Even on a sweltering June day routing around in the attic of his Massachusetts home, Lloyd Cole still sounds cool.

The British-American artist was getting ready to go back on the road in support of “Broken Record,” which was released in the States last month.

For the disc, Cole, best known as the cerebral frontman of the Commotions, assembled a band.

Lloyd Cole

“I wrote a few songs that seemed to demand drums, and that’s when we put together the band,” he said during a phone interview. “I thought it was so much fun, we might as well do a whole album like that because you never know — I might never do another one.”

While he laughed, he wasn’t joking.

“I think it’s natural there will come a point where you reach maybe the diminishing returns, a sort of watershed, and at that point, I think I’d be quite happy to just sing my old songs,” Cole said.

“I think actually it’s really to be applauded if people realize that the next album that they might make is maybe really not that good,” he continued. “I don’t want to become one of those artists who keep making albums when they should stop. As long as I can feel I’m doing good work, I will try to keep making records, but it doesn’t get easier.”

The singer-songwriter turned to fans to help finance “Broken Record.” For $45, 1,000 fans prepaid for a deluxe edition.

“It was nice because they’re all sort of executive producers of the record, and they know the record is there because of them,” he said.

The Lloyd Cole Small Ensemble — Mark Schwaber, guitar and mandolin, and Matt Cullen, guitar and banjo — will play The Ark in Ann Arbor at 8 p.m. June 23. Tickets are $25. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.

“I just really was looking for a break from being a troubadour/folk singer,” he said of the ensemble. “And then when it came to making the record, we ended up expanding on that sound.”

Fans can expect to hear some Cole classics.

“We are reinventing old songs. We’re playing quite a few songs from ‘Rattlesnakes’ and quite a few songs from the new album, and almost at least one song from every album,” he said.

The brooding Brit’s catalog includes “Jennifer She Said,” “Perfect Skin,” “My Bag,” “No Blue Skies” and “Are You Ready to be Heartbroken?”

A noted golfer, Cole isn’t sure if he’ll hit the links before the concert.

“I know we get into Ann Arbor the night before the show,” he said. “You don’t really want a 50-year-old dude trying to play a big round of golf and trying to do a concert the same day; I might fall asleep onstage.”

Tags: Ann Arbor, Lloyd Cole, The Ark

This entry was posted on Friday, June 17th, 2011 at 6:59 am and is filed under Arts and Life, In Concert.
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