The Don't You (Forget About Me) singer fronted the group during its 1980s heyday but their fortunes slumped the next decade following their departure from Virgin Records and the loss of several key members.

Their change in popularity meant they were performing in much smaller venues than previously, and Kerr has revealed the comedown from stadium-filling concerts to club gigs left him on the brink of quitting.

Kerr tells British magazine The New Review, "In the 1990s, when the wheels came off Simple Minds, we'd pass a stadium we had once filled - on our way to a club we had half-filled - and I came perilously close to quitting.

"After a comparatively short space of time, I had a feeling that I had nothing left to give. But I learnt about why I was doing it: not to be popular, nor the rewards and riches. I realised that I did it because it was who I was, and it's only through that prism of making music that life made sense to me. And in the past 10 years we've made several more albums."