In addition to serving as a belated 30th Anniversary, the cross-country trek also celebrates one of the British alt-rock band’s more successful studio releases here.
“This is the first time we’ve ever done it in its entirety” for multiple concerts, confirmed singer Tim Burgess, in an interview from New York City.
The group concludes a co-headlining jaunt with fellow countrymen Ride (playing 1990 debut album Nowhere) on Feb. 17 in Los Angeles.
Having not played The States with The Charlatans for 4½ years, Burgess said “the loyalty of the fans who come to watch us has always been really pleasing.” His most memorable U.S. shows include the band’s initial visits to New York City nightclubs The Marquee and The Limelight. “I also remember our first time in Los Angeles, being met by Ian Astbury” to perform in Orange County for The Cult front man’s 1990 festival The Gathering of the Tribes (a precursor to Lollapalooza).
In the past, The Charlatans – comprised of Burgess, guitarist Mark Collins, bassist Martin Blunt and keyboardist Tony Rogers – tended to play just a few tunes off their sophomore effort. One that almost always made the cut on American setlists was “Weirdo,” which topped Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks chart.
Led by the late Rob Collins’ spirited Hammond organ work and nestled alongside Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers on alternative radio playlists, “Weirdo” didn’t sound like anything else around in 1992. “You’re absolutely right,” said Burgess with a laugh, after being reminded of the fact.
He recalled how The Charlatans’ record label wanted them to do a second “Weirdo” music video with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” director Samuel Bayer and “we were like, ‘Why not?’”
While rehearsing for the current tour, the group rediscovered some sonic nuances within the Between 10th and 11th material. “There are a couple songs where we wondered, ‘Why did we go from that chord to that chord?’ or ‘How did we do that?’”
The Charlatans formed in Northwich, Cheshire, England during the late ‘80s – right as the indie dance-inspired Madchester music scene in neighboring Manchester saw Stone Roses and Happy Mondays leading the charge.
“They were trailblazers,” said Burgess. “We came a little bit after. There was a whole wave of exciting music, from Manchester, Scotland, London, and Liverpool. It was like a cultural shift. Just massive excitement about music.
“Leading up to it was this [groundswell] of dance music,” he continued. “Everyone was tuning into music from Chicago and Detroit. That felt like a music revolution. I’d missed the punk revolution by a couple years. I was too young.” Burgess revered post-punk bands with attitude like The Fall. The new alternative dance music adopted that stance with a nod to the 1960s pop revolution.
The singer used to follow New Order around on tour and often hung out at the Mancunian quartet’s nightclub The Hacienda, a de facto center of the burgeoning scene. “I was really obsessed with music between 16 and 21. At that age, it’s so intoxicating, isn’t it? You want to grab hold of everything. You want to breathe everything in.”
Alluring debut Charlatans album Some Friendly emerged in 1990 and reached the pole position at home on the back of top 10 pop singles “The Only One I Know” and “Then.” Those songs also became top 5 hits at American alt-rock radio; “White Shirt” and “Sproston Green” were top 30 at the format too.
A distinct groove-based element to The Charlatans’ sound helped them stand apart from other Madchester bands. “Rob was really into Hammond organ” and nothing else really, Burgess said, with it “being the lead instrument” plus “a very James Brown drumbeat.”
For the follow up, The Charlatans enlisted Flood to produce. Burgess called the creation of Between 10th and 11th (named after the location of their first NYC nightclub gig) “a strange experience” because the bulk of it was written in the studio.
“Flood was an amazing producer. He had just been working with U2 on Achtung Baby and Depeche Mode on Violator. We were in really good hands and came up with an electronic [influenced] record. We tried hard to make it different from the first album. After that, we were allowed to do whatever we wanted. It is a strong record, but very different to a lot of the other stuff we do.”
English fans gave Between 10th and 11th a lukewarm reception. “It was considered an anti-climax there after Some Friendly, but people in America really liked the dark side of us,” said Burgess.
Four years later, The Charlatans opened for Oasis at Knebworth Festival in England. Attendance for the infamous August 1996 event was 250,000 over two days. What was the experience like to play such a gig alongside the Gallagher Brothers, Manic Street Preachers, Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy and Kula Shaker relatively early in their career?
“It was an amazing thing,” recalled Burgess. “Oasis achieved this huge [success] and they wanted to make an event that would be remembered forever. It was really mixed for the Charlatans because Rob Collins had died in a car crash a few weeks before. We were coming to terms with that and trying to rehearse with [keyboardist] Martin Duffy from Primal Scream. We were in a weird bubble. When we got there, we just thought, ‘if we can get through this show, then we might have a future.’ We played like our lives depended on it and it did.”
The Charlatans (“UK” was added to the band name on early U.S. releases due to a Sixties rock act from San Francisco with the same moniker) rebounded emotionally and commercially later in the ‘90s and early ‘00s. An eponymous effort, Tellin’ Stories, Us and Us Only and Wonderland all attained gold or platinum status, hit the top 3 and spawned another eight top 20 singles in England.
More recently, the band’s enchanting 2017 album Different Days sported guest appearances by Johnny Marr, Paul Weller, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert of New Order and Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe. It brought The Charlatans back into the UK top 5. The retrospective A Head Full of Ideas arrived in 2021.
They are currently working on new material.
“We want the next record to be great, so we’ll take our time. We’ve gone to studios and done a few songs.” The singer brushed up on his guitar playing skills during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Does he plan to lobby Mark for some guitar spotlights when they record again in earnest? “Yeah, I’m sure I’ll nudge him out of the way with a Flying V” [guitar].
Burgess chalks The Charlatans’ longevity up to being resilient after the deaths of Rob Collins (“the most gifted member of the band” whose loss “brought us all closer together”) and original drummer Jon Brookes from cancer in 2013. He also attributes their nearly 35-year-career to constant ambition, wanting “to reach more people, tour more places and keep going back to places we love.”
Last September, Burgess put out sixth solo effort Typical Music. Multi-instrumentalists Thighpaulsandra (Spiritualized, Julian Cope) and Daniel O’Sullivan returned to work with him on the eclectic 22-track album, which ranges from chamber pop and psychedelia to surf rock, electronica and beyond. The sonic template encompasses loops, tabla, Mellotron, sax, a string section, and various other effects.
“I’ve always wanted to do a [traditional] double album, but I was nervous about it,” Burgess admitted. “I’m hoping people can dip in and out of it.” He likes making incongruous sounds and sought to emphasize solo violin (courtesy Helen O’Hara from Dexy’s Midnight Runners).
Many music fans first discovered Burgess as host of Tim’s Twitter Listening Party. Initially it was an occasional event revolving around Charlatans albums and started in 2011. The Party went supernova due to the worldwide COVID-19 lockdowns in late March 2020.
The singer began scheduling two or three albums to be played. The musicians and associates involved tweeted background tidbits and photos (Alex Kapranos and his band Franz Ferdinand’s debut album was part of the first lineup). Then Twitter participants all pressed “play” at the same time using their preferred album format (sometimes precipitating a pause for those turning over an LP side) and commented.
Burgess was pleasantly surprised by the parties’ quick popularity. “It made me realize how much people wanted and needed them. I don’t like to blow my own trumpet, but people say, ‘The Listening Party saved me, got me through [or] was the best thing that happened during lockdown’ all the time. They meant so much to people and you could see the reason why they were taken up by artists because they wanted to do something to help. They were all so generous with their time.
“Everyone could see how it evolved naturally, organically,” he continued. “Everyone could see we were all trying to come together as a music community to help people to have some type of enjoyment…Just the idea that Kevin Godley [10CC], Steven Morris, Gary Kemp [Spandau Ballet] or Run the Jewels would be tweeting along to their records to help people get through and have some enjoyment in lockdown during very dark times was a wonderful thing.”
A version of this interview originally appeared at rockcellarmagazine.com
Photo by Cat Stevens
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