Last week English alternative rock legends The Charlatans celebrated the 25th anniversary of their seventh studio album, Wonderland. And for the past week and a half, the band have been playing the LP’s opening track, “You’re So Pretty – We’re So Pretty,” for Stateside audiences on the North American leg of their tour behind We Are Love, the group’s fourteenth full-length, which hit shelves last Halloween and whose Deluxe edition dropped this July. The tour has The Charlatans joined by our dear phriend Frankie Rose, who is providing support. And next Wednesday, September 23rd, The Charlatans (and Frankie Rose) will be returning to Union Transfer, where they closed out their double-headlining run with Ride (performing a double “classic album” show with The Charlatans’ Between 10th and 11th and Ride’s Nowhere) in January of 2024. I recently got a chance to catch up with Charlatans’ frontman Tim Burgess via Zoom (who I last spoke with prior to that 2024 show) about We Are Love and his profound affection for the man who made Eraserhood famous.
*Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Izzy Cihak: Last year you released We Are Love, your fourteenth studio album, which is kind of crazy…
Tim Burgess: Yeah! It’s mad, right?
Izzy: And it’s your first in eight years… How do you feel like the album compares to previous full-lengths? I know it had you returning to Rockfield [where the band recorded much of 1997’s Tellin’ Stories] for the first time in almost 30 years…
Tim: Yeah, something like that… It’s crazy. We went back there and it was largely a really good experience. I don’t know how the record compares to anything we’ve done before; it’s impossible to really tell. It felt like we were going somewhere that we had history with, but at the same time we were going there and we were making something new, so we didn’t really draw on too much from the past. We kind of faced the past in a lot of ways, asked it a few questions [laughs], but said, “We’re doing something else now.”
Izzy: I mean, how was that, returning there? Because obviously it was kind of bittersweet in kind of profound measures…
Tim: Yeah, in very profound measures. For anyone who doesn’t know, that’s where Rob Collins died in a car accident in 1996… so it’s 30 years now, and 29 years then. There’s a few kind of eerie moments, but most of the time we were like visiting, because the people who run the studio are the same people who ran the studio all those years ago. And it was kind of great to see how everyone was doing and all that. But, apart from that, it was kind of uneventful. It was just the studio and the new record… which had some of the same characters [laughs].
Izzy: What are some of the biggest differences in your approach to recording now, compared to back then?
Tim: We worked with entirely new people. We worked with Dev Hynes, we worked with Thighpaulsandra… big fan of him; he’s worked with Julian Cope and Spiritualized and Coil. Dev we’ve known for a long time, but stood back in admiration of the work he’s been doing as of late. Turns out, he’s a big Charlatans fan. So he wanted to help us to reconnect with something that maybe he felt might have been missing, or not be afraid of reconnecting with something. We’re always kind of trying to keep moving forward, but I think there’s a few things where we relaxed into being happy with being like, “Oh wow, this sounds like The Charlatans.” It sounds like The Charlatans. It’s got maybe a lightness of touch to it, maybe an air of freedom about it, and in some ways I guess it transcends in a way that it could only do as a band matures….
Izzy: I mean, it is hard to do fourteen albums in, when you’re so established, and you want it to feel fresh, but not like you’re trying to be people that are like half your age, and you want it to sound like you, but not just like you’re trying…
Tim: To repeat yourself! Yeah! It’s very nuanced…
Izzy: The album’s been out for almost a year now. I’m curious if you currently have a favorite album track?
Tim: I have a handful. I really like the title track; I think we really captured an emotion. I really like “For The Girls.” And I really like the two epics on side two, “Out On Our Own” and “Now Everything.” Although you’ve got to remember that these days if you’re listening to an album with streaming services that you don’t often get to the final track [laughs].
Izzy: Yeah… I feel like, for serious music fans, it’s coming back a little bit…
Tim: I agree.
Izzy: I mean, it’s been a long time coming…
Tim: Yeah, it’s been a long time coming… But I really like the final track, and it had to be the final track, but I love “Now Everything.” I think it’s an odyssey…
Izzy: You have played a lot of shows in the UK since the album came out. What were some of the highlights or standout moments of those shows?
Tim: We wanted to play the new album; we wanted to give most of the songs a fair crack of the whip. For the first tour that we did, we did six dates, and we were our opening band as well. The Charlatans opened for The Charlatans, which was brilliant, because we’d do 10 songs, and then take a 15-minute break, and then do 15 songs. So, it was a three-and-a-half-hour adventure. We’d get to play the whole album, plus a few deep dives from the past, and some hits. It all worked out. That made me feel very happy.
Izzy: This summer you played a number of festivals, which obviously isn’t new for you, as you’ve been playing them for your whole career, but I’m curious how you like playing festival sets and settings compared to your normal headlining shows?
Tim: I like playing festivals, I think it’s great. You get to play quite a short set. You have to kind of like edit all the thoughts that you have and condense them into mostly things that people know [laughs].
Izzy: You’re kicking off your US dates tomorrow, and you’ll be returning to Union Transfer, where you played in 2024 with Ride, actually on the last night of the tour…
Tim: Yeah! It was snowing, I think…
Izzy: Yeah, it was! And we were worried because Ride was set to play a noon show that day at a radio station, which got cancelled, so we were like, “Is this show gonna be cancelled?” But it was amazing… Anyway, what can be expected of the live show on this run? I think I saw you mention on Twitter that you’re thinking about bringing back some new old songs for the North American dates.
Tim: The set is still a work in progress… We did a festival just recently and kind of loaded it out to be mostly songs that people knew, so I think that’s what it’s gonna be. My B-sides have been vetoed [laughs].
Izzy: We spoke prior to your last show at Union Transfer, but I can’t remember if I mentioned this… I know you’re a big fan of David Lynch, and the neighborhood that Union Transfer is in is the neighborhood that inspired David Lynch’s Eraserhead, way back when he lived here…
Tim: Is that really true? That’s amazing…
Izzy: Yeah, that’s 100% true!
Tim: He mentions Philadelphia a lot in his early inspirations…
Izzy: He went to Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, although he didn’t graduate… But the art school he went to is close to the venue; we even call the neighborhood Eraserhood.
Tim: That’s so great, “Eraserhood!”
Izzy: I know! So, I’m curious if you have any thoughts on Eraserhead, his first feature film that kind of started it all?
Tim: My son is 13 years old and he’s really showing good signs of being interested in art, and his main things are like black and white drawings that are kind of horror-inspired. I don’t think he’s seen many horror films, but lots of his drawings are like warped. And I was like, “It’s kind of quite Lynchian” [laughs]. He’s also really into editing. He uses something called CapCut, which is a kids thing, but the way that he edits is so dramatic that I’m just thinking, “Wow!” So, I sent him a picture of Henry on that poster for Eraserhead, and I said, “You’ve got to watch this film!” I said, “I think you’ll quite like it. It’s in black and white, and there’s a horror alien baby,” and that piqued his interest [laughs]… I mean, for me, it’s all about Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive. I mean, I like Eraserhead, but it wasn’t my gateway, Blue Velvet was.
Izzy: I’m 41 and Lost Highway came out when I think I was around your son’s age now, and that had the soundtrack with like Bowie, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins…
Tim: Nine Inch Nails, yeah, yeah, yeah! Great!
Izzy: They were all the bands that we were listening to, so it’s like, “This is cool.” But then, I think right after that I saw Wild At Heart and then Blue Velvet, and, for the longest time, those were kind of… I liked them more than Lost Highway. It was actually later that I came to appreciate Lost Highway.
Tim: I love Lost Highway. I love Wild At Heart, too. They’re all great!
*Get your tickets here.
**Listen for a classic from The Charlatans on the September edition of Philthy Radio, 9-11pm this Friday on Y-Not Radio.
