Credit: Found On Internet

The Charlatans are gearing up to release a compilation album of all their singles spanning their entire career. There’s also a UK tour - and 16 years on from their debut the band are still packing them in. But what does that mean exactly to frontman Tim Burgess? Jane Gazzo finds out.

“I’ve caught some weird virus,” Tim Burgess is on the phone. He’s on a whirlwind UK DJ tour with his long term pal and manager Alan McGee. He begins by extolling the non-romantic virtues of existing on banana’s, peanuts and Diet Coke.

We should be chatting about the new Charlatans singles compilation, Forever, which is due to hit shops in a few weeks, but talk of health and diet seems to kick off the conversation.
“I’ve been lacking on the banana front lately which is why I think I got sick. I’ll have to get a bit of fish down me I think.”

By far the most shocking thing about chatting to the Charlatans front man is realising just how absurdly friendly and normal he is. For a lead singer of a band who’ve been firmly ingrained in the British music scene since they hit the top ten in 1990 with their Indie anthem The Only One I Know, Burgess, by his own admission, rates getting married as the highlight of his personal career.

It’s hard to reconcile his status as a much loved British pop star with band success spanning nearly twenty years when he is admitting to a proud sobriety of eight months and complaining of ingesting too many cheese sandwiches. In fact, he and the equally sober McGee have named it the ‘Diet Coke and banana’s DJ tour’.

It almost doesn’t ring true, though Burgess actually admits he likes it this way.
“I’m in a pretty good place really, and you know, I don’t think I’d be able to do twenty-one DJ dates in 22 days if I was drinking anyway.”

Talking to Burgess, one gets the feeling the stability of married life in sunny Los Angeles, his now clean living lifestyle and a compilation LP spanning the Charlatans’ impressive 16 year career has indeed had a positive effect on him.