How agreeable are you?
I’m quite agreeable. In general, I’d say that’s my default setting. I suppose I’ve always tried to be a bit of a team player, so I’m agreeable to go with the flow until or unless something upsets the flow. At those points, I’ll tune in and go, er, hold on a sec.
What’s your middle name and what do you think of it?
It’s Allan, and I like it because it was my dad’s first name, although that was spelled Alan. I guess he was trying to be a bit fancy, adding the extra letter, or maybe he was having ideas above his station.
Where is your favourite place in Ireland?
I like Co Wicklow. I spent a little bit of time there writing with Tony Rogers, our keyboard player, who lived there for about 25 years. We rented a cottage in a place called Hollywood, and we had a great time writing songs that would end up on our 2008 album, You Cross My Path. I’ve also spent quite a lot of time in Dublin - I’m a fan.
Describe yourself in three words.
Apart from agreeable? I would say I’m funny, and just to contradict that, I would say serious. And the third word is Gemini. I know that might not mean much, but it can suggest a twin, a split personality, which I think I have a little bit of. You know, sometimes I’m wildly positive, sometimes I’m crazily negative.
RM Block
When did you last get angry?
It can happen if something’s not going right when I’m making records, I feel mostly frustration, but it can verge on anger. That can suddenly burst out, but I own it, and then I go bright red, which just makes people laugh, including myself.
[ Tim Burgess may be a Charlatan, but he likes to stay busyOpens in new window ]
What have you lost that you would like to have back?
I guess time is the one, isn’t it? I mean, that’s the philosophical one. A jumper that I had when I was four years old probably doesn’t really matter as much. And, of course, also people. It could be my dad, it could be my bandmates, it could be my friends.
What is your strongest childhood memory?
Being circumcised, although I should say it’s more like a horror story than a loving memory of, for example, spending time with my parents. But, yeah, it was being circumcised in a hospital bed and waking up halfway through the operation. I was seven, I think, and it was something to do with not being able to pull my foreskin back as much as I should have been able to. Bet you weren’t expecting that one, were you?
Where do you come in your family’s birth order, and has this defined you?
First and yes. There are just me and my sister, but I think being the eldest is actually quite nurturing. Being the eldest, you’re good at looking after people. My mum was the eldest as well, the eldest of six, and she used to talk about how she stopped going to school in her early teens because she was looking after her siblings as her mother cooked food, and kept busy doing other domestic things. I’m quite a good cook, so I definitely watched what my mum did in the kitchen. I was also quite responsible, but I didn’t take much of an interest in anything except listening to records.
What do you expect to happen when you die?
I’m very much a believer that we’re just spirits, and that we’re continuously being born. Of course, no one knows, but I meditate, and when you learn more about what is called the unified field - essentially, a single, underlying force - it’s a vast experience. I’ve never really believed in reincarnation or being born again or the idea that when you die, that’s it, there’s nothing. I think death is a continuum, almost like we just keep going in a circle, a loop.
[ Tim Burgess in 2021: The listening parties are here to stayOpens in new window ]
When were you happiest?
I’m pretty happy now, to be honest. Circumcision notwithstanding, I have very good memories of being a kid. I have very good memories of listening to music, of the band and how it started, the way we started and what I’ve done. My life has been peppered with happiness and, of course, unhappiness in between, like everybody else, but I always seem to learn from the bad times and enjoy the good times. Because of what I do, which is a dream job, I know I’m blessed. The rocky elements are everything else apart from what I do. There have been things I’ve had to overcome, drug and alcohol problems, relationships, stuff like that. Fortunately, my health has been good, but I definitely feel lucky because most of the rocky stuff has been dealt with by saying to myself, “All right, this is what it is, and I’ve got to get through it”. I would say that’s the spirit of where I come from, the Manchester thing. You just get on with it. That’s certainly what my mum was like, so there’s a bit of that within me.
Which actor would play you in a biopic about your life?
I would say, probably just for looks alone, Nico Mirallegro, the Italian-Irish actor who started in Hollyoaks - his Irish mum, Maureen, used to say that we looked very much alike. He actually played a younger version of me in The Charlatans’ 2014 music video, Talking in Tones. If not Nico? Maybe George Clooney. He’s a lover, not a fighter, although he’d have to dye his hair.
What is your biggest career/personal regret?
Oh, losing band members, the death of Rob Collins, our original keyboard player, who died in a car crash in 1996. Of course, that’s not a regret because it’s a death. I wish that we hadn’t gone out that night, for sure, but how does anyone know?
Have you any psychological quirks?
I don’t know whether it’s what people drink in the morning just to wake them up, but I have to have coffee. Then I meditate, and go for a three- or four-mile walk, and that’s all before 10 o’clock before I start my day. I do that every morning. For me, meditation is like a filing cabinet; it puts things in order. When I go for a walk, it’s all about anticipating the day, building up to it, almost like feeding my brain ideas for the following hours. When I come back from the walk, I start my day - phone calls, some writing, some emails and all the general stuff that everyone has to do. You know, paying the bills and all that kind of stuff.
In conversation with Tony Clayton-Lea. The Charlatans’ new album, We Are Love, is released on October 31st through BMG. Tim Burgess will DJ at the 333 Festival, Ranelagh, Dublin, on Saturday, November 29th
