Much like his songs, Tim Rogers in person is thoughtful, poetic and straight-up in a uniquely Australian way. He’s been writing, recording and touring for nearly 30 years now and shows no signs of slowing down. With grand new solo album An Actor Repairs out in a couple weeks, Rogers is back in town next week with band in tow, playing The Rosemount Hotel on April 20, The Odd Fellow on April 21 and The Carine on April 22. ALFRED GORMAN catches up for a chinwag with the Aussie rock icon.
“You were so fookin’ great I wanna put you on my fookin’ mantelpiece!” Liam Gallagher of Oasis once said to Tim Rogers after You Am I supported them on their ’98 Australian tour. Indeed, Rogers is a national treasure. A prolific artist, whose main vehicle, the legendary You Am I, are still making records and rocking around the world on the regular, yet he still finds time to explore other sides of himself with various collaborations – he’s worked with The Twin Set, The Bamboos, The Temperance Union, Tex Perkins, just to name a few – plus a few you might not have heard of. As he explains, he’s currently getting ready to go on a road trip with a few friends to play a show in Adelaide.
“I’m in Melbourne, but I’m just about to grab a car and go to a show with a band I’m in called the Draught Dodgers,” he says. “We’re driving down to Adelaide, the show’s there, and then I’ve gotta be a representative at a footy game on Sunday, so yeah, always moving.”
The Draught Dodgers? Apart from a great pun of a name, what’s that about?
“One of my best friends (Mick Sayers) I play footy with – we get together and drink beer and listen to records and I found out he played bass,” Rogers says. “So I got my favourite singer in town, Jack Davies, and my favourite drummer in town, Evan Richards, together. People talk about St Kilda not being the haven for rock n roll that it used to be – so we thought, well we’re gonna be a St Kilda rock and roll band! It’s just for fun, and because I’m not the singer, I love it.
“I think it’s kinda loosened me up in a way, so that I approach things differently with You Am I now, in that I’ve realised I don’t need to be so uptight and controlling, and it can just be this meandering wildebeest and it’ll work out. We never got on particularly badly at all, but we get on better now – which is an achievement after 28 years of being a rock band together.”
Rogers has spread his creative wings across many musical projects and collaborations, TV appearances, acting stints, and even stage plays (he’s produced a stage adaptation of his album What Rhymes With Cars And Girls), which brought him to this new album, that has its roots in a theatrical, symphonic vein. It was originally written as a performance piece Tim was attempting, concerning the retirement from the stage of an elderly actor, which didn’t eventuate.
“The songs were written a couple years ago, and they were supposed to be orchestrated – I love working with orchestras – I mean they’re difficult and they’re baffling,” he says. “I got an offer from the Melbourne Symphony to do a project with them, so I wrote them with that in mind. I didn’t want to play guitar at all, I wanted to use other instrumentation. As time went on and money became an issue, I had to rearrange everything – so I wrote the songs about four or five different ways.
“Between myself and Shane O’Mara we decided which way it would go for each of them. Often playing things with acoustic instrumentation you need to attack the song emotionally, with more vigour – you’ve got to be very sure of what you’re doing and play with a lot more intent. Even though it’s not an orchestra, there’s a lot of instrumentation on there that needed to be worked out. I’ve probably worked on it more than anything I have in my career.”
With the name of the new album and the themes involved, it seems Rogers is playing with the analogy between actors and musicians, and the songs are character driven. There are some personal elements in there, but he likes to keep it loose.
“The line between character and autobiography is a bit blurred and I like that,” he says. “With songs you can be abstract but also immediate, and because it’s not a piece of musical theatre, you can leave things a little untied, because the songs shapeshift a little, even for me. When I play certain songs in Dunsborough, they’ll mean something different in Bendigo. If they were scripted tighter, and written tighter, I think they’d fall into meaning the same thing every time.”
Rogers’ own stage persona has somewhat evolved over the years. And while he might not take it to Bowie levels – he’s always a had a strong stage presence and image. How much of this is character?
“Well it’s completely blurred now – the time onstage and offstage,” he says. “Offstage I generally like to not be with people and I really relish my time alone. It doesn’t feel that different onstage, apart from just upping your performance level, and visually try and make yourself something to look at. But I’m definitely not putting on a mask or a particular character. Onstage I’m just a louder version of myself. My imagination is just bouncing around the place. Whatever I’ve been musing upon and being confused about, I amplify that onstage and hopefully come the next morning I’m able to relax. Hey, it’s cheaper than therapy.”
The new record seems to explore a side of Rogers we haven’t fully seen before. It’s lush, varied and expansive, and one of the most intimate and enjoyable he’s produced in years. Integral in this was the unique and talented group of musicians he worked with – something he feels he’s become better at – and it’s also improved his own playing.
“Maybe I’m just now more open to collaboration,” he says. “I’ve been lucky enough to have with me this group of people who are perennially inspiring and exciting, and willing to work with me. All the people that play on the record are friends and associates – people I worked with on the What Rhymes With Cars And Girls musical, The Bamboos and You Am I – and they’ve all brought their own imagination to what I’ve written.
“I think the thing you learn is to treat people decently and make it enjoyable for them and welcome their collaboration. It would be ridiculous of me to tell them exactly what to play. I just give them the music and encourage them to ‘extend their wings’. Maybe that’s taken 47 years of my life to understand people and have some empathy. I thought I’d reached that level 10 years ago – but obviously not.”
No one quite writes songs of Australian suburbia and imagery like Rogers, and the new album really harks back to that vibe that was most prevalent on the Twin Set album and Hourly Daily. Youth is one of the best songs Rogers has written in years, and The Umpire’s Boy will make any man nostalgic as he sings, “He’s never filled out, he’s always been a stretch/ Every Wednesday night he knows he’s warming up the bench … He’s slicing up the citrus with a knife/ tomorrow he’ll be hanging out your whites.”
Turns out that one’s close to home for Rogers, whose father he reveals was an umpire back when he lived in the Kalgoorlie Goldfields as a lanky young boy.
“That’s probably as close to autobiography as it is,” he says. “In the script, the character was the son of an umpire – but that’s following on from my own life. The trick is to write things that are amusing or affecting, or use unique imagery, but not to be a smart alec, like ‘Ooh look what I can do’. Hopefully the images hold together and work well within the song, and it doesn’t sound like ‘Oh, I’ve just bought a thesaurus, or a rhyming dictionary’.”
Rogers seems to have settled into his shoes these days, and as an elder statesmen of the music scene he’s certainly lived a full life with a long and eventful career that has seen a lot of changes in the music industry, the world, and no doubt himself. Before he dashes off on yet another road trip, with another band, I ask him what advice would he have for a young Timmy just starting his career.
“Don’t listen to old Timmy,” he deadpans without hesitation. “Just surround yourself with friends and be really generous and kind to people. And always be polite to people who work in clubs and stage. I mean, the world is ablush with narcissism. Now is the time for previously narcissistic musicians to be kind and intelligent.”
