Tim Cooper
Tim Cooper has written for most national newspapers and many magazines on subjects from politics to pop culture, film, food and sport. His first published work was in his own punk fanzine, Cliché in 1976, followed by freelance stints writing reviews and features for Sounds, Record Mirror, Pop Star Weekly and Hot Press.
He created a music section in the Hackney Gazette and since then he has worked for most national newspapers, many magazines and selected websites on News, Features, Politics, Sport and Arts, particularly Music. His extensive portfolio of music interviews spans The Observer, The Sunday Times, The Independent, The Guardian, The Times, The Evening Standard, The Daily Mirror and more. His interviewees have included David Bowie, Neil Young, Shirley Manson, Jon Bon Jovi, Janet Jackson, Rod Stewart, Donny Osmond, Alanis Morissette, Dave Matthews and Macy Gray.
He has a passion for new music and has written online for The Quietus, Louder Than War, DIY, No Depression and Unrecorded (formerly ListenBeforeYouBuy). He has also co-directed a documentary film about the music of St Kilda. He lives in the London Borough of Hackney, indulging his hobbies of writing, reading, cooking, cinema, watching and playing football and cricket, and vegetable gardening – usually while listening to music.
71 articles
List of articles in the library
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Observer, 25 March 2001
He was on stage by five, on tour by eight and receiving 50,000 fan letters a week by 13. But behind his success lay loneliness, ...
Ronan Keating: Mad about the boy
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Observer, 8 April 2001
Ronan Keating is the blue-eyed blond who stole the heart of every schoolgirl in the country with Boyzone. Now, he's going it alone and is ...
Garbage: White Trash: Shirley Manson
Interview by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 8 November 2001
Shirley Manson, pop's most famous redhead, has suddenly gone blonde. A new look to match her new outlook. ...
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 15 November 2001
New songs, new confidence ...
Macy Gray: It's a Macy, Macy world
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Observer, 18 November 2001
"She's phat, she's tight, she's outta control..." It was supposed to be a routine celebrity interview, but it ended in a jet-ski chase across the ...
Taraf de Haïdouks: Johnny and the outlaws take Hackney by storm
Report by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 29 January 2002
IT IS not every day you find a Hollywood superstar slumming it in the East End. But last night Johnny Depp came to deepest Hackney ...
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Observer, 9 June 2002
After 35 years in the business and endless ch-ch-ch-changes, David Bowie, rock'n'roll's archetypal chameleon, has finally found equilibrium as a clean-living family man. Tim Cooper ...
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Observer, 3 November 2002
He has immaculate manners, he likes hugging his fans and his worst vice is cookie dough ice cream... Small wonder America loves Craig David. Tim ...
Christina Aguilera: Christina stripped bare
Interview by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 30 October 2003
The video for 'Dirrty' transformed Christina Aguilera overnight from girl next door to sex siren. As she plays Wembley, Tim Cooper talks to her about ...
David Bowie: "I've beaten vices thanks to my daughter"
Interview by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 20 November 2003
He is free from fags, booze and drugs. But clean-living David Bowie admits that staying that way will still be hard work in 30 years' ...
The Cult, The Doors: Ian Astbury and the Doors: One door shuts... another door opens
Report and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 10 December 2003
When Jim Morrison died, in 1971, that was the end of the Doors. Or was it? Thirty years later, the remaining members have hired a ...
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 9 April 2004
As you might expect, there isn't a big rock scene in the farthest reaches of rural Norway. But Madrugada are more than making up for ...
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 28 May 2004
Winners of a Radio 3 award, Senegal's top hip-hop trio Daara J are back on the road. Tim Cooper meets them in Paris. ...
Interview by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 9 July 2004
After a decade of crises that would have finished off most bands, Wilco are back ...
Gwyneth Herbert: From bistro waitress to jazz festival star
Report and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 13 July 2004
Pub gigs pay off as "Britain's Norah Jones" is chosen to open concert ...
The 5.6.7.8's: 5.6.7.8: Who do we appreciate?
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 11 August 2004
The 5.6.7.8's are coming to Britain and are drawing sell-out crowds. Tim Cooper meets the idiosyncratic Japanese all-girl rock trio with the Kill Bill connection. ...
Primal Scream: Eden Project, St Austell, Cornwall
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 13 August 2004
THERE'S AN immutable law of rock'n'roll dictating that the longer a rock band stays together, the more its creative energy will dissipate under the parallel ...
Interview by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 24 August 2004
Soul diva Gabrielle sold millions of records, before a serious throat condition — triggered by her obsessive compulsive disorder — threatened to wreck her career ...
Jimmy Page: The Godfather of Rock
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 27 August 2004
As Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page is honoured in London's Rock'n'Roll Walk of Fame, Tim Cooper meets the legend who inspired an entire generation of air ...
Ian Brown, The Stone Roses: Ian Brown: Coming up Roses
Interview by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 14 October 2004
Now established as a successful solo artist, lan Brown finally feels comfortable revisiting the seminal songs of the Stone Roses. Tim Cooper meets an indie ...
Pete Wylie: Islington Academy, London
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 31 December 2004
FOR SIX WEEKS back in 1977, Pete Wylie was at the epicentre of the music world as one of the semi-legendary Liverpool trio the Crucial ...
The Quarrymen: The Beatles? No, thanks
Retrospective and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 20 January 2005
The Quarrymen managed to let Lennon, McCartney and Harrison slip through their fingers. Nearly five decades after that mistake, they are releasing their first album. ...
Avril Lavigne: O Sister, What Art Thou?
Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 11 March 2005
Teenage girls can't resist Avril Lavigne's sulky-teen pose. So Tim Cooper decides to let his daughter interrogate the pop princess. ...
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 31 March 2005
IN RECENT WEEKS it has become de rigueur for big names to launch their new album with small dates in London. Last night, after club-sized ...
Racine: Islington Academy, London
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 11 April 2005
IT WAS ALWAYS hard to take Wendy James seriously, but even so her reinvention after a decade in the pop wilderness is hilarious. ...
Tara Angell: "I'm not just a chick singer-songwriter"
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 15 April 2005
A debut dripping in smoky-voiced pain... and "the darkest record since Black Sabbath". ...
James Blunt: Shepherds Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 5 May 2005
IN THE FRENZY to find a new Damien Rice or David Gray, it suddenly seems as if there's a sensitive singer-songwriter on every street corner. ...
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 10 June 2005
How did ex-soldier James Blunt go from serving in Kosovo to playing gigs? Tim Cooper finds out. ...
Patti Smith's Horses at Meltdown: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 27 June 2005
PATTI SMITH IS standing alone on the stage reciting the poem that describes her teenage dream to escape a blue-collar production line ("Inspecting pipe, 40 ...
Matchbox 20, Rob Thomas: Rob Thomas: Anonymity in the UK
Report and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 6 July 2005
Rob Thomas can claim 75 million album sales. So who is he? ...
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 8 July 2005
FORMED IN Los Angeles around the former child actors Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett in 1998, Rilo Kiley are hard to pigeonhole. Their first two, ...
Fun Lovin' Criminals: Huey Morgan: King of New York
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 26 August 2005
A walking, talking advertisement for the city, Huey Morgan of Fun Lovin' Criminals takes Tim Cooper downtown. ...
Gang Of Four play Entertainment!: Barbican, London
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 27 September 2005
FORMED AT LEEDS University in 1977, they dragged punk's three-chord trick into a radical and subversive new direction by marrying its guitar-driven rage to funk's ...
Keith Urban: Hammersmith Apollo, London
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 19 October 2005
URBAN BY NAME but country rock by nature, raised in Australia but resident in Nashville, Urban has sold millions of records in America and fills ...
James Yorkston: Luminaire, London
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 28 December 2005
"HERE'S THE NEXT number," announces James Yorkston, studying a piece of paper: "Three hundred and fifty-eight." Few singers would draw the raffle mid-set, but it's ...
Dave Matthews Band: Dave Matthews: Gospel according to Matthews
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 20 January 2006
He's the biggest music star in the USA, but probably couldn't get arrested here. Tim Cooper meets a man for whom success means having the ...
Jenny Lewis: Poor little rich girl
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 20 January 2006
Jenny Lewis has gone from child star to singing with Rilo Kiley to solo act. It's been a bittersweet experience, hears Tim Cooper. ...
Daniel Johnston: The Devil and Daniel Johnston: Barbican, London
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 18 April 2006
IT HAS TAKEN 25 years, almost as many albums and a lifetime of loneliness and pain, but Daniel Johnston is finally emerging from underground cult ...
Fat Freddy's Drop: Playing to the expats
Report and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, June 2006
They're massive in their home countries, and their London gigs sell out thanks to the multicultural populace. ...
Martha Wainwright: Bloomsbury Theatre, London
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 1 June 2006
THIS WAS AN evening that lent fresh meaning to the term "intimate" – and, for that matter, "spontaneous". It made you feel like you'd been ...
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 12 June 2006
IF EVER A FALLEN idol was in need of reinvention, it's surely Boy George, whose last public appearance was in a New York courtroom. His ...
The Dears: A gloom of their own
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 18 August 2006
The leader of the Dears could brood for Canada. Tim Cooper meets a man for whom success has not in itself brought any visible happiness, ...
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 28 September 2006
Since leaving the safety of Belle & Sebastian, Isobel Campbell has found her creative voice and produced her finest work. ...
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 5 October 2006
MORE THAN three decades after their child-scaring Top of the Pops debut with 'This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us', Sparks remain one ...
Lucinda Williams: Shepherds Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 15 November 2006
EVEN BY THE tardy timekeeping standards of rock'n'roll, 16 months is a little long to keep your audience waiting. Originally scheduled to play here in ...
Kula Shaker: Crispian Mills: Big Mouth Strikes Again
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 24 September 2007
Ten years ago, Kula Shaker's Crispian Mills revealed an admiration for the swastika, and the band imploded. Now they're back, and the lead singer is ...
Cowboy Junkies: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 17 October 2007
IT WOULD BE myth-making mischief to suggest that, upon its release 20 years ago, The Trinity Session was acclaimed as a landmark album. The best ...
David Arnold, Kaiser Chiefs: Kaiser Chiefs: This is the Modern Way
Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 26 October 2007
What happens when indie-rockers get together with a Grammy-winning composer? Kaiser Chiefs and David Arnold chat before their Electric Prom tonight. ...
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 12 November 2007
His parents are neuroscientists who read him Huxley at bedtime. No wonder Josh Ritter has a way with words, says Tim Cooper. ...
Brandi Carlile: Borderline, London
Live Review by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 18 December 2007
"DO YOU MIND if we get a little bit country on ya?" inquires Brandi Carlile cheerfully, as her entourage of publicists, watching anxiously in the ...
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan; When a twee pop beauty met a rock'n'roll beast
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 2 May 2008
Belle and Sebastian's Isobel Campbell is on to her second album with rocker Mark Lanegan. She tells Tim Cooper about an odd coupling. ...
Nada Surf: The Sunshine Boys: Brooklyn's Nada Surf have bounced back with an album of upbeat pop
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 5 May 2008
THEIR LATEST ALBUM might be called Lucky but Nada Surf's 15-year career has been anything but. Even their name causes misconceptions: it's so redolent of ...
Minnie Driver: Minnie adventure: Miss Driver turns her attention to country music and motherhood
Report and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 8 May 2008
She's conquered Hollywood, stars in a hit TV series, and is one of Britain's most successful acting exports. ...
Neil Young's anti-war documentary
Report and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Sunday Times, 29 June 2008
The singer has fire in his belly — with a film about his antiwar tour — but his passion is a hybrid car he thinks ...
The Low Anthem: Evolutionary Twists
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 24 July 2009
The Low Anthem aren't like other US folk-rock bands. Tim Cooper discusses influence and innovation with the trio. ...
Beach House: Shore thing for easy listening
Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Independent, 15 January 2010
Baltimore's dream-pop duo Beach House are confounding classification to gain plaudits from Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear and the Strokes. Tim Cooper gets to grips with ...
Report and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Guardian, 2 July 2015
As he releases a version of Quadrophenia performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Who's guitarist explains that his band were never really anti-establishment. ...
Suicide, Alan Vega: A King Has Passed: Alan Vega Remembered
Retrospective by Tim Cooper, The Quietus, 18 July 2016
BY THE SUMMER of 1978, punk rock had lost the power to shock. The revolution that had shot an amphetamine rush into a moribund music ...
Why I made a 15,000-mile trip to a jazz festival when I don't even like jazz
Report by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 10 March 2017
THIS WEEK I made a round trip of 15,000 miles to go to a jazz festival on the other side of the world. ...
Revolutionary Army Of The Infant Jesus: Mirror
Review by Tim Cooper, The Quietus, 9 May 2017
LISTENING TODAY to Mirror, the second album by Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus that's about to receive its first vinyl release from Occultation Recordings ...
John Murry: A Short History Of Decay
Review by Tim Cooper, The Quietus, 19 July 2017
EVERYTHING ABOUT John Murry is blurred. From the Southern Gothic backstory to the near-death drug overdose to the recurring cycle of tragedy and redemption, right ...
Madonna: Another view: My night with Madonna (and Sean Hughes)
Memoir by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 20 October 2017
BACK IN THE LATE 1990s I used to run into Sean Hughes all the time at parties. He was a Perrier Award-winning stand-up comedian and ...
U2: Another view: The thing with Bono and Apple...
Comment by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 24 November 2017
I HEAR THAT U2 have a new album coming out. I know this not because I have received a press release (though I have) but ...
David Bowie: Meet Chas, he's been mad about Bowie since he was a lad
Report by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 1 December 2017
From diehard to recent fans, Tim Cooper spends the night immersed in Bowie fanatics. ...
The Jazz Butcher: The Violent Years
Review by Tim Cooper, Louder Than War, 21 February 2018
The Jazz Butcher has been one of Britain's most prolific and unique talents for more than 35 years. Now, as a re-release programme continues with ...
Brigid Mae Power: Servant Jazz Quarters, London
Live Review by Tim Cooper, Louder Than War, 8 April 2018
After two acclaimed albums and a harrowing #metoo contribution, Brigid Mae Power performed her first sell-out date in East London. Tim Cooper went along for an ...
Courtney Barnett: Tell Me How You Really Feel (Marathon Artists / Milk! Records)
Review by Tim Cooper, Louder Than War, 18 May 2018
Courtney Barnett releases her hugely anticipated sophomore solo album Tell Me How You Really Feel. Three years after the Australian's landmark debut attracted plaudits and awards, ...
Live Review by Tim Cooper, Louder Than War, 4 June 2018
Saturday 2nd June: The National, The War On Drugs, Future Islands, Warpaint, Cat Power Sunday 3rd June: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Patti Smith, St ...
Report and Interview by Tim Cooper, Little Atoms, 12 July 2018
In 1993, as war raged in the Balkans, the Eurovision circus descended on the tiny Irish town of Millstreet. It was with the emergence of ...
Madrugada: Islington Assembly Rooms, London
Live Review by Tim Cooper, Louder Than War, 31 October 2019
Back together after 10 years and the death of a key member, Norway's finest band make a triumphant return to the London stage. Tim Cooper ...
Basement 5's 'The Last White Christmas' – still essential after 40 years
Retrospective by Tim Cooper, Louder Than War, 23 December 2020
Basement 5 belong on any post-punk playlist, if only for their timeless 1980 single 'Silicon Chip'. And their mostly-long-forgotten 'Last White Christmas' would liven up ...
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