Tim Burgess: 'I'm more than just a haircut'

The Charlatans front man, Tim Burgess, has gone walkabout and made a solo album. It took a while to persuade his bandmates that it was for real, but he found it liberating. He tells Alexia Loundras that he had something to prove

Tucked away in the corner of a chrome-and-wood hotel dining-room, Tim Burgess drops a bombshell. "I wanted to cause some controversy," says the Charlatans front man, deadpan, from under his baseball cap. Temporarily casting aside the safety net of his bandmates, the 36-year-old, now based in Hollywood Hills, is releasing his debut solo album. Yet the affable, ingenuous Mancunian singer is hardly Liam Gallagher: he oozes insecurity, and any supposed intention to shake things up is utterly unconvincing. And he knows it. Within seconds, the cool façade crumbles. Burgess collapses into giggles as though delivering his favourite punchline. "I didn't really," he laughs.

Burgess is in good spirits. It's his day off, and he's looking forward to spending it with his American wife, Michelle, his "true spirit, and inspiration" and the reason he now lives in LA. And thanks to a well-received solo gig the night before (and a few lunchtime beers), he is also giddy with excitement. It seems that 14 years of being an indie pin-up and fronting The Charlatans' headline gigs across the world hasn't affected his ego in the least. Burgess offers himself up - flaws and all - and hopes for the best. He is endearingly sincere, unguarded and nervous - his face crinkling with worry with every reply, then relaxing into a relief-filled, eager-to-please grin. Despite having released seven albums and a string of hit singles with the Madchester survivors, he still desperately seeks approval. And the decision to go it alone was not intended to incite confrontation; it was all a bit of a happy accident. Like Archimedes inadvertently working out the principle of buoyancy, Burgess, in his own way, had a little eureka moment. He just sort of fell into it.

"Making a solo album was never on my priority list or anything," he says, innocently, in his soft, Northern voice. Instead, he says, he never really intended to write his own record at all. It all came about as a bit of a surprise. "I just started off writing songs with the intention of them being Charlatans stuff. But then it dawned on me - this ain't Charlatans. This is me - it's all about me!"

After years of songwriting with four other people, Burgess's long-suppressed emotional floodgates burst open with Niagara force. Written in the first person, I Believe is an inherently personal album; every song is a raw and exposed purge of buried passion. It boils with vented spleen ("Held in Straps", "All I Ever Do"), glows with defiance ("Po' Boy Soul", "Years Ago") and burns with deep love for Michelle ("All We Need Is Love", "Be My Baby"). It is, for the most part, an old-fashioned romantic album dedicated to his wife - no fancy metaphors, no big words; just absolute, heartfelt emotion, touchingly expressed. But working on his own did more than just give Burgess the right to express the intense feelings he has for his muse; it also freed him from the burden of expectation that comes with making a Charlatans album.

"It was very liberating to start from scratch and know I could do whatever I wanted," he says, grinning gleefully. And that he certainly has - this new album is a world away from anything The Charlatans have done. I Believe bursts with Burgess's influences and plays like a jukebox of his pet sounds - devoured, hijacked and reconstituted. "I've got The Cure, New Order, Dylan, Curtis Mayfield, George Harrison, The Beatles, Mazzy Star. It's all in there," he says, proudly. "I love this stuff - I love The Beach Boys, I love Gram Parsons - and I wouldn't mind doing the same."

By unashamedly pilfering and unceremoniously splicing different ingredients from the music that makes him smile, Burgess has managed to make those vintage, sun-drenched sounds his own. Sax solos pierce the Stones-inspired, groove-fuelled single, "I Believe in the Spirit"; the beautifully wistful "Be My Baby" flits boldly between time signatures, accompanied by desert-flavoured acoustic guitars and swooning strings; "Love to Spend the Night" is immersed in Bacharach-esque majesty. Elsewhere, Burgess's smooth, burning-coal vocals, recorded in his bedroom, smoulder beneath deep, New Order basslines, mariachi trumpets, squelching electro glitches and dreamy, lilting instrumentation ("things that really wouldn't go down well in The Charlatans right now"), making I Believe a lushly textured album, brimming with ideas, infections pop hooks and dusty American soul.

"I didn't feel the album needed to be the next big thing or anything - I have no concept of big; big is this beer glass - it just had to be pure," Burgess says, as though it were the most important thing he has said all day. "I started off making something really personal; then it grew into this passion - I had to make this the best record that I'd ever done." What started off as a cathartic experience evolved into a defining one. And all of a sudden, Burgess felt he had something to prove.

"I just want to get the picture straight - I want to get it really straight," he says. "I wanted to show people that I was more than just a haircut. I wanted to show people that I was principal songwriter in The Charlatans and that I can write some pretty good songs." It's no surprise, then, that the rest of the band didn't take the news of his musical walkabout too well. "I don't blame them. But it was just as hard for me to break it to them," Burgess says, cringing at the memory. "As soon as I'd started working on the record, I told them, but no one really believed me until it was out. I'd write songs on the back of the bus, and they thought I was just some hippie."

With the album completed and positive feedback flooding in from the new material's live airing, Burgess is feeling vindicated. But despite whatever hang-ups he has about being taken seriously as a songwriter, it seems the person he most needs to convince is himself. He hungrily takes validation from others, but little comes from within. "There are people out there who believe in me, and I think that's amazing," he says, referring to those who helped him to record and tour I Believe - from his co-writer and producer to the "amazing LA freak-show" of a band he hand-picked - and pretty much anyone else to have ever said a good word about his music.

"I heard the single had been played on the radio, and it just blew my mind. With The Charlatans I would have expected it, but this is different - it really is.

"You always have something to prove," he continues. "I want to better myself: I want to be good by my woman, I want to write better songs and I don't want to hurt anyone. You can't let yourself slip. Not only because you're going to get judged by what you do, but because you have something to prove to yourself."

For Burgess, I Believe has been a successful confidence mission. "I believe in every note of this record. And I am proud, I guess," he confesses, shyly, his mouth widening into a huge Cheshire Cat grin. "Know what? I can do it."

'I Believe' is released on Monday on PIAS/Straight Trippin'