Brett Anderson and his former band Suede stirred up the British rock scene in the 1990s with pop-rock music full of David Bowie-esque glam and suburban angst. Considered the inspiration for a generation of groups referred to as “Britpop” bands (a term and category Anderson doesn’t like), the band was notorious for indulging in the excesses and pomp associated with the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle, played out in tales of drug addiction and in-fighting.
Things are calmer today for the 41-year-old singer-songwriter, who released his latest solo album this past summer and appears in Taipei on Sunday at the Urban Simple Life festival. Anderson holds no regrets about Suede, but is happy that those days are over.
“I had a lot of fun, but there was a lot of darkness as well … but you know, there’s no better way to spend your [20s] jumping up and down in front of thousands of screaming kids — there really isn’t,” he said earlier this week on the phone from London. “I heartily recommend it to anyone but I don’t want to still be doing that, I’ve done that and it was great, but I’d be really sad if I was still trying to look like a 25-year-old, still trying to act like a 25-year-old.”
One won’t find such youthful exuberance on Anderson’s second solo work, Wilderness, but instead a quiet, intense passion. Anderson stepped away from the standard pop-rock instrumentation, whittling down the album’s overall sound to just his voice, cello and piano, and the occasional acoustic guitar. This minimalist approach allowed him to focus on the album’s mood: melancholic and darkly romantic.
“I think successful albums are one mood, one sort of feeling, [where] you’re taken to a world, you’re taken to a little universe in 45 minutes, and I think that it’s really an interesting kind of way of making a record,” he said.
For Anderson songwriting starts with melody. “That’s what music is to me. Words in music are secondary to the feeling, because music is all about feeling.”
He sought to capture a feeling of raw immediacy by recording each song live with minimal takes and little overdubbing.
He also used older technology, cutting the tracks on 2-inch tape instead of a computer hard drive.
“Yeah, I just wanted to make an album that sounded really natural. I think modern musicians have too many options. I mean, you have [all sorts of] those computer programs … and they’re great if you can use them in the right way but if you get seduced by them, you end up making very plastic-sounding music,” he said.
After six months of writing and rehearsing, Anderson finished the album at the recording studio within one week. “It was really a quick album, and there was a real energy in making it. I didn’t want to sit around, poring over it in the studio for hours because sometimes you lose the energy when you’re doing that,” he said.
He enjoyed the process so much that he might do it again. “There’s a real freedom to it. I’d like to try and release an album every year from now on till the day I die,” he said.
With his own record label now, there’s no reason why he can’t. “I’m not beholden to some record company telling I can’t be released until 2012 because they’ve got other artists they want to release. I’m my own boss now, and I like that freedom that I have with that.” On his next album, he says he is “interested in working with electric guitars again,” but for a more “ambient” atmosphere rather than a traditional rock sound.
While Anderson may oblige die-hard fans with a few Suede songs arranged for guitar, piano and cello on Sunday, his live set will revolve around the new album, as “that’s sort of relevant to me now and I think it’s a good album and I think people should hear it.”
“I don’t have this sort of thing where I want to reject my past,” he said, noting that he already did that with another post-Suede band, The Tears. “It’s just about moving on, and wanting to do different things, wanting to be a different kind of person. I’m a much happier person than I ever was then, and I’m much happier with what I’m doing musically, to be honest.”
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