The Charlatans interview

The Charlatans. Photo / Supplied by Nancy Blackler

Inbound English band the Charlatans survived the 90s "Madchester" era to become a Britrock institution. Scott Kara reports

Tim Burgess gave up drinking and taking drugs 2 years ago.

"It was quite a long, drawn-out thing really. It didn't involve rehab, just going cold turkey," says the Charlatans singer in his light-hearted and bashful mumble.

Then, around the same time, in a decision that makes you wonder whether he was still clouded by years of acid taking and boozing, he came up with the idea of giving the band's next album,

You Cross My Path

, away for free.

It turned out being one of the most enlightened choices the Charlatans have made since starting out amid the acid house haze of the Manchester music scene in the late 80s and early 90s.

And before you say, "What about Radiohead's

In Rainbows

?", it was the Charlatans who revealed their free album plans before Radiohead's pay-what-you-want idea. In fact, the Charlatans' manager Alan McGee announced on September 30, 2007 his band's unique marketing strategy - and later that day Radiohead revealed theirs.

Although it has to be said, Thom Yorke and his Oxfordshire lads beat Burgess and his baggy-trousered boys in the race to get the album out because

You Cross My Path

wasn't available for free download until March this year.

The idea of a free Charlatans album came in 2006 when best friends Burgess and McGee were on a DJ tour.

McGee has some impressive credentials, having founded Creation Records in the early 1980s and being the man behind the initial success of bands like Oasis, My Bloody Valentine and Teenage Fanclub.

So during the tour the pair talked about whether the band should stay with record company Sanctuary or pay for, and release, the next album themselves.

"I was into the idea of not being on a record label," says Burgess on the phone from Los Angeles where he relocated 10 years ago after falling in love with a girl he met at a Chemical Brothers gig.

"Then at the end of the tour we both decided the best way to do the next album was to pay for it ourselves and give it away for free. We'd make all the money back playing live which meant we had to commit to playing as many concerts as we could. Then I had to tell the band we were going to give it away for free," he laughs.

"But they all loved it and thought it was a great idea. So it made us feel like we were beginning something quite new and fresh."

It got old fans back into the band, and attracted new and younger fans, reckons Burgess.

"Alan tells me our live income has gone up 400 per cent which is quite a lot. And people are intrigued and in the first weekend 100,000 people downloaded it from one site. The download market and CD buying market are two completely different entities and you just notice there's a lot more kids coming through the gates."

The Charlatans formed later than leading Manchester - or "Madchester" as it was affectionately known - bands like the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets, but they remain the most consistent and prolific of the acts.

Burgess has fond memories of the Manchester heyday that revolved around iconic club the Hacienda which was responsible for the rise of acid house and rave.

"It was an amazing time. I was 21 years old and going to the Hacienda four times a week, and there seemed to be like a whole new generation of people interested in the same things, but also on the one hand you'd have a group of people grooving to the Byrds and the Beatles, and then there was this whole new thing at the Hacienda where people were listening to dance music from Detroit and Chicago. And there were bands forming every five minutes."

The dance music influence was especially strong in the Charlatans' early material.

Even if you weren't on mind-altering substances in the early 1990s, listening to Charlatans songs like moochy dance anthems

Then

and

The Only One I Know

, off debut album

Some Friendly

(1990), and the pulsing organ of

Weirdo

off 1992 follow-up

Between 10th and 11th

, was enough to throw you into a psychedelic swirl.

Over the last 18 years, the Charlatans have had their ups and downs. On a personal level they lost keyboard player Rob Collins who was killed in a car accident in 1996. While the band's debut did well, reaching No 1 in Britain, it was their 1995 self-titled album and 1997's

Tellin' Stories

that were most successful.

"I think we've got four or five really great records out of it, and then a handful of albums with four or five really good tracks on it," he laughs.

"It's funny with the Stone Roses because they only really put one album out - well, they put two out but only one that anybody was interested in. The Happy Mondays were almost as shambolic as Pete Doherty. But we've been around a good 10 albums."

While

You Cross My Path

is not as acid-soaked and foppish as Some Friendly, it has a similar uplifiting mood and swagger to the debut.

"I felt like we were back at the beginning in a weird kind of way with this one," he says.

However, lyrically it is often dark and confrontational, which Burgess puts down to staying sober.

"It's kind of quite casual though really," he sniggers. "But I wanted to make it an emotionally raw record, or at least the emotions being on the surface, so certainly

Oh Vanity

and

Bad Days

came out of that."

Their tour here next month will be the first time they have been to New Zealand.

Burgess says the final straw came when friends of his in "new bands" like Kasabian were touring here when they had only put out one album.

"So we thought it was about time," he chuckles.

LOWDOWN

Who:

The Charlatans

Where & when:

Powerstation, Auckland, Nov 12; Also at Southern Amp, Westpac Arena Festival Park, Christchurch, Nov 9

Essential albums:

Some Friendly (1990), Between 10th and 11th (1992), The Charlatans (1995), Tellin Stories (1997), Wonderland (2001)

Latest:

You Cross My Path, out now