Rockin' You Am I frontman Tim Rogers has spent the last two years working on 'An Actor Repairs', his latest, full-length solo release.
Originally written as an accompaniment piece to a stage performance he was attempting at the time and later discarded, Tim's seventh solo album was inspired by conversations the frontman had with artists and creatives about the struggles they find as they approach and remove themselves from the fictional work they perform.
The project may have taken the better part of two years to complete, as Tim put it off to write music alongside bands such as The Bamboos, but the renowned songwriter says he wouldn't have it any other way.
“I'm really glad I kept putting if off, because I listen back to demos of the songs as I originally wrote them and they’re flipping lousy. They're just not as good as it turned out,” Tim admits.
“I'm also very aware that no one desperately needs a record by Tim Rogers in their life, but I desperately needed to make one and to make these songs... I love doing it but no one’s world is going to cave in if I don’t.
“So if there's other work to be done with people I love then I'll jump at it. I'm glad that it did take this long, because it’s a far better record for it.”
Each time Tim would return to his 'An Actor Repairs' work, he would continually make changes, resulting in the album being written and rewritten time and time again.
In fact, the first single lifted from the album, 'Youth', was reworked four times alone, as Tim tossed and turned with its stylisation. “I wrote it as a folk song, then I wrote another version for an orchestra, then it went another way and another way and finally the way it is.
"On the last version of it, I had an idea of the way I wanted it to sound and the musicians to play it came very quickly to me,” Tim explains.
“It's rare that your little daydream of how you want something to sound turns out exactly right and this was one of the rare occasions where it did. I wanted it to sound big, sentimental and a little mournful, but it has beauty in it as well.
“This is the first time I've [written like this], because previously the first version was the only version and I didn’t care less. I may have got bored quicker or just wanted to get on with touring and playing and not wasting time with a pen and paper writing it. Though this time, I thought 'I want to make these songs and I want to sit with them for awhile'.”
As for 'Youth' being a forerunner of what to expect from 'An Actor Repairs', Tim couldn't disagree more. “The album is all over the place... the single is the straightest song on the record.
“The rest of the record is odder, whether it’s the writing or the instrumentation. It needed to be because it was dealing in fictions and people who are wondering where the fiction in their life stopped and the facts began, and how can those two things, can they exist together.”
'An Actor Repairs' is released 28 April.
Tim Rogers Shows
Sun 16 Apr – Spiegeltent (Wollongong)Thu 20 Apr – Rosemount Hotel (Perth)
Fri 21 Apr – Odd Fellow (Fremantle)
Sat 22 Apr – Carine Tavern (Duncraig)
Thu 4 May – Street Theatre (Canberra)
Fri 5 May – St Stephens Church (Sydney)
Sat 6 May – Milton Theatre
Fri 12 May – Workers Club (Geelong)
Sat 13 May – Melba Spiegeltent (Melbourne)
Sun 14 May – Flying Saucer Club (Melbourne)
Fri 26 May – Hardys Bay Club
Sun 28 May – Flow Bar (Old Bar)
