Robyn Hitchcock, the 73-year-old cult psych rocker, has released a new album titled The Confuser, recorded in Nashville with a crack team of session musicians. The album opens with the track I Am This Thing, a propulsive piece of Lennonesque powerpop that begins with the line, 'I owe a lot to a dead man’s cock.' Hitchcock lives in Nashville with his second wife, Australian singer-songwriter Emma Swift, where he runs a boutique record label.
Making It in Nashville
'Making it work in Nashville means I actually am a real musician songwriter in the real musician songwriter town,' Hitchcock said. 'I wanted to go to Nashville when I, as a 13-year-old boarding school boy, heard those Dylan records he made here. And a mere 60 years later, here I am!'
Hitchcock's influences are deeply rooted in the 1960s. 'Although my prime influence was Bob Dylan,' he explained, 'Syd Barrett showed me how I could be it. And I actually wound up sounding like John Lennon. My influences are all those old dead English blokes, basically.'
A Career of Contradictions
Hitchcock acknowledges his own contradictions, describing his younger self as 'a self-centred, entitled little horror and arguably I still am. I’ve just learned to mask it more, and also I’ve learned to make a living out of it.' This self-awareness is evident in his memoirs, 1967 and Stranded in the Future, which blend fact and fiction. 'Some of it technically couldn’t have happened at all,' he said. 'But that’s to do with my capacity to embrace delusion.'
The Soft Boys' 1980 album Underwater Moonlight has become a classic, influencing the American indie scene. Hitchcock later formed Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, scoring hits like Balloon Man and So You Think You’re in Love. 'I was never actually a pop star,' he said. 'I was on MTV quite a lot in the States in the late 80s and early 90s, but that’s a long time back.'
Emotional Opacity and the Robot Self
Hitchcock's work remains emotionally opaque, a trait he attributes to his personality. 'I’m not a conventional soul-barer,' he said. 'I’m probably more interested in creating a version of my existence than actually showing people the real Robyn. Maybe there isn’t a real Robyn.' He recalled a therapist who told him, 'You’ve really built some place to hide and it’s extremely difficult to get at you.'
Hitchcock's early concept for the Soft Boys was to build a robot to front the band. 'I became the robot because I didn’t have the technical abilities to make one,' he said. 'It’s like, “What is there about me that seeks attention but then doesn’t actually want to give anything away?”'
The Confuser is released via Tiny Ghost records on 24 July. Robyn Hitchcock tours the UK and Europe from September.
