THE PERFORMANCE ENHANCER - 90S EDITION
INTERVIEW :
CATHERINE A.D. - SIMPLE MINDS
WORDS BY: LYDIA HUGHES
"I'VE ONLY JUST JOINED THE LINE-UP. I GUESS FROM MY PERSPECTIVE OF BEING A KID IN THE 90S, I DIDN'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT SIMPLE MINDS"
The talented vocalist, guitarist and keyboard playing Catherine A.D. also known as The Anchoress, prepares herself for her performance alongside the Glaswegian synth pop band Simple Minds at North Wales’ Venue Cymru. Whilst applying her stage make-up, Catherine told the story from her point of view. “I’ve only just joined the line-up. I guess from my perspective of being a kid in the nineties, I didn’t know much about Simple Minds before I joined the band which I’ve been honest about”, Catherine explains.
Catherine reminisces about joining the Simple Minds collective. “I’ve enjoyed coming to the band, from not knowing their music to going right through their whole back catalogue”.
Alongside a solo career, Catherine joined Simple Minds for their 2015 Big Music tour after being discovered by the Scottish alternative rock band’s frontman Jim Kerr. “When Jim approached me, this was a year or so ago, I wrote some songs for The Dark Flowers project and we ended up doing a duet together that I co-wrote. He kept tags on what I was doing and I was asked about joining the band for a while and seeing what I could bring to it”. Catherine provides an innovative twist to the line-up with her expressive and inventive vocal elegance. Catherine delivers harmonies on a graceful rendition of ‘Rivers Of Ice’ during the tour.
Catherine exclaims the importance and the impact that Simple Minds and nineties music has had on her personally. “There was their song ‘She’s a River’ which I remember from MTV and I’d never linked it with them too much, but they inspired a lot of bands that I ended up loving, like the Manic Street Preachers. When I listen to Simple Minds I can hear a lot of the Manics. The relevance of the nineties is the way they inspired the bands that I’m into”, Catherine states.
With a band as successful as Simple Minds were in the late eighties, a downfall was predictable, whereas that has never stopped the band persisting, “I think it’s more a case of fashion. I get the sense that the band have never stopped, they’ve never had a break, and I know some people at the moment are thinking Simple Minds are having some kind of renaissance, but they never actually stopped making music. Obviously the line-up had changed quite a lot over the years and I’m a part of that continuing illusion”, Catherine clarifies.
Accumulating Catherine to the line-up has provided a creative addition to the Simple Minds ensemble, creating a contemporary and original element to the performance, appealing to a younger and modern audience. Catherine exclaims that Kerr is “always wanting to try new things” and a fresh element to the line-up is formed as Catherine brings her style of music as The Anchoress by “changing the arrangement and bringing a fresh take on some of their songs. I’ve ended up doing rock guitar, keys, piano, I’m quite versatile which the band like”, Catherine states.
It’s been made clear that this past year hasn’t been a comeback from Simple Minds, as they never left. The post-punk band have developed and proved their worth as a long lasting trance pop treasure. “For a band to have been around for this long and to have done so many different things and to have been consistently creating really exciting music, it’s astonishing the way they have evolved”.
Catherine has quickly had to adapt to life on tour and abandon her home comforts, which has proven to be a demanding experience as she exclaims it is “one of the toughest physical jobs you can do, which it probably doesn’t look like as people just see the glamour of it. For the most part it’s just show, sleep, show, sleep. We’re doing sixty dates in total with not many days off, you’ve got to be physically and psychologically on top”.
It is astounding how a band that have remained successful since their founding in 1977, can continue to relate to a youthful audience. Catherine believes that the band have “still got relevance, there was a whole generation of people that didn’t know the band but loved the bands that were influenced by them, and so it’s just a sense of discovering older bands. If you’re a great band with a creative back catalogue, you’re always going to have a new pool of people of different ages, at the end of the day it’s about the music. Good music is good music”.
" IF YOU'RE A GREAT BAND WITH A CREATIVE CATALOGUE, YOU'RE ALWAYS GOING TO HAVE A NEW POOL OF PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT AGES, AT THE END OF THE DAY IT'S ABOUT THE MUSIC "
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