I'm glad I left Suede to go it alone, says Brett Anderson

Aug 17 2008 Billy Sloan

BRETT ANDERSON has turned his back on the music business...and reckons it has led to one of his best albums.

The ex-Suede star releases the solo album, Wilderness which features brilliant new single A Different Place, on September 1.

The self-financed D-I-Y CD was recorded in just seven days.

The singer is delighted to have quit the pop rat race.

He said: "I have no record label or publisher. I'm not interested in a big record deal.

"I'm not doing this for any reason other than a compulsion to make great music.

"I don't want to play the pop game any more, looking at chart positions and worrying about getting played on radio."

In the nineties, Brett fronted Suede who were at the epicentre of the Britpop era which included Oasis and Blur.

But he became disillusioned by the media fanfare which surrounded his group. He told me: "Britpop was something we kicked off but it became a sort of beery cartoon.

"Fame made the highs higher and lows lower.

The only thing it gave me was a large audience who poured over my songs.

"I didn't like what fame turned me into. I was a self-obsessed, paranoid neurotic unable to deal with real life. I'm just rebuilding my brain after years of distortion."

Brett will showcase the songs on Wilderness at Oran Mor in Glasgow on September 27.

He said: "I'll be singing and playing piano accompanied by a cello player. It's not going to be jumping up and down rock 'n' roll."

"People think because the music is quieter it's less passionate but they misunderstand its power.

"Wilderness is as different as anything I've ever done. The songs were recorded in one take. The longer you take to make a record the worse it is. I wanted a minimal record to reach purity in the music I do."