As Bobby Gillespie and Primal Scream return to Oxford, Tim Hughes discovers the former wild man of indie-rock is the consummate artist

Bobby Gillespie is more than a musician. Over the course of 11 albums his band Primal Scream have become as much art project as rock & roll band. And the former wild man of indie’s transformation into renaissance man reaches its apex on his latest album.

“Art, politics, music … the people I love are the people who care about something, who care about beauty,” says the mellifluously-voiced Glaswegian.

“That’s what we’re trying to do here. And this album is beautiful.”

The 55-year-old former Jesus and Mary Chain drummer – who started off in the industry as a roadie for Clare Grogan’s 80s new wave band Altered Images – seems to have found his niche.

The years of booze and drugs are behind him, and a more contemplative Bobby has emerged – happily married, devoted to his kids and artistically thrusting. Refusing to sit on his laurels, he is firing on all creative cylinders and is dangerously driven.

This year’s album Chaosmosis is entirely different to the trippy hedonism of Sreamadelica, the Rollin Stones-esque abandon of Rocks Off or the the dark industrial sound of XTRMNTR.

It sounds free, flitting between anger and euphoria; a distillation of what has come before and things still to come. A bold piece of work, it shows the band – who, over a remarkable career, have shifted gear from dance-crossover to electronica, indie, pop, glam-rock and industrial rock – once again evolving.

With the assistance of an array of guests, Bobby has released a startling set of songs which are deeply personal, political even.

“I think it’s a stunning album,” he says. “I’m really proud of it. I think it’s a really fresh sounding piece of art.”

That use of the word ‘art’ crops up again and again, Bobby saying the band and guest singers worked as artists rather than simply musicians. Even the cover art is a masterpiece – the work of his friend, the Turner Prize shortlisted Jim Lambie.

“Live, we are a high energy rock and roll band, but in the studio we are artists,” he says. “We are making art, but with sound and music.”

It opens with Trippin’ On Your Love, which sees Bobby and bandmates Andrew Innes, Martin Duffy and Darrin Mooney, backed with vocals from Danielle, Este and Alana of Haim – who have been friends with the Scream since playing with them at Glastonbury.

“It’s pure love,” says Bobby.

Recorded in London, New York and Stockholm and written and produced by Bobby and Andrew, the album slides into darker territory, but, says Gillespie, the process of making it was quicker and easier than it’s ever been for the Scream.

“I think we’re getting better at writing songs and more confident and less self-conscious,” he says. “We’re better at letting things flow. Whereas 20 years ago, it was painful trying to make a Primal Scream record; it was like hell.

“I’m clearer-headed now, I’m better expressing my feelings and what I want to say. I’m trying to make sense of my life, of the the world, and I’m trying to put it into a pop song.” Another prominent force on the album is Björn Yttling, best known as bassist in Peter Bjorn and John. Other guests include Rachel Zeffira from Cat’s Eyes and 23-year old Sky Ferreira, who became friends with the band in LA after she asked them to work on a record of hers. She duets with Bobby on one of the album’s strongest tracks, Where the Light Gets In.

Flashes of Bobby the raver resurface in 100% or Nothing, a rousing arms-in-the-air tune, but with a lyric that screams devastation and dislocation.

The song was described by Innes as “kind of an electronic Northern soul record. That combination of sadness and joy, that’s what I love in music,” says Bobby. “With that, you can seduce people.”

At its heart is a love of pop music. “The history of pop music is in our DNA,” he says.

So too is a love of 80s post-punk, gothic rock and new wave, not least Siouxsie and the Banshees. “We loved those records when we were teenagers,” he says. “Songs like Happy House or Spellbound, because they were great pop songs, but there was something dark and twisted about them as well. I think this record has a similar attitude.”

And he loved the collaborative nature of its composition. “We work more like artists than a rock band; jamming with a whole band to write songs is not our way.

“We’ll have tracks full of riffs and ideas, which Andrew and I will work up together, putting one thing with another to create a song. We work very instinctively – we go with what feels right.”

Chaosmosis is a record written in the shadow of challenging times.

“The current political climate is deeply upsetting and we’re aware of it and opposed to it and we’d like to see something different,” says Bobby. But, he insists, the album is not preachy.

“It can sound an angry record, but it’s also quite a personal record,” he says. “I want to write about real situations, things I feel strongly about. But I also think the music’s becoming clearer... the lyrics are clearer.”

Tonight, Bobby and the band return to Oxford – just seven months since they headlined the city’s inaugural Common People festival in South Park.

Just don’t expect this new contemplative Bobby Gillespie to get his ‘rocks off’ after the show.

“I have had a lot of difficult years but everything has calmed down,” he says. “You get to a certain age where the endless partying stops being such a good idea.

“It’s a young man’s game; I’d be dead otherwise. I can’t do that now.”

That must be the secret to his longevity – at being able to turn out records as good as this, 30 years on. He seems genuinely surprised by his own staying power.

“I didn’t think I’d be doing this!” he says. “I didn’t think anything good was going to last.

“And because of my personality in the band, I thought it would fall apart. That’s not just because of drugs, but because of people you work with.

“Genuinely, the best people are flaky, and that keeps everyone on edge. I’m difficult myself, so it’s just as tricky. But I’m good at getting on with people and have good leadership qualities. I can inspire people to do their own thing.”

He adds: “We are artists – and this is what we do.”

  • Primal Scream play the O2 Academy Oxford tonight. Tickets from ticketweb.co.uk. Chaosmosis is out now.