The Charlatans Still Find Wonder in Making Music 20 Years On

Having rubbed shoulders with the likes of the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets in the heady, baggy days of Madchester, no one would have placed money on the Charlatans being the last band standing. And yet, 20 years after releasing their debut album, 'Some Friendly,' the Charlatans have returned with their 11th studio album, 'Who We Touch.'

While the most of their contemporaries have fallen by the wayside or simply become jaded by the machinations of an ever-changing music industry, each day seems to bring the Charlatans a new set of challenges. Indeed, speaking with frontman Tim Burgess, Spinner is struck by the singer's boundless enthusiasm not just for his own music but that of a new generation of bands that is poised to break through to a wider audience and how this impacts upon his own art...

The Charlatans have just released their 11th album, 'Who We Touch.' What keeps you energised after so long?

I guess it's because I just love the discovery of new music and when I find something that I like I really enjoy that feeling and I want to get that feeling over to people who listen to our records.

The Charlatans have flirted with a number of musical styles over the years. How would you characterise the new album?

To be honest -- and this probably sounds far-fetched coming from me -- but I wasn't trying to do anything [in particular]; I was just trying to be me! I thought that maybe the last record, 'You Cross My Path,' was really defined by Manchester post-punk and I wanted to update that sound then. But with 'Who We Touch,' I really wanted it to be kind of indescribable in a lot of ways.




Speaking of post-punk, Killing Joke's bassist Youth produced the new album...

Yeah! That came about because we got him to do a remix of 'You're So Pretty...' and we got on quite well with him then and in the back of our heads we always wanted to work with him. I actually got to curate a stage at the Isle of Wight festival and I booked Killing Joke and then me and Youth got to sit around and watch the Horrors and it all seemed to come together really. And we really didn't want anyone else to produce this record and I felt that he was on our wavelength. It all worked out quite well because when he first heard the demos, he said they were 'esoteric' and I kind of knew what he meant and he was there to help.

Crass' Penny Rimbaud makes an appearance on the album too...

That for me was a dream come true! When I was 13, the first band I ever went to see was Crass at a place called Winford which is a satellite town near Liverpool. Anyway, many years later I was in a bar at the Barbican after watching Spiritualized with a friend and he was talking about Penny and I said, "What? From Crass?" and he said, "Yeah, he's my friend." And I was like, "Oh, I'd really love to meet him; he's a hero of mine from when I was kid." And Penny and I eventually started talking via e-mail and got him to come down to the studio. I thought it would be totally crazy and unexpected if I got him to work with the Charlatans.

You famously gave your last album, 'You Cross My Path,' away as a free download. In retrospect, how smart an idea was that?

Not smart at all really and in the end it cost us £70,000 [$108,000] to give it away for free. And we're still paying that back now. But it felt like the right thing to do at the time. We didn't know we were going to lose 70 grand at the time but it scared the living daylights out of a lot of record companies all across the world. But there'd be no point in doing it again because it'd be a cliché and passé. The Charlatans, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails all had similar ideas then within that online framework. But because we've all done it, no one wants to do to it again which means that people have started buying music again.

Are you still living in L.A. and how does that affect the songwriting process?

Yes, I'm still living there. The songwriting process has always changed for the Charlatans and it's very rare that we get together and jam. Maybe we did that once for this album but usually we swap ideas over the internet. We wrote together for the first album and then for the second album it was really complicated with a load of pointless jamming and we also found it really hard to write on the road as well so we decided it was best to write in twos and in threes.

It's now 20 years since the release of 'Some Friendly.' How is it that the Charlatans have survived when so many of your contemporaries from that era haven't?

Because we were the best! No, the thing is, I'm still really interested in music and the band are all still really interested in making music, really. I really like to do something everyday, whether it's making music, buying records or designing sleeves or writing something in a journal.

We also had a death in the band which made us close for a long while.

But I think the reason that other bands fade away is that they lose the desire or the hunger or maybe they just have personal problems. A lot of people have kids and think that's the way forward and that music doesn't matter anymore.

The Charlatans' 'Who We Touch' is out now through Cooking Vinyl.