Tim Burgess Talks New Double Album Typical Music, Twitter Listening Parties, Sci-Fi, Los Angeles, and More
Tim Burgess is known the world over thanks to a multitude of endeavors during his decades-long creative career. Titles under Tim’s ever-growing professional umbrella include innovative solo artist, author, curator, DJ, and -of course- frontman of The Charlatans. While it’s rare for household names to also be fixtures here at WMF, Tim Burgess is a shining exception to the rule, thanks to the above pursuits as well as his untiring interest in—and invaluable support of—new music. Over the years, Tim Burgess and WMF intersections have been too many to name, but highlights have included detailed tête-à-têtes in conjunction with past recommended albums As I Was Now and I Love the New Sky.
It goes without saying that the opportunity for a detailed and in-person 2022 sit-down with the legend ahead of his upcoming album Typical Music was on our wish list, so we were excited and grateful to spend a delightful afternoon and evening with Tim in Los Angeles this summer. During the course of the conversation, topics included Typical Music, the ongoing Tim’s Twitter Listening Party, Los Angeles, long-standing musical friendships, and much more, all of which we are thrilled to share here.
Bobby Weirdo: It’s amazing to be sitting with you here in L.A., because the last time I saw you in person was in Manhattan for the New Colossus festival, right as the lockdown was rapidly happening. What was going to be the beginning of a string of dates in the U.S. and beyond during the I Love the New Sky era ended up being the only string of dates for that era, at least here in the U.S.
Tim Burgess: Yeah, that’s true.
BW: And now here we are in L.A., just outside El Compadre on Sunset. You’ve been to El Compadre before, right?
TB: Oh yes—millions of times. Well, maybe not millions— thousands.
BW: We’ve spoken many times about how L.A. is an important city to you, and a big part of your story.
TB: Oh yeah—I’m so glad to be back. I got a guitar and am going to try writing some new songs. I’ve been listening to a lot of Carole King.
BW: She’s so good.
TB: I love her—she’s my favorite of all time I think. L.A. never gets old.
Tim Burgess on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, 2022. Photo: WMF
BW: What is your recollection of that time we spent in New York? Does anything stick out in your mind especially?
TB: We were going to go to South by Southwest, but that got canceled before we even took off [for the U.S.]. We were kind of expecting that New Colossus was going to get canceled while we were flying, but we got there and actually got to play. And there was the [Paste Magazine] thing we did [in addition] to other dates. It was just amazing to do them.
BW: And the Paste Magazine session turned into an EP.
TB: The Paste session was the only way [most] people could actually see us play, and—as you say—it turned into an EP, which was really cool. It was great to share that, because I always thought I Love the New Sky was a brilliant record, but that we’d get people into it by playing live. Obviously, we never got to do that. And during that time of not playing live, Simon Raymonde said, “Why don’t you do another album?”
BW: If I remember right, those New York shows were the first solo shows where you played guitar.
TB: Definitely.
BW: You mentioned Simon Raymonde, and his label is Bella Union. This will be your second album…
TB: With them.
BW: Did Charlatans and Cocteau Twins go way back, or what were your interactions with Simon like initially? I know the Bella Union connection came about after you sent your music to him, but where was that relationship even established in the first place?
TB: I didn’t really know him. I went to see Cocteau Twins—like everyone—and loved them, but we never really hung out. I didn’t go backstage and meet them at all. I think they were about to break up just as The Charlatans were starting. I definitely missed out.
I really loved his label, though, and I’m pretty sure I sent Oh No I Love You to him, but I’m sure he didn’t hear it. Not because I’m convinced he would have released it if he had, but just knowing how these things work, unless you give it to someone and talk about it beforehand, things just never make it to [where you want them to go].
Tim Burgess on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, 2022. Photo: WMF
BW: Just doing a quick recap of your more recent solo releases, you and I spoke over [four] years ago now about As I Was Now. It’s well documented that it was a found album of sorts—it was already ten years old at the time of its release.
TB: Yeah.
BW: Then I Love the New Sky was a completely new solo album and had that early burst of New York shows. Now, you’re coming out full force with a double album—Typical Music. I’ve been lucky enough to hear it, and feel it’s your most comprehensive album to date. The album covers so many different aspects of what may have informed and defined your body of work thus far and has so many moods, yet it’s cohesive.
Given all that, I’d like to cover a few things related to Typical Music.
TB: Sure—please.
BW: Both “Here Comes the Weekend” and [album title track] “Typical Music” are already out. I love both those singles and videos…
TB: Kevin videos!
BW: Both Kevin Godley videos, which is full circle and really special. I can start with that, because I’m curious about what the work dynamic between the two of you is like. What’s the vibe in the room?
TB: In the room, he’s the calmest person. You’ve spoken with him, and he’s just very calm. He wants to disrupt the norm, so he’ll always go for things that are not quite “right” really, which I like.
I first met him doing some Charlatans work—he did a brilliant job on a song called “Forever” by The Charlatans. There was a massive budget, and he built this piece of equipment that twisted me around. I was tied upside down on some glass, and he threw me around.
BW: This isn’t “A Man Needs to be Told”?
TB: No, this is “Forever”. For “A Man Needs to be Told”, I was hanging upside down. So he kind of puts you through it to get the results that he wants.
[When he explained] his concept for “A Man Needs to be Told”, he turned his head upside down on the end of a bed in a hotel room when he was talking us through the video. He put his head upside down, and said, “Your face goes a bit weird when it’s upside down, and can you imagine flipping it over? Your face just becomes a little unusual, so we’re going to film you upside down.” He put us in ropes and wires and built a set that was upside down.
This time it’s solo and the budgets for videos aren’t as big, but he’s still as imaginative. [For “Typical Music”], he [told me about] a camera that was 360 degrees. He’s never short of ideas. Budgets come in, and he’ll have an idea for a certain amount of money. And if you can’t meet that budget, he’ll do one for another budget. He’s in his 70s and is a totally amazing, imaginative guy, and I love him for that. He’s just doing his thing.
BW: He wrote a piece for WMF and zeroed in on the idea that Typical Music is not typical music. I love that.
TB: Yeah, me too, because that’s basically why it’s called Typical Music. I’ve come up with different reasons why it’s called Typical Music, but that’s the reason.
BW: If you had to pick a song—at this moment anyway—of which you are most proud, or one that is most representative of where you are as an artist now, which one might it be?
TB: Well, it’s hard to say about where I am as an artist, but I would say the one I love the most is the one with Pearl Charles on it, “Time That We Call Time”. It’s the first song I wrote for [the album]. After New York, I came back and spoke with Simon Raymonde. He said I could do another album and then tour when COVID was over.
I thought it was a good idea, but you make an album, go out and tour with it, and then the next album is all about the people you met when you were on tour with that [previous] album. You keep all the experiences and life changes that went on with that album with you, and it informs the next place you’re going.
So there’s none of that [on Typical Music]. It was like, “Ok, start afresh.” I didn’t really have that many ideas. I wanted to write, and I wrote every day, but nothing came at all until “Time That We Call Time.” That was the first one—it happened in September, and I had started in May.
BW: Did you meet Pearl through a Tim’s Twitter Listening Party?
TB: Yes, and I asked if she would sing on “Time That We Call Time”. She came back right away and said that she would. I just thought her voice would sound really good with mine, and it did.
Tim Burgess on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, 2022. Photo: WMF
BW: Are there going to be more singles and videos for Typical Music, either before or after its release?
TB: Yeah, “Sure Enough” is going to the next one, and an Eyedress remix is going to come out.
BW: You’ve used the word “sci-fi” to describe Typical Music. Does “sci-fi” mean psychedelic in this context, or what is the connection to you and your work? And do you like sci-fi?
TB: Well, I like watching The Mandalorian and Boba Fett. I have mentioned sci-fi, and I kind of like the Joe Meek sort of version of sci-fi in the 60s—really thinking of the future and transporting the listener to a different world. That’s what I think of as sci-fi in music—transporting someone to a different place.
[I] made this record with Thighpaulsandra and Daniel [O’Sullivan] during COVID. We had big aspirations of making this colorful album with layers of string orchestras and otherworldly sounds, but obviously we couldn’t do it with only three of us. We had to use social distancing and wear masks, so it felt very much like the three of us were in a laboratory making orchestral sounds.
BW: Tim’s Twitter Listening Party is still going strong. Book one is out now, and book two in November. You’ve participated in so many Twitter Parties now, and I’m curious if this specific way of listening to albums has affected the way you make or listen to music.
TB: I want to see the best in every record, always. But to get someone like, say, Gary Kemp talking about a Spandau Ballet album—an album I never really listened to as a kid, only hearing the big singles—I thought, “I don’t need to hear this album, because you hear [the singles] all the time.” But when he can talk through all the tracks…he was writing [them] when he was 21 years old and his brother was 19, and the only other person in the London council flat was his mum. It’s amazing that he wrote all these massive songs like “True”, “Gold” and “Communication” with [just] these two people in his company. These are massive anthems, in the UK at least.
There was one day when Róisín Murphy, Gary Kemp, and Ian Astbury all called because they really wanted to do a good listening party—so great, [and] such a contrast.
BW: Did you have any idea when you started tweeting “Morning Tweets” that you would still be writing that most mornings, years later?
TB: No, no, no.
BW: At this point, it’s become a ritualistic way to begin your day.
TB: Oh yeah. Sometimes I just wake up and say, “Oh shit—I’ve not done it.”
BW: And simply writing, “Morning Tweets” gets an amazing response. It sets your day up.
TB: I know – it’s the start of the day. I think there was one occasion where I wrote “Does anyone fancy a coffee?” or something like that, and I [realized] people are more interested in that than any member of any band saying, “Hey—I’ve got a gig tomorrow night. Come and see me.” It’s just the irreverence of everything, which is very interesting.
BW: We’ve spoken before about how so many surprising things and projects have just manifested in your life: Totes Amazeballs cereal, Tim’s Twitter Listening Party, Tim Peaks Coffee…
TB: You’re saying I manifested a double album.
BW: Yeah, you did!
TB: I always wanted to do a double album to be honest. There are so many things [people say about] double albums—that it’s indulgent and all that kind of stuff [but] I think it’s not. It’s the opposite—it’s offloading, and giving everything that you can. I think that’s an amazing thing.
BW: And it’s not a concept album per se…
TB: No, no…
BW: But I do feel it’s a statement drawing from so many places that you needed that room, or else it would have felt [overly] truncated if you kept it at ten songs or something.
TB: Good word. Yeah, and also, [tracks like] “Time That We Call Time” and “Flamingos”, compared to “Sooner Than Yesterday”…There are ones that are monochrome surf punk or something like that, and others that have electronic beats, so it would be hard to get all that on a single album.
BW: You might feel more pressure…
TB: To narrow it down—exactly. And also, while I was making the album, there was the CD Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me by the Cure that was just lying around all the time, and I thought, “If I can do sixteen tracks, that would be ace.” So I told Daniel and Thighpaulsandra to stop me when I got to sixteen tracks, and Thighps said, “We’ve [already] done way more than that—twenty-two, I think.” At that point I thought we better stop, and make them as good as we could.
I didn’t know that all twenty-two would go on [the album], but I didn’t want to do any B-sides. I wanted to put out everything.
BW: When you were recording at Rockfield, was the experience totally insular and indoors, or was there anything about the property or Wales that you were also able to experience and perhaps draw inspiration from?
TB: Well, it’s a farm in a field, and the family who owns it is running around. Rob [Collins] died at the bottom of the drive in the field opposite, so I would take my tea down there in the morning and talk to him just a little bit in my head. It was just nice to go down there with acceptance, more than anything.
It was pretty immersive – we would start at 10:00 every day and finish at 2:00.
BW: Start at 10:00 in the morning and end at 2:00 in the morning?
TB: Yeah, and Thighps did all the cooking, so we’d break for lunch and break for dinner. But apart from that, it was all music.
BW: Does Thighpaulsandra have a signature dish?
TB: He makes brilliant Thai soups—vegetable soups. He’s really good with Otto Lenghi recipes, and does things like salt and pepper tofu. That’s a Thighpaulsandra signature dish. And he made fish pie for him and Dan.
BW: We’ll return to the new album, but another manifested project is the iconic “How High” jacket that was available to buy in 2022. Was making that available an organic thing, or had it been on your mind a while to do something like that?
TB: It hadn’t been on my mind, but I’d done quite a lot of merch that resonated with people: the Sproston Green T-shirts, the Weirdo T-shirts, and stuff like that. The anniversary of “How High” was coming up, and I was telling my mate Nick that I get asked more about where to get the “How High” jacket than what my favorite gig was. People seem to always ask about it, and just when I think someone’s not going to ask about it, it comes back again. So we just said that we’d make some.
BW: Did you even key into that jacket when you were doing the video?
TB: Totally, because I asked for it. I was really moody about it because they wanted me to wear it but didn’t want to give it to me.
BW: But did you get to take it at the end of the shoot?
TB: No, because they went before I got a chance to get it back.
BW: I wonder where it went.
TB: I have no idea, but the ones that are made are identical [to it].
BW: You write books, do the Twitter Party, tour with Charlatans, tour solo…where is your space—physically and mentally—for the alone time necessary for new music? Does it go into phone notes, is it nighttime with an acoustic guitar? I don’t know if you still do TM…
TB: I do.
BW: So how and when do you find that space?
BW: Generally, in the daytime. But then I’m never not tuned into it. When I was living in Norfolk, I would take [my son] to school, go out and do a few things, drive around a little bit, come back mid-day and just play the guitar.
I try to write something every day. It doesn’t always work, but then you catch up on the one you did before, so you’re always working on them. They’re always lying around and I’m always thinking about them. I’ve started writing again, and I don’t know what for, but I’ve got four or five new things.
The Charlatans stuff only really happens when we’re all together. I think we’ve all tried bringing in songs fully formed, but it doesn’t really work, because everyone has their own thoughts about how the band should sound.
BW: Besides still being so active with The Charlatans, you’re also still crossing paths—whether online or in-person—with artists like Liam Gallagher, Paul Weller, an Andy Bell.
TB: Liam chose The Charlatans to play his shows, and that’s great. I saw him for the first time in something like five years outside the hotel, and he told me how great he thought “Here Comes the Weekend” is. It’s just nice that he’s that interested. I saw Weller the other day, and he asked if he could hear the album, so I sent him it and he loves it. And I always liked Andy—he came to the Hacienda with me in 1993 and stayed with me in my flat in Salford, so we go back thirty years.
Tim Burgess on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, 2022. Photo: WMF
BW: Looking ahead, you’ve got the second Listening Party book coming out in November, and the Typical Music double album coming out in September. What else is coming up for you in 2022 and 2023?
TB: We have been writing some Charlatans stuff—very slow. We only want to do something we really believe in, so we’re not rushing it. Mark [Collins] just moved to Portugal, and Tony [Rogers] lives in Ireland, so we’ve not decided where to record. The Charlatans stuff is an ongoing thing.
But I’d like to play my album all over the world. That’s what I’d love to do—it’s hard to tell at this moment in time whether I’ll get that chance or not. I should do—yeah. The album’s dope, innit?
Tim Burgess on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, 2022. Photo: Cameron Murray for WMF
Cover photo: WMF
