Tim Rogers doesn't want to be called a legend. Although he is happy to offer up an alternative. "I think I'll only achieve legend status when I'm dead," he says. "Until then, let's just keep it as cult icon."
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Cult icon he certainly is. In fact, this suave, enigmatic rocker has held that status pretty much from the get go. Today, he is taking his swagger on the road once again, and is due to appear at the Playhouse with You Am I band mate Davey Lane. All in an effort to prepare to enter the studio for his next album.
"Before going to a studio I guess some people will go to an island destination and try and dot the i's and cross the t's. Far better and far more affordable for me is to go out and play shows, and get out on the highway and spend time in pub hotel rooms and in pubs, and finish things."
After all his time on stage and on the road, it's an environment that feels comfortable to him.
"If I'm static, I tend to get confused with what's interesting to me. So it seems like the natural environment these days tends to be on the road. So it works better for me."
This latest tour finds Rogers in some of the best emotional form of his career.
"I'm enjoying life a lot more. I know that," he says. "It's not all entirely comfortable but I go for longer stretches in the day where I can work and write and that's the happiest I can be. Where I can have the opportunity to write and not be in some kind of despair."
At least some of this satisfaction can be attributed to growing into his own skin.
"I just think, maybe a long time ago when the band was first starting and years after that, I had a few difficult years where I was not too concerned about where I was in the whole grand scheme of things. And maybe [I was] wanting to appear as someone more intelligent or cooler than I actually am. Now I think for the last 10 years or so it's not that I've given up, I just know what I want, really. And however late in life you attain that, it's a wonderful point to get to."
This has transferred into the quality of work he is producing.
"It's finding out how to live a life as a decent person, and then oddly enough, the work has become better through that," he says. "It didn't need to be this amplified version of myself to make the work any better, I just had to be a bit more honest, and oddly enough the work is better through that."
This level of honesty will be on show when he pares back his rockier side for the more intense kind of experience a theatre show entails.
"Last time I played Canberra Theatre, it's a rare opportunity where people might actually listen," he says.
"Having played in loud pubs for most of my life, I'm sort of sick of shouting over people, you know? So doing these shows that are possibly a little quieter are far more intense for some reason.
"They are quite draining. You've got to think about everything."
It's a challenge that he meets with the kind of commitment and style only a cult icon can achieve.
"It's great. Really, the way I play any show is to reach a level of exhaustion where maybe there's the chance that I might feel relaxed at least a little bit afterwards, and feel satisfied. But there's no guarantees."
Tim Rogers and Davey Lane
Where: The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre
When: Friday, May 13
Tickets: $40+bf from canberratheatrecentre.com.au.
