Tim Burgess

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People do put you in a certain time capsule, or time spot. It definitely doesnt bother me on a day to day thing, and I dont feel I have to explain myself to anyone, says Tim Burgess. If there are any doubters remaining, Burgess has provided plenty of evidence to silence them. In the past two years, hes completed an autobiography, Telling Stories, for Penguin Books, launched the bold O Genesis label that has put out a series of 7? singles that reflects Burgess own diverse musical interests and his phenomenal crate-digging instincts. These have included singer songwriter Joseph Coward, the cult musician R Stevie Moore, an experimental noise piece from Factory Floors Nik Void, contemporary post punk via Electricity In Our Homes, and a spoken word release from Jack Underwood. Thats not to mention his presence on Twitter, where his Tim Peaks Diner has become a virtual meeting place for music obsessives the world over. This, alongside his regular eclectic DJ sets, led Burgess to the attention of BBC 6 Music, who commissioned him to produce shows on Christmas and New Years Eve. And then, of course, theres his new solo album Oh No I Love You, which arguably features some of Burgess finest music to date. Its been a long journey from Manchester to Los Angeles, to a grey part of North East London and Nashville

While so many of Burgess contemporaries from the 1990s have disappeared to come back with lucrative reformations, he and his band have continued to evolve, with The Charlatans took the brave decision to release their most recent album online for free. You get the sense that if he didnt take these risks or as he puts his flip my life around, Tim Burgess might get bored. Id hope that Id never stop being excited, because Ive always liked the idea of doing new stuff and keeping doing things, he says. The more things Ive got orbiting around, the more excited I get. More is more. I want to keep myself busy and stimulated, and I did have quite a lot of time on my hands because Id left Los Angeles and plonked myself in Seven Sisters.

This return to the UK after a few years spent largely based in California coincided with a decision to finally give in to pestering from Penguin that he put the story of his life into print. But Burgess wasnt content only to look into the past he wanted to revitalise his present, and look to the future. I thought when Im doing a book I have to do a record at the same time, he explains, It felt like I had to do that time to keep it all going.

Yet the tale of Oh No I Love You begins halfway through Telling Stories, when Burgess carried Kurt Wagners guitar to his van after a Lambchop gig in Manchester in the year 2000. As Ive said to many people Ive enthused about along the way, hey we should write something together. He said sure, Tim, you write the music and Ill write the words. The idea lay dormant for a decade until the downtime after the last Charlatans tour, as Burgess was penning Telling Stories. I thought maybe I should just go to Nashville and hook up with Kurt, no strings attached at all, and see what happens, maybe we can write a song together, he says. I went to stay in a place called the Hotel Indigo, he lived a couple of miles away round the corner, we met up for coffee every morning and talked. I went back to my hotel room, wrote a song, and emailed it to him. Wed meet the next day, or hed send some words. He said that he wanted to be my mirror. I found that very interesting.

Back in the UK, Burgess thrashed out these ideas for songs into demos, and sent them back to Nashville, where Mark Nevers put together a dream band featuring Chris Scruggs (whose grandfather Earl Scruggs wrote the Beverley Hillbillies theme), Carl Broemel of My Morning Jacket, members of Lambchop and 70-year-old saxophonist Denis Solee. The recording process was very much of the Old School. It was very regimented, Burgess explains. They were paid by the half day, and we did the whole album in two and a half days. They learned the songs. It was very Nashville, and I found that very alien but also very oh my God, this is me stepped into a different world that Id never seen before, completely out of my comfort zone. I had great admiration for them.

But Oh No I Love You is no Nashville pastiche, in thrall the country and western tradition. Influenced by Arthur Russell, Bill Callahan and Bob Dylan as much as Lambchop and the local greats, it also features electronic input from Gabe Gurnsey, drummer with London avant-techno group Factory Floor. Its still very Tim Burgess, the sum total, like that autobiography, of his life and musical loves. As he puts it, I wasnt trying to make a country record, though I knew there would be elements of that, and I wasnt trying to make an electronic record either. I wanted to make a record that was me, with all the information that I had at my age on my shoulders and in my head. Its is very much a Manchester and Nashville, Burgess says. Its a Venn diagram, the two cells with a little in the middle where we met. I tried to speak Nashville in a Manchester accent. If it were a film itd be a North-Western.

So the Tim Burgess of now, peering back to the 1980s and the Tim Burgess who was about to become an international popstar with the Charlatans, what would you think about what has come between? I still think Im a punk. In the beginning of the book, it starts with me going on holiday with my mum and dad, my dad giving me ten quid or something for my holiday money, and I didnt spend any of it, I kept scrounging, and then when I got home I cycled to the local record shop and bought the Great Rock & Roll Swindle. I was listening to the Great Rock & Roll Swindle, the same copy, as I was writing my book. I was reflecting saying Tim, what has changed? Well Im still a punk, Im now in love, which is a great feeling, and Im listening to the Great Rock & Roll Swindle. Whats different? Im friends with Steve Jones. He drew a cock on the sleeve next to him. But apart from that, nothing! Ive been through all this shit, Ive been through great stuff, Ive been through drugs, death of a friend, ups and downs, but the record is still there. And then My Way came on, and I thought, thats the end of the book. Or not the end