Tim Rogers Gets Told That He Is A 'Performer' Not An 'Actor', But He's Not Insulted

"I was just in the company of some performers who were either my age or older. And the older gentlemen and ladies interested me far more, and I guess I've always been looking for role models," Rogers says of the process of writing this time around.

"As I'm getting older, I was desperate for someone who was living a life of exploration, but also some kind of discipline in performance. And actors need this incredible amount of discipline, it's probably why I'm a terrible actor." Those of us who have seen Rogers perform as a bona fide thespian in stage productions like 2012's The Story Of Mary MacLane By Herself, might be a little surprised by this admission.

"Oh, I know I am," he says matter-of-factly, backing up the assertion. "I mean, I'm enthusiastic. As has been told to me by a couple of actors who I respect greatly, I'm a performer, not an actor. And I would have found that a tremendous insult years ago, but it's true. My sister is an exceptional actress, and dear friends I have are, but I just don't have that discipline. [Instead] I've just got enthusiasm and a great face for distances."

With that, Rogers can't help himself — self-deprecation is always within arms reach. New album An Actor Repairs was inspired by the experiences of a man Rogers imagined to be a few decades older than himself, drawing on the mentor quest, perhaps, but also a playbook for getting older generally. "[The line between autobiography and fantasy] is completely blurred with me —I mean, it's probably mostly autobiographical because I'm a little fascinated at how I've ended up," he continues.

"To be 47 and be living this faux-boho life that I do, you're caught in some very unusual circumstances that maybe wouldn't be as funny to me at 27, but at 47 they're fucking hilarious. People can be very open to you and they feel fine with being very critical to you - they comment on your appearance and your singing voice or the way you carry yourself, and people feel at liberty just to do it. And I do leave myself pretty open, but you do get yourself into some unusual circumstances. And they keep me awake, so I write songs about them to try and make sense of them."

While there's not necessarily a thorough narrative on the album, there are thorough themes. Particularly compelling is the emergence of Rogers' work supported by unusual collaborations, especially the divine clarinet duets that appear with his vocals on Age (A Couple Of Swells) and Forgiveness (the latter originally written for Rogers' seven deadly sins-based cabaret show Saliga a few years back). To call the result "transcendent" is perhaps a bit daggy, but it's also completely bloody accurate. "On clarinet is Aviva Endean, who is incredible. I sent her the song [Age] and let her sit with her for a couple of weeks and that's what she came up with, they're her creations. I just wrote the initial melody and the chords and some little lines on piano are mine, but again Clio [Renner], who plays the piano, I said, 'When you hear things, please go with them, don't stick to the script,' so she did. So hopefully I guess my job is to present songs and then give them an environment where they feel really comfortable to work within the song and find a melody within it, and then we'll let everyone's respective publishers fight it out."

Rogers' generosity towards other artists has always been inspiring — and with each new release that kindness of spirit continues to impress. This time around in addition to his instrumentalists, vocalists like Clio Renner also stand front and centre alongside him. Their duet, One More Late Night Phone Conversation, lifts the album —a collaboration that started after a pairing on the TV show RocKwiz. The only real callback to 'Classic Timmy' comes with the final track Cars And Girls —something of a final word on his 1999 What Rhymes With Cars And Girls album —as well as an opportunity to provide more scope to the cliche.

"I don't think you or any of us are being bad feminists here," he says to alleviate this writer's lady guilt for loving the theme so much. "When I called the record What Rhymes with Cars And Girls I was poking at the ribs of ... [The album's] so obviously not about that, it's about relationships and looking for something gentle or intelligent within that context that people want to keep it all in. With this Cars And Girls song, I get asked about it quite a bit and so I thought, 'I'm going to write the definitive song about cars and girls,' but again it's questioning. And that's why I get the girls to sing 'booze and boys' during the track as well, they're like a Greek morality chorus throughout the record."