Mick MacNeil, sometimes credited as either Mick McNeil or Michael MacNeil, can certainly claim to be one of the most popular keyboardists to hike down from the Scottish munros. He has been performing with the Simple Minds band since the late '70s, his sense of atmosphere and concepts of both rhythm and dynamics often considered an essential part of the group's popular sound. His membership in the band goes back to its near beginnings, a combo that played in an admittedly punk style, Johnny and the Self Abusers. McNeil's route from there to the Simple Minds style--the description of which usually involves some configuration of the words "rock", "art", "post", and "punk" as well as a cigarette pack full of hyphens--was not a direct jog through Glasgow's music scene. In 1978 he joined Cuban Heels, declaring himself of Simple Minds before the end of the decade.

While always considered a vital part of the group's instrumental sound, MacNeil has not always been considered a key songwriter, yet this status has been changing thanks to yet another distinctly different style of music, house. When deejays such as Dan Smith and Conan Manchester, operating under the name of Liquid People, take the Simple Minds track entitled Changeling and remix it into Monster, the resulting songwriting credits include everyone in the original band, an ironic development considering that performing rights societies have gone to great lengths to deny the same copyright protection to content such as bass lines or drum licks on the original release of a song. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi