Robyn Hitchcock
Friday, British rocker Robyn Hitchcock will release his 25th studio album The Confuser via Tiny Ghost Records. The album’s title was inspired by a nickname of sorts given to Hitchcock by his wife, singer-songwriter Emma Swift.
“Oh, yeah, she calls me ‘The Confuser,’” Hitchcock tells the Scene from their home in East Nashville, with a chuckle. “I think she sees me as someone who confuses people, especially her.”
“Robyn’s brain is one part mystical, one part nihilistic, one part surrealist,” Swift explains. “He doesn’t take drugs, unless you count cheese, but he has a very dreamy worldview. It’s confusing for people at times because he can’t really switch it off.”
Swift says that the album title is actually a nod to another British rocker.
“The album title is a riff on Nick Lowe’s brilliant 2001 album, The Convincer,” she says. “It’s become a running joke among fans of Robyn and Nick that they look alike — except to my mind, where Mr. Lowe is a dapper gent of a certain age whose songwriting style could be likened to the wonderful standards of the 1950s, Hitchcock is more like his psychedelic, trippy brother.”
Sonically, The Confuser does feature elements of 1960s psychedelic rock, and Hitchcock considers himself something of a standard-bearer for the music of the mid- to late ’60s.
“I grew up under the umbrellas of Bob Dylan and The Beatles, and that set me off on the course I’m still on,” he says. “I’m sort of here sweeping up after them, you know. I’m a traditionalist. I work in that vein. As I always say, I’m the last to hatch out from the 1960s.”
Emma Swift and Eric Slick support at an adopted-hometown show ahead of Hitchcock’s next album ‘The Confuser’
Musically, the record features superb performances by Hitchcock, who handles all the lead guitar on the record, and his hot new band: guitarist Jeremy Fetzer, bassist Todd Bolden and drummer Eric Slick. The dual electric guitar parts by Hitchcock and Fetzer are a highlight. Working at Alex the Great Studios in October with co-producer Brad Jones, who also contributed keys to the album, they recorded the basic tracks in a very short span.
“The whole thing was done in two-and-a-half days, basically,” Hitchcock recalls. “These guys make it easy for me to just go in there and kick it along. They’re really quick. Nashville cats are like that. You just walk in, and they chart the thing. It sounds like you’ve been playing together for six months, but you’ve actually only just met.”
Once the tracks were completed, Hitchcock played them for Swift, who served as executive producer on the album.
“Emma listened to it and said, ‘Well, this is great, but you could work more on the vocals and you need a bit more guitar,’” Hitchcock explains. “I said, ‘Really?’ She said, ‘A bit. Why don’t you send it to Kimberley?’”
Kimberley is Kimberley Rew, Hitchcock’s former bandmate from The Soft Boys, whom he calls his “archetypal guitar foil.” Rew contributed guitar to half of the album’s 10 tracks.
“Kimberley very faithfully overdubbed on six or seven tracks and sent them back,” Hitchcock says. “We kept probably only 25 percent of what he played, but it really helped.”
Hitchcock also followed Swift’s suggestion that he do additional work on the vocals. With the exception of Gillian Welch, who contributed vocals to the beautiful “Ghost in Sunlight,” Hitchcock handles all the vocals on the record.
“Emma got me to go to her producer Jordan Lehning, and we redid a bunch of vocals,” Hitchcock says. “I’m the only vocalist [on the record other than Welch], but I was coached, you know.”
Swift and Lehning pushed Hitchcock to make the vocals something special. The result is an album rich with Beatle-esque vocals.
“I sound better than I usually do, I think,” he says.
While the performances throughout the album’s 10 tracks are outstanding, Hitchcock’s songs are the stars of the record. He explores existential questions and life’s absurdities with humor, wonder and a touch of cynicism.
“It’s not a concept record, but it’s definitely a record where the lyrics reflect a guy who’s pondering how life begins, how it flows and how it ends,” says co-producer Jones. “The whole life cycle is in there — birth and death and everything in between.”
At this point in his career, Hitchcock is second to no one as a lyricist, as lines like “Yesterday’s rain falls on tomorrow’s parade” remind us.
Catching up with the singular singer-songwriter and co-producer Emma Swift on his new LP
“I don’t always know where lyrics come from,” he says. “I can account for quite a lot, but sometimes they’re just there, you know. … The initial moment when it comes into my head or it leaves my mouth or whatever, those things happen on winds of their own.”
Although Hitchcock’s holy trinity of influences — Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Syd Barrett — can be heard throughout The Confuser, the spirit of John Lennon is especially present.
“I hope his spirit is present,” Hitchcock says. “We don’t know what happens when we die. We don’t know where we go — whether we fragment and go into the ether, whether we’re recycled or whether we are set on another karmic cycle. … I don’t suppose I’m communing with the actual John, but whatever John Lennon was or is on some level has gone into me. And I love that kind of thing.”
