Bryan Ferry reveals that his role as a musician is not as ‘simple’ nowadays.
Bryan Ferry, Photo: Ros O'Gorman
The 67-year-old singer-and-songwriter shot to fame in the 1970s with his band Roxy Music.
Bryan released his latest solo album The Jazz Age this week.
The rocker reflects on how his profession has transformed since his early days in the industry.
‘I work harder now than I ever did,’ Bryan told British newspaper The Telegraph.
‘It used to be simple ‘ make an album, go on tour ‘ and I used to complain that it was monotonous. Now it’s all sorts, websites, downloads, archives. It’s nice to be working on stuff that fundamentally you enjoy doing.’
Bryan looked to his favourite genre of music for songwriting inspiration on The Jazz Age.
He is intrigued by how jazz remains relevant over a century after its inception.
‘Really, it came out of the desire to make an instrumental album of my songs,’ he said.
‘I was fascinated to see how they would stand up without singing, because that almost gets too much focus. I wanted to showcase the melodies.
‘It’s really where I started as a music lover, and as I get older I keep getting drawn back. When I started making records, I wanted to do something of our time, modern music. But as an interpreter of other people’s material, I’ve found that if a song is worth anything you can take it into completely different areas. A good song is very adaptable. So I suppose it was an experiment, to find out if my songs could stand that test.’
