Simple Minds having split from Arista have signed a long-term worldwide recording deal with Virgin Records. Scotland's premiere disco rockers resisted the offers of several major companies, to sign their lives away with Virgin. Virgin view the signing of hte band as a major coup, and confidently predict Simple Minds will become one of the most important and successful bands in the UK by the end of the year.

Simple Minds have spent the last three years building a well-deserved reputation with critics and the public through their back-breaking commitment to touring and a single-minded determination to keep pushing their music forward from its early Bowie and Roxy-derived beginnings.

Simple Minds debut album for Virgin will be packaged in separate sleeves and will come with separate titles. The first album will be called Sons And Fascination and the second entitled Sister Feelings Call. It will be available as a limited edition and the band intend it as a 'thank you' to their fans. Their new single from Sons And Fascination album, entitled Love Song. will be released as a 7" as well as a 12". Sister Feelings Call features their current hit single The American. Their debut effort for Virgin for Virgin has been produced by Steve Hillage, who has lately been producing a number of other bands including Positive Noise and Cuban Heels.

Simple Minds are: Jim Kerr - Lead Vocals, Charlie Burchill - Guitar, Derek Forbes - Bass, Mick MacNeil - Keyboards and newly aquired drummer Kenny Hyslop, following the departure of Brian McGee. Brian McGee played drums on the album, but left the band to get married. Kenny Hyslop has been doing sessions with The Skids recently and will be playing with Simple Minds on their forthcoming world tour.

The frail and the pensive lead singer, Jim Kerr, sums up the band by saying, "We have always been every open in our use of images in songs so we do run a giant risk of getting labelled as being pretentious Glasgow boys and singing about Europe and things like that. But you can't just blind yourself and pretend that nothing exists outside your home town. What do they want us to sing about? Football? Life in the Gorbals? I think we've always been a bit more open than that! At lesat we did spend most of the last year in Europe ourselves, so we do feel it is legal to sing about that." This feeling was brought about in their highly acclaimed album Empires And Dance, which was their last recording for Arista.

Despite the past and current problems their most recent work is their most impressive and the group are now as confident and ready for a challenge as ever, fired by a feeling that their moment may have arrived.