Interpreting the music
of American songwriter Shel Rogerstein, is where we find the perennial doer of
things, Tim Rogers.
The
question one should ask whenever rock ‘n’ roll raconteur Tim Rogers arises in
conversation, is, ‘What, exactly, is this man up to now?’ And a valid question that would be, for if
there’s anyone on our scene as chameleonic as Mr. Rogers, I’ve yet to come
across them, and if I took the time to search, by the time I found anyone, our
Tim would have gone off and done three other things. Such is his penchant for creating, messing
around, causing trouble and generally oozing his way further and further into
our collective musical psyche.
Over
the course of his long and colourful career, Rogers has fronted seminal
Australian group You Am I, led The Temperance Union all over the place, jumped
in bed (literally, actually, I was there to see it) with Tex Perkins, headed out
alone, written songs for movie scores, collaborated with all and sundry, and
most recently, dabbled in film and theatre.
There’s little Rogers has not done, and you can bet by the time you
finish reading this, he’ll at least have thought about doing some of those
things. Probably all of them.
Where
we find the man now, is immersed in a project inspired by a friendship which
has endured for years. We also find him
immersed in creating off his own bat, for his own means, for the first time in
a while. The friendship is between him
and American songwriter, Shel Rogerstein.
The project is a little gem of a record called Rogers Sings Rogerstein. And
the self-creation comes because this is the first record Rogers has released
since The Luxury Of Hysteria in 2007
(solo), and You Am I in 2010, with,
naturally, You Am I.
This
being Tim Rogers of course, you can bet there’s a back story, and a long,
rambly one at that. “Shel and I have
actually known each other for longer than I can remember,” Rogers relates on
his friendship with a man he admires ardently, but who few others have actually
heard of. “He’s kinda like the smarter,
more considered version of me. We’ve got
a lot of similar things going on… but he’s more interested in crafting songs. I’ve got a little bit of interest in that,
but I’ve got no attention.
“So
I’ve dropped in on him in Cleveland in the past year, and we hang out and watch
baseball and go tango dancing and things, and then we correspond, we write
letters… it’s an intriguing relationship.
And it’s very cute, with the
names, and I’m aware that people think I’m bullshitting, but half the time my
response is, ‘You want truth from a guy who sings in a rock band?’, come
on. But it’s a really important
relationship to me.
“Hanging
out with the Lil’ Band O’ Gold guys last month, and Cold Chisel last year,
there’s something about being in the company of men your age or a little older,
they still have a real spirit, they want to work, they’re not just doing it to pay
off the mortgage, they’re just buzzing.
And Shel’s a bit like that – I mean, he lives an extremely quiet life,
but you know, when the drums start, something happens, like some sort of…
werewolf.”
There’s
very little information floating around the electronic ether on Shel
Rogerstein. If you’re to believe Rogers,
the pair met on a train in France, bonding over mutual loves of cheese and
baseball, amongst other things, but as Rogers himself has said, why would you
believe someone who fronts a rock ‘n’ roll band? Regardless, the 'pair' have co-written a slew
of tunes, and these, along with an obvious respect for one another as artists
thinking outside the box, are what fill Rogers
Sings Rogerstein.
...
Samuel J. Fell
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