His Time Is Now

On his way to Ireland to perform at Castlepalooza with The Charlatans, who are set to play their acclaimed 1997 album Tellin’ Stories in its entirety, Tim Burgess is enthusiastic about the record’s merits 15 years after its release.

“We’ve done it four times,” he explains. “It’s gone really well, it’s great to hear all those songs in that order. People have so many attachments to those individual songs as well that the response has been superb.”
In the middle of recording the album in 1996, The Charlatans’ keyboard player, Rob Collins, passed away in a car accident. Does that event make it a bittersweet record to revisit?
“We did it justice at the time, but I feel we’re playing it better now,” replies Tim. “I suppose after Rob passed away, a few things came into play. One was that I took a call from Jeff Barrett from Heavenly, saying that we had to support Oasis at Knebworth. Martin Duffy was offered to us as a keyboard-player by Bobby Gillespie and Primal Scream, and we were really appreciative of that. So we played Knebworth, and did the V Festival, and we asked Martin if he’d help us finish the album. After that, everyone let us have him on a sort of permanent loan.”
The post-Britpop years found Tim decamping to LA, and getting into transcendental meditation, the technique espoused by cult film director David Lynch. Has he met Lynch at any point?
“No I haven’t, but I’ve had some really nice letters from him,” responds Tim. “I’m doing a thing at the weekend and all the money’s going to the David Lynch Foundation. I have his album, Crazy Clown Time. I’ve heard a few tracks, I’ve not played it all the way through yet, but I do love it. He’s a great artist on every level so I admire him.”
Burgess’ life in LA also found him moving in unusual musical circles. At one point he struck up a friendship with Marilyn Manson bassist Twiggy Ramirez, a decidedly curious meeting of minds.
“He was around for a lot of the recording of the Wonderland album,” recalls Burgess. “But he’s a Britpop fan deep down – so is Joaquin Phoenix who I’ve also done some stuff with. Britpop has travelled far.”
The only occasion I saw The Charlatans play live was five years ago, when they supported The Rolling Stones at Slane. Burgess is a long-term fan of Mick and the boys.
“You just drift around and don’t listen to The Rolling Stones for a while, and then you play something and it completely gets you again,” he notes. “That’s what I love about them. Only last week did I get the remastered version of Exile On Main Street with all the extra tracks. I played ‘Plundered My Soul’, which I’d never heard before, and I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ It was like the greatest thing I’d ever heard, and they can do that to you.
“I love playing with The Rolling Stones, between the band and my own solo shows I’ve opened for them about seven times. They’re great people. Ronnie has come down to play with The Charlatans as a fan – he played a couple of songs during one of our encores. And then we did a TV show together because someone had seen that. We also met David Bowie when we played the Isle of Wight Festival. I said to him, ‘Hi, I’m Tim from The Charlatans and he goes, ‘I know!’ That was probably the last time he played.”
Earlier this year, Burgess published his autobiography, also called Tellin’ Stories, which recounted life in the rock ‘n’ roll fast lane with considerable wit and insight. He received writing tips on Twitter from British former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and, bizarrely, the social networking site also presented him with the opportunity to produce his own line of cereal for a festival, entitled Totes Amazeballs, after tweeting Kellogg’s. Burgess describes Totes Amazeballs as “the jazz odyssey of breakfast cereals” (astonishingly, we’re not actually making this up).
With regard to his autobiography, Burgess says it was a challenge putting it together.
“I decided not to go with a ghost writer,” he reflects. “I don’t have a problem with using one, but in the end I thought it would be easier to do it myself, because I could do it when I wanted. It was a challenge. But the music is the main part of the story.”

The Charlatans play Castlepalooza, which takes place from on August 3 to 5 in Charleville Castle, Tullamore. Tickets range from €35 (Sunday no camping) to €85 (three days including camping).