"Breakfast" made them a hit in the United States, but for over 20 years post-punk art rock band Simple Minds have been creating music that has withheld through other punk band's turmoil's.

Forming in Glasgow, Scotland in 1978, the initial group consisted of Tony Donald on bass, Brian McGee on drums and Mick McNeil on keyboard, though Donald was replaced by Derek Forbes. The boys who stuck with Simple Minds through everything were singer Jim Kerr and guitarist Charlie Burchill. The two were childhood friends and formed the punk group Johnny and the Self-Abusers with drummer Brian McGee in 1977. Though the group was short lived, it became the precursor to Simple Minds. With a stable lineup, the band signed with Edinburgh-based Zoom record label and recorded Life in a Day, a record that combined several different genres. After a rapid succession of records (four in a period of three years), Simple Minds lost a few more members, but eventually saw a condensed compilation, Themes for Great Cities, for American release in 1981.

With the release of the album New Gold Dream, Simple Minds started to make inroads in the US. The group toured with the Pretenders and worked with U2 but continued to retain their cult status and eventually decided to take a year off. Though their European success was huge, selling out stadiums with singles that topped the charts, it wasn't until the band was essentially forced to record the Ken Forsey and Steve Schiff-penned song "Don't You (Forget About Me)" for the 1985 John Hughes soundtrack for The Breakfast Club that Simple Minds was a US hit. The movie's theme song, the single would become the band's biggest US song and eventually its biggest single ever, topping the Billboard pop charts.

The single marked a swift change in the band's sound, proving that what this Scottish band really wanted was the "American Dream." Their next album Once Upon a Time didn't even include their hit single but sold 500,000 copies in the US alone and had three Top 40 hits. The band went on to become extremely political, donating the proceeds of several concerts to Amnesty International. By 1991 the only members left were Kerr and Burchill, and the two returned to the band's basic sound after a few failed releases during the end of the ‘80s.