we won’t be too far from home this time so I’ll be able to pop back and see her more often than say, if I were back in Australia.
And we have to ask; of all your work so far, which is your favourite song and album, and why?
• I don’t really have a favourite album or song to perform live, however ‘Holding Back The Years’ and the ‘Picture Book’ album still hold the greatest amount of significance to me. I wrote that back in Manchester, while I was on the dole and at the time I never had any idea that it would lead to me playing those songs all around the world and having the incredible career I’ve been so lucky to have.
On Friday 3rd June you perform at the beautiful Durham County Cricket Club (Emirates Riverside, home of Durham County Cricket Club at Chester Le Street, Durham). Are you a cricket fan yourself? Do you play? What is it about audiences in the North East that make performing here so attractive to you?
• It used to be one of our tour rituals to play cricket in the downtime before a show and for a while, I had some cricket nets in my back garden. Now days I mostly play it on the PS4 at home but I still love going to see the matches at Lords Cricket Ground when I have a chance. I’ve found that whenever we’ve played in the North East the crowds have always been up for having a good time whatever the weather. It’s always good to be back in the North.
Do you have a message you would like to give your fans?
• Have a good time, all the time.