Hello there!
Welcome to the Monday edition of The New Cue. Blimey, the weekend went quickly, didn’t it? Don’t be sad though, we’ve got a nice little chin wag with multitasking Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess to take the edge off your Monday blues. We’ll see you all on Wednesday for another… wait, what’s that? You’re not a subscriber so you don’t receive prime, VIP New Cue Gold like this direct to your inbox three times a week? Well, don’t you worry, just click that Subscribe Now button down there and all will be well.
Enjoy the edition,
Ted, Niall and Chris
Start The Week With… Tim Burgess
Tim Burgess has been a busy man. In between hosting his regular listening parties on Twitter and embarking on The Charlatans’ (31st) anniversary tour, he’s somehow managed to find the time to write and record an excellent 22-track double solo album called Typical Music which is out now on Bella Union:
Before he got on a plane to Japan last week, Tim jumped on a call with Chris to talk about the album, tell us what’s going on in Charlatans land currently and whether he had enough clean pants for the trip. Tim’s such a good egg that after the call, he also found time to send us this selfie of him holding an album to blow your mind, even though Chris didn’t actually ask him to recommend one during the interview. Cheers Tim! It’s by Armand Schaubroeck, in case you’re interested, who Julian Cope turned Tim on to, and he describes it as “New York brawler bar band music”. If you like the sound of that, check out the title of this one, Tim also had to hand…
Anyway, that’s enough Armand Schaubroeck for now, onto the Tim chat…
Hello Tim, how are you?
I’m doing alright thanks. I’ve just been like carrying this album around for eleven months with only about three or four people in the world listening to it. Now it’s out, it feels really great.
Your last album came out in May 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic.
Yeah, and that was the catalyst in many ways for writing this album because I was unable to tour. The idea was to tour so people could see the band live and think, ‘Oh my god, this is brilliant, I must buy the record!’. So that didn’t work out. [Bella Union boss] Simon Raymonde said, ‘I guess you could always write another album and tour them both together?’ It felt like a bit of a challenge. I tried writing every day in March, April and May and I didn’t get anything. I was starting to worry that I needed experience to write about. Then something happened, well, lots of things happened, and I wrote the song, Time That We Call Time, which is track three on the album and everything flowed from that.
What was it that happened that opened the floodgates?
There was lots of going on in my life. I separated with a little boy’s mum, my dad died, and I was sick of Covid. I was sick of the world and I wanted to call time on everything. That’s what inspired that song and then all of a sudden songs like Flamingo came and Here Comes The Weekend came, which I wrote on a campsite with my lad. It doesn’t sound like a song that was written on an acoustic guitar on a campsite but it was. I think I was dreaming of happy times.
It doesn’t sound like a record born out of difficult times. Apart from Time That We Call Time, it’s relentlessly upbeat and optimistic.
Yeah, I know. The song Typical Music sounds like galloping horses. It’s as optimistic and giddy as you can possibly get and Sooner Than Yesterday is just crackers. I think that the more I went at it, the more excited I started to get about it. I know it sounds corny as hell, but I just wanted it to be extraordinary. I wanted it to have a real wow factor. I wanted to make people really excited when they heard it. To have this collage, cartoon music but with as much depth and range as I could possibly put into it.
Some of the songs sounds like ELO to me. Are you a fan?
I don’t think I’ve listened to an ELO record since I bought my dad one in 1981, but you know, I listen to records all the time, I’ve listened to four already this morning so you do pick up on things. When I’m actually making a record I don’t listen to music at all.
Coming off the back of several months of writers’ block, having a double album with 22 tracks on it isn’t bad going.
Yeah, I had a grand notion that I would make a record that was as sprawling as Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me by The Cure. I said to Simon I’d let him know when I had 16 tracks as that seemed like a reasonable thing, a 16-track album and he said, ‘You’ve got way more than that…’ Once I realised I had 22 I thought, ‘I’d better not write anymore, I’ll just give these ones the attention they deserve.’ I wanted to see what characteristics they took on. Typical Music, I felt was like a kind of surf punk thing. Here Comes The Weekend was a Jonathan Richman meets The Velvets punk thing, maybe with a bit of [1974 Brian Eno album] Here Comes The Warm Jets in there. They took on their own qualities, but every single one just started out on an acoustic guitar.
L.O.S.T Lost/Will You Take A Look At My Hand is probably my favourite one, there’s about five different songs happening at once on that.
Thank you. That was one of the last ones that we did. There’s a middle section in that… I’ve got to be careful what I say because I don’t want people to think I’m weirder than I already am, but I wanted it to feel like I was going through a portal into another world. You start off with this pastoral, Beach Boys-y song and then there’s a transformation into another dimension. That’s why it’s called slash Will You Take A Look At My Hand, because I’ve sustained an injury from going through the force of that.
One of the songs is called Slacker (Than I’ve Ever Been). Considering the amount of plates you’re currently spinning I’m assuming that’s ironic?
Yeah. It’s the same calling it Typical Music. It was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. Hopefully some people get my jokes, even though they’re not very good.
You’re still doing listening parties most night of the week too. How on earth do you find the time?
I don’t do them when I’m in the studio. I have had to get some help, I couldn’t possibly do it on my own. There’s two people that help me a bit – weirdly, I’ve still only I met one of them - but I had to get some help in because I was making so many mistakes with scheduling and stuff.
You’re off to Japan with The Charlatans in the morning. It was the 30th anniversary of your debut single during Covid, too. Did you have some celebrations planned that got scuppered?
Yeah, we put out a compilation which was delayed, then the tour was delayed by a year as well, so instead of it being our 30th anniversary we called it our 31st anniversary. We celebrated the actual anniversary on Zoom which was quite funny, but since then we’ve been really busy. We set aside this year to write but that’s not really happened, but it will next year hopefully.
I interviewed you guys a few years ago and you said that because you all lived in different parts of the country, you picked a service station that was roughly the same distance from everyone’s house to have all your band meetings in. There’s something brilliantly Alan Partridge about that…
Yeah, and that’s even harder now because Mark’s moved to Portugal! Martin is based in Wolverhampton, I live in London now. Tony lives in Ireland and Mark’s in Portugal. We have a Zoom every couple of weeks because there’s a lot going on in Charlatans world.
You’d have to pick a service station off the coast of France or something. Do you work on stuff together remotely?
We have got some songs, but we haven’t done any recordings. The thing with The Charlatans is we all have to be in the same room together. It’s just the way we work. It’s really nice to have a small fragment of an idea and see the reaction on someone’s face, especially if it’s a good one, that they want to continue with it. If someone ever walked in with a whole song, they’d be looked upon as if they were the worst person in the world. Everyone wants to be involved and get their teeth stuck into something. The problem is getting everyone together.
Did you ever try writing during your Zoom calls?
I tried showing Mark an idea, but I don’t know what he does when the Zoom turns off. I think probably just goes out. He’ll say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s great, I’ll work on it…’ We come back and he’s like, ‘What song?’
Congratulation are in order too, Tim, as you’re the first person ever to appear twice in The New Cue.
Oh really? Wow, that’s something. I recently found out that I’ve got the 195th longest album in history which isn’t bad either.
Maybe make the next one a triple album in that case. How’s the packing going for tomorrow?
I’ve been packing for three days now and I still haven’t actually put anything in the suitcase.
Do you fold your clothes or roll them up?
I just throw it in on the day. I have washed everything though and I’ve bought a new suitcase. I bought ten white t-shirts and ten pairs of white socks so I should be good to go.
What’s your clean pant situation?
[pause] I’ve got some but probably not enough at the moment. I might have to buy some in Japan.
Thanks for talking to us again. Have a good flight.
Thanks. I’m meeting Mark at 2am in a hotel at Gatwick, which is also quite Alan Partridge!
Oh, one last thing, could you take a quick selfie for us please?
Lying on the floor?
In any position you like, Tim.
I’ll send that over to you in bit. Take care!
CC