Tim Rogers (musician)
Timothy Adrian Rogers is an Australian musician and actor, best known as the frontman of the rock band You Am I. He has also recorded solo albums with backing bands. As of July 2013, Rogers has released 12 albums with You Am I and five solo albums.
Early life
Born in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, Rogers moved between towns multiple times during his adolescence, including Adelaide and Canberra. Following his primary school years in Applecross, a suburb of Perth, Rogers later became school captain at Sydney school Oakhill College. Rogers studied law at the Australian National University in Canberra, aged 18, though did not complete a degree. While at ANU, Rogers lived at Toad Hall residential accommodation, and worked part-time at Canberra Theatre. During this time, Rogers met Andy Kent, who later became the long-term bass player of You Am I.Career
Music
Box the Jesuit
The first band that Rogers joined which performed in front of crowds was Box the Jesuit, of which he was a member for roughly a dozen shows. Rogers later referred to Goose from Box the Jesuit as his 'mentor', with Rogers later writing the song "Paragon Cafe" about his experience travelling along the Hume Highway to attend Goose's funeral in 1993.1989–present; You Am I
Rogers formed You Am I with school friend Nick Tischler and older brother Jaimme Rogers in 1989. Although the line-up regularly changed during the band's early period, Andy Kent and Mark Tunaley eventually settled on bass guitar and drums, respectively. Kent had previously been the band's sound mixer before joining as a musician. After the recording of their debut album Sound As Ever Tunaley was asked to leave the band and Russell 'Rusty' Hopkinson joined. Second guitarist Davey Lane, initially part of The Twin Set touring band, joined in 1999.1999–present: Solo career
Rogers released his first solo album What Rhymes With Cars And Girls in 1999 after his relocation to Melbourne. Rogers later provided a brief background for an album that was recorded over a three-week period on an eight-track digital recorder: "I had some time alone and I found myself writing some songs and then I just thought, well it looks like You Am I's not going to be recording for a while, while we're waiting for albums to come out overseas, so I wanna make a record…" Recorded at the home studio of Weddings Parties Anything band member Jen Anderson, the album mostly consists of country/folk-style songs, even though Rogers hesitated at the idea of a country sound. Rogers used the name The Twin Set for his backing band, as well as for the corresponding tour. He later won an ARIA award for Best Male Artist for the album.In late 2004, Rogers wrote a jingle called "Our Time Begins Again Today" for the Australian Cricket Board's summer promotional campaign "Long Live The Weekend". Rogers was the face of the Australian Football League 's 2012 finals series, starring in a television commercial and print advertising campaign. The advertisements, featuring the slogan "This Is Greatness", consist of Rogers recounting some of the greatest final moments in AFL history.
On 29 September 2007, Rogers released his fourth solo album The Luxury of Hysteria, the first album for which his name is the sole performing credit, although The Temperance Union performed on the album. Rogers also created his own record label, Ruby Q, to release the album.
Writing for The Age newspaper, Michael Dwyer wrote in an October 2007, saying "Tim Rogers never sounded as lost as on this strange, beautiful album.... The first three songs are troubled inner monologues. A Quiet Night in and When Yer Sad infuse the act of being alone with Shakespearean gravity. Much of the rest is like personal correspondence, written late at night when feelings are raw and references obscure. There's no mistaking the mood, though: regret and bewilderment bounce off each other like booze and smokes." Australian music writer Ed Nimmervoll described The Luxury of Hysteria as: "Reflective, brutally honest and painful- but never self indulgent …"
Ten years after the release of What Rhymes With Cars and Girls, Rogers, together with musicians from the original recording sessions, played several live performances in the Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne during April 2009 for a limited tour that involved the album played live in its entirety. The concerts lacked Stuart Speed, the album's bass guitarist, who had died. Anderson reflected upon the album's significance prior to the commencement of the shows, "Moving to Melbourne for him was a fresh start. He didn't choose to talk about it and I didn’t bring it up. It was a healing, moving on process for him. And it was best to leave it at that—let him work through what was going on in his life and introduce him to some new musical buddies in Melbourne."
For Rogers's fifth solo album, his second without a backing band, he signed with FOUR FOUR, an imprint of ABC Music. Entitled Rogers Sings Rogerstein, the album was released on 24 August 2012 and was produced by long-time collaborator Shane O'Mara. The album's title refers to Shel Rogerstein, an American whom Rogers met on a train in Southern France. Rogers revealed in 2013 that Rogerstein does not appear on the Google search engine and is averse to touring. In the corresponding press release for the album's launch, Rogers wrote, "Quite where the percentages lie in lyrical/musical contributions on this album is unclear... Shel claims he's as baffled as to his contributions as I am to mine. Subjects are close to my bones, but as our lives within this loose ramble have become so confluent, quite who's leaning on whose shoulder is unclear."
Rogers won the Double J Australian Artist of the Year award in 2015.
In October 2022, Rogers announced the forthcoming release of Tines of Stars Unfurled, scheduled for release in February 2023.
Influences
Tim Rogers regards Keith Richards, Pete Townshend and Paul Westerberg as his three formative musical heroes, becoming aware of each of those artists as a teenager. Throughout his career, Rogers eventually supported all three of these heroes as a musician: You Am I supported The Rolling Stones in 2003, The Who in 2004, and The Replacements in 2015.Rogers regards Paul Westerberg as his favourite songwriter, The Replacements as his favourite band, and regards Bring the Family by John Hiatt as his favourite album, although he has listed other albums in similar lists at other times.
Side projects
The initial release of You Am I's fifth album Dress Me Slowly also contained a bonus disc entitled The Temperance Union EP that consisted of eight songs Rogers had recorded and written, mostly in solo format. He later used the name of the EP, based loosely on that of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, to name his backing band for two subsequent albums, starting with Spit Polish in 2004. The release of the second Temperance Union recording, a double album entitled Dirty Ron/Ghost Songs, occurred in 2005, and the recording features various special guests such as Missy Higgins, Donna Simpson and Rebecca Barnard.In 2006, Rogers collaborated with long-time friend Tex Perkins to form T'N'T, eventually releasing the album My Better Half, a collection of acoustic originals and cover versions. The album received mixed reviews for its minimal production values and "tongue-in-cheek" covers, such as Rod Stewart's "Tonight's the Night".
In August 2021, it was announced that Rogers had become the Hard-Ons' new lead singer. Rogers first album with the band, I'm Sorry Sir, That Riff's Been Taken, was released in October 2021.
Film
Along with a You Am I cameo appearance in the film Dirty Deeds, Rogers has made various forays into acting. His first acting experience was a small cameo role in Jane Campion's Holy Smoke!, while his television acting debut was released on 28 July 2005, an episode of ABC TV's medical drama series MDA in which Rogers played Joel Palmer, a rock star who donates a kidney to a daughter he did not know he had fathered. Rogers also acted in the Michael Weisler short film Hunter Finkelstein that was shown at the 2005 Melbourne International Film Festival.In January 2013, Rogers and Australian musician Megan Washington worked as actors on the musical/thriller film The Boy Castaways. Filmed in Adelaide, Australia, the film was directed by Michael Kantor, who also directed the 2009 theatre production Woyzeck. Filming took three weeks and the premiere occurred at the Adelaide Film Festival in October 2013. In 2013, Rogers also played Glendle in the film Tracks directed by John Curran, alongside actors Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver.
Rogers features in the music video of the Reels' "Quasimodo's Dream", produced by Sandpit, to coincide with the theatrical release of The Boy Castaways in late 2013.
Theatre
In February 2009, Rogers made his professional stage debut at the Malthouse Theatre as the Entertainer in its production of Woyzeck, a play directed by Kantour, with music composed by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.In 2012, Rogers composed the score for Marion Potts' production of Federico García Lorca's Blood Wedding at the Malthouse Theatre. During the production's run in August 2012, Rogers described the score as "impressionistic" in a media interview and revealed that his initial method involved producing large pieces of music and then discarding 95 percent of it: "If it's not needed to have music there, or complementary, just leave it out. So at times we have sounds emanating from the stage that are only vaguely tonal."
In 2012, Rogers also acted in and composed the music for The Story of Mary MacLane by Herself, by Ride on Theatre's Bojana Novakovic and Tanya Goldberg. Rogers performed original compositions for the play, accompanied by musicians Dan Witton and Andy Baylor. Sydney's Griffin Theatre production occurred in early 2012, while the Melbourne season was held at the Beckett Theatre of the Malthouse Theatre complex during November and December.
In 2015, Rogers took his album What Rhymes with Cars and Girls to the stage with the Melbourne Theatre Company. The musical's script was adapted by Aidan Fennessy, while Rogers was musical director. Actors Sophie Ross and Johnny Carr performed in the show, which was nominated for a Helpmann Award for Best New Australian Work in 2015.
In 2019, Rogers brought his radio show Liquid Lunch onto the stage along with broadcaster Jon Von Goes and sound designer Russell Goldsmith.