VETERAN rocker Jim Kerr has paid tribute to director John Hughes whose hit film The Breakfast Club turned Simple Minds into worldwide stars.

Hughes, who died last week, handpicked the Glasgow band to perform the leading track to his 1985 cult classic.

The hit song Don't You (Forget About Me) helped turn the group into household names and secure a massive No1 hit in America.

Hughes, 59, the creator of Eighties teenage films such as Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, died of a heart attack while walking in New York on August 6.

He gave Hollywood the Brat Pack of Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald and Demi Moore.

And 50-year-old Kerr said 'Thank You' to the man who helped his band hit the 'big league'.

He said: "The film director John Hughes died last week and although it would be wrong for me to say that I knew him well, there is however no denying that the effect of his enthusiasm for our music resulted in our band receiving genuine worldwide recognition.

"It is John Hughes that I will be considering, and how in particular it was his enthusiasm for the sound of Simple Minds that made us go the extra mile back in December '84, when we pulled up at a draughty and soulless Wembley recording studio.

"Hell-bent nevertheless on making a classic piece of pop rock, and one at that which would figure perhaps among the best of a generation whenever looked back on.

"John Hughes and his movie The Breakfast Club, gave us above all the thrilling opportunity that everyone who starts a band dreams off.

"The opportunity that is of aggregating the kind of success that enables an act to go through the door and into what is considered to be 'The Big League.'

"That we were maybe destined for it in any case is neither here nor there, the fact is that John helped us kick the door down and once there no one could ever lock us out or tell us again what it felt like to be No1 in America.

"Because thanks to John Hughes and his film The Breakfast Club, we had been there and done it for ourselves, and not so many can say that unfortunately!

"Thank you John!"

Hughes also wrote the script for Home Alone, which made little-known Macaulay Culkin a sensation as the eighty ear-old accidentally abandoned by his vacationing family and became his most commercially successful work.

After branching out from teen comedies, he worked with John Candy and Steve Martin in Planes, Trains & Automobiles and Uncle Buck.

Hughes, who was born in Lansing, Michigan, later moved to suburban Chicago which became the backdrop for much of his work, which dealt heavily with teen angst.

Kerr added: "A number one tune in the American Billboard charts is a f***king No1 on the American Billboard charts after all, as our then never lost for words, manager Bruce Findlay, liked to say at any given opportunity.

"And indeed why not? A No1 record in Lilliput even, is worthwhile celebrating.

"But when it is the biggest market in the world, and you are No1 surely one must savour the moment and indeed cherish it for the rest of your living days.

"That is precisely what we do as it happens!"