Robyn Hitchcock has called Nashville home since 2015, though he first set foot in the city’s music scene more than a decade ago while recording with Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings. That collaboration set something in motion, and now his latest album features a lineup of Nashville’s finest—Welch, Grant-Lee Phillips, Pat Sansone, and Brendan Benson. But while the city has influenced his process, he hasn’t made the Nashville record. “I haven’t gone twangy,” he says with a laugh. “There’s a bit of pedal steel here and there, but it’s still my style—psychedelic pop.”
That dedication to his sound extends beyond this album. Hitchcock sees rock music as something that’s shifted from the cutting edge to the archives. “Rock is obsolete now, like jazz,” he muses. “If you made A Love Supreme today, it would be retro. If you made a Jimi Hendrix record, it would be a tribute. Rock defined itself as it evolved, but now, it’s history-driven.”
Still, Hitchcock has no plans to abandon it. He’s well aware of rock’s past, its peaks and pitfalls, but he continues to mine its essence, drawing from the golden years of 1966 and 1967. “That wasn’t just ‘All You Need Is Love,’” he points out. “That era had plenty of darkness, too. The greats—Dylan, The Beatles, The Velvet Underground—they understood the shadow in things.”
Hitchcock embraces that duality in his own work, describing his new record as a reflection of the times. “I don’t make joyful records,” he admits. “I make reflective records. It’s the joy of doom.” And with the state of the world as it is, he sees his role, and the role of artists, as more vital than ever. “Art redeems life. It’s how we make sense of the chaos.”
Beyond music, Hitchcock’s mind is on something bigger: the survival of the human race. “We’re at a breaking point,” he says. “We’re either going to evolve toward a kind of mild telepathy—an amped-up empathy where we truly feel for each other—or we’ll wipe ourselves out.” And if that happens? He has another theory. “Maybe the next intelligent species will be felines with articulated thumbs,” he quips. “Or maybe we’ll just leave behind AI to replace us.”
For now, Hitchcock keeps creating. “I don’t understand life,” he says. “But give me a guitar, a pencil, or a crayon, and I can make something of it.” And as long as there’s still art to be made, the world might just have a fighting chance.
And here's a 2013 interview with Robyn and Kyle
