Tim Rogers is fucking with my head. Maybe.

A couple of days before the Australian singer/guitarist and his power pop quartet You am I are due to play Bumbershoot, I’m dutifully calling the Los Angeles hotel where he’s staying. I ask the front desk clerk to be put through to room 505–Tim Rogers’ reputed digs for the day. There’s no one occupying that room, the laid-back clerk assures me in a California monotone, but there’s a Jim Rogers in another room. The clerk connects me.

The line goes quiet, and seconds later, a brusque voice answers. It sounds curtly, distinctively American. “Hello!” it barks out.

“Is this Tim Rogers?” I ask, carefully pronouncing the first name to alleviate any misunderstanding.

“Yes, it is,” the blunt voice on the other end replies.

“Tim Rogers, the musician?” I ask uneasily, convinced I’m having a dialogue with some business executive from the Midwest named Jim Rogers.

Suddenly the voice morphs into an airy Aussie tenor. “You mean, Tim Rogers the semi-famous Australian rock star? Yeah, that’s me.”

We vault into our conversation so quickly that I never get to ask Rogers if he was, in fact, intentionally fucking with me. But our initial exchange–and the self-mocking statement at the end of it–pretty effectively anticipate the conversation ahead. He’s been a career musician for over half his life, and he’s got the requisite rock-star anecdotes to back that up; but a streak of self-deprecating humor reflects his full awareness of the absurdity–and the fun–inherent in that lifestyle.

You am I started out in the early 1990’s as one of many snarling grunge-era guitar bands (their first two long-players were produced by Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, for Pete’s sake). But starting with their second record, Hi-Fi Way, You am I picked up the British-Invasion cue from The Who and The Kinks and evolved into a winning power-pop ensemble. Rogers’ singing and songwriting combined (and continues to combine) Ray Davies’ wit and Paul Westerburg’s ragged romanticism with just enough post-punk roar to knock the dust off.

Continue reading “The Rockin’ Mr. (Tim) Rogers of You am I, Interviewed”