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Features Rogers And Out! Tuesday, November 06, 2007 Tim Rogers releases his best solo album to date and tours with Missy Higgins. By Brian Wise.
“I thought I knew you better than that,” says Tim Rogers sternly when I tentatively raise the infamous Missy Higgins incident in which he is alleged to have had an altercation with the young singer.
In my own defence I did wait until the end of the interview to mention it but I consider myself suitably chastised for bringing up a subject that Rogers has been assailed with through a string of previous interviews.
We quickly leave the rumours and move to the positives. The fact is that Rogers is about to embark on a fifteen date tour as the support to Higgins in what will be one of his biggest solo tours to date, promoting his latest and best solo album The Luxury Of Hysteria. So reports of any so-called rift have, to paraphrase Mark Twain, been greatly exaggerated.
If ever Rogers deserved a larger audience for his solo work then this is the album that is certainly worthy of the attention. It is the culmination of the work he has done in the past with the Temperance Union and a statement of his maturity as a songwriter. Not only is it Rogers’ best solo work to date but it stands amongst the finest albums of the year.
Given the fact that Rogers has also started his own label (Ruby Q, named after his daughter) there is an added imperative to get some exposure for the label’s debut release. According to the tongue-in-cheek publicity the label has been set up ‘primarily to cater for the Napoleonic whims of this nation's true Australian Idol, Tim Rogers.’
“I have really gone into debt over this,” admits Rogers who laughs when I relate the dictum that if you owe the bank ten thousand dollars you’ve got a problem but if you owe it a hundred thousand dollars the bank has a problem.
Rogers’ main accomplices on the new album are Shane O’Mara on guitar as usual, drummer Ian Kitney, bass player Pete Lawler and pianist Louis Macklin (with whom Rogers also tours). Add to that a string and horn section to round out the sound that was recorded at Sing Sing and the Woodstock Studios. It is not only Rogers’ best sounding album to date but you might notice also that he is singing more confidently and sensitively.
The secret in the production on The Luxury Of Hysteria is the balance between the instrumentation and Rogers’ voice. He rejects my suggestions that he has been taking surreptitious singing lessons but admits that he was intent on matching the vocals to the more melodic material.
Occasionally the music gathers pace as on the rollicking song ‘When Yer Sad’ (also the first single). It’s a fine introduction with its acoustic opening, driving riff and understated vocals. No doubt his fellow members of You Am I will want to have a go at this or even ‘Goodnight Boys’ (which is not a message to them) on stage as well. There is the barroom ballad ‘Things Are Gonna Get Ugly’ which sees Rogers voice accompanied only by piano.
In contrast, the delicate title song features the strings along with harmony vocals, while ‘James The Second includes those elements and adds a powerful horn section. Elsewhere, on songs such as ‘Quiet Night In,’ ‘Wise Words,’ ‘You Absolutely Charming Man,’ ‘Jimmy’s Delicate Condition’ or ‘Correspondence,’ Rogers is more contemplative.
Lyrically, the album sports Rogers’ penchant for the realistic opposed to the surreal with vivid images flowing thick and fast. You don’t often hear the word supine in a song lyric but it is here, along with carbuncular, coagulate, corpuscles, ablutions as well as references to ‘Darwin’s finches,’ ‘Yahweh,’ Betty Davis and Michael Parkinson. Not enough to make you think he swallowed a Thesaurus but enough to make you want to check what is being said. It surely cannot be too long before he busts loose with a book on his rock ‘n’ roll days (even more fruitful if he makes some David Crosby-like revelations).
The last few months have been hectic for Rogers, launching his new album after returning from the US after a short but frantic You Am I tour that saw them travel 8,000 miles in three weeks. It was the band’s third Stateside visit this year.
“It was nuts,” says Rogers. “There was pneumonia and laryngitis. Andy was in a car that got run over by a truck. Davey got his guitar stolen and returned in the same night. It was quite a tour.”
Apart from a handful of You Am I dates this month – the band’s final gigs until next year – Rogers is now able to concentrate on his own solo album with the full support of his band mates.
“How beautiful is that?” he says of his You Am I mates’ offer to help him out. “I think they can see that the two or three things that I do co-exist well and they naturally inspire each other.”
Earlier this year Rogers played a gig with Fiona Burnett and then went on tour with Louis Macklin to play jazz venues such as Bennett’s Lane in Melbourne as well as The Basement in Sydney. He says that the experience ‘fed into’ his new album.
“I love three chord rock ‘n’ roll,” he says, “but I want to freak myself out a little bit and try and write things, musically and lyrically, that are right in my discomfort zone.
The Luxury Of Hysteria is out now on Ruby Q Records.
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