The Ferguson Rogers Process marries Tim and Lance, two proud try-hards
In an irresistibly catchy single from his collaborative album with Lance Ferguson, You Am I frontman Tim Rogers offers this rejoinder: ‘Hell yeah, I’m a try-hard / I try harder than you.’
Nobody could ever accuse Tim Rogers of not trying hard, whether as the frontman of ARIA Award-winning Sydney rock act You Am I or in any of the other creative roles he’s adopted during the past three decades in the public eye, including actor, author and radio host.
But rather than succumbing to the negative connotations of a commonly used bit of vernacular, he has artfully turned the intended meaning by choosing to accentuate the positive.
In the chorus of Who Dares Wins, a catchy single from his propulsive collaborative album with Melbourne-based musician Lance Ferguson, Rogers offers this rejoinder: “Hell yeah, I’m a try-hard / I try harder than you.”
Asked about this judo-flip of a language choice, Rogers, 55, told The Australian “I’ve been called a ‘try-hard’ since I came out of the womb”.
“Whether it was trying to play in footy or cricket grades that were above me, or singing in [Sydney punk band] the Hard-Ons, I get ritual abuse every night from large men who want to fight me,” he said. “I’m not a tough person at all, but I love playing music; my skills are enthusiasm and some idiosyncrasies.”
“I don’t mind being called a try-hard – it’s not like I was given extraordinary powers. I just don’t have a good editing switch, and saying ‘yes’ to things has often caused a lot of problems, but it’s brought wonderful, wonderful things.”
The newest of those things is titled Style And Or Substance, the debut by The Ferguson Rogers Process, to be released on Friday via Impressed Recordings.
New Zealand-born Ferguson is best known as the founder of funk/soul band The Bamboos, whose 2012 single I Got Burned – featuring Rogers on vocals – became one of its signature songs, with 5.5 million streams on Spotify alone.
Except for the drum tracks – which were played by Graeme Pogson of The Bamboos – the instrumentation of these 10 songs was all arranged, performed and produced by Ferguson, who eventually sought his friend’s input.
“Tim was very much in my mind,” said Ferguson, 51, in a joint video interview. “It literally was a drunken text as I sat in my armchair going, ‘Hey, let’s make a record. I’ve got an idea – are you up for this?’ It seemed like a good idea at the time – and I think it still is.”
Of what Rogers added to his songs, lyrically and melodically, said Ferguson: “This music was created for Tim. I want to impress Tim; I want it to be up to his standards, and something that is going to resonate. It’s a fun process because it is performative, and at the end of it, I go ‘Here’s what I’ve done, I hope you like it’.”
Rogers is the sort of songwriter who’ll happily slip an unusual word like “lugubrious” into his lyrics, if only as a reminder of the sort of person he wants to avoid becoming. “It’s part of my vernacular because I just don’t want to be lugubrious; the kind of sour, old drunk at the end of the bar,” he said. “I don’t want to be that person – and to be called a try-hard, I have absolutely no problems with.”
“I will try harder than you,” said Rogers with a smirk. “And if your partner dreams of being with someone who looks like me, it’s not my fault – it’s your fault for not trying harder, or dancing better than me.”
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