Look up “languid” in the dictionary and you’ll no doubt find a photograph of Britain’s very own King of Cool. The worst thing an interview subject can say at the start of an other-side-of-the-world telephone chat is that, over there, it’s 11pm. On a Sunday night. Which means he’s at the tail end of a day of interviews and there isn’t a question left that he hasn’t heard a dozen times. And he sounds as if he’s about to fall asleep. Luckily, Bryan Ferry always seems to sound like that. He is softly spoken, terribly, terribly polite, with a Geordie accent so slight that possibly only another Brit would pick up on it. When he talks his phrases often tail off, as if he just gets bored with the sound of his own voice. Look up “languid” in the dictionary and you’ll no doubt find a photograph of the Roxy Music frontman and Britain’s very own King of Cool. In a pathetic attempt to keep the awe out of my own voice I try to imagine him in trakky dacks and stained slippers, feet up on the coffee table, beer in one hand, fag in the other. Nah, I just keep getting Jay Gatsby. Ferry is here to talk about Dylanesque, his new album of Bob Dylan covers, and the coming Australian tour. His appreciation of all things Dylan has been well-known since he so comprehensively remade and remodelled A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall on his first solo album, These Foolish Things, in 1973 - but why a whole album? There is a faint sigh (bored? knackered?) before 62-year-old Ferry says: “I’ve always felt that it would be nice to do because there are so many great Dylan songs, with such great words and great lyrics, very poetic …” Were there any songs, though, that he thought “no way am I going to bugger about with that one”? The new album, for instance, includes All Along The Watchtower, The Times They Are A-Changing and Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door. All Dylan greats by anyone’s reckoning. “Ha ha ha!” Blimey, he’s woken up! “No … you just have a kind of instinct as to whether you can bring anything new to it that makes it worthwhile and makes it different enough. In much the same way that the Byrds did Dylan covers and did bring something new to them, you know, um, a kind of pop sensibility to them. And, of course, Hendrix did that wonderful version of Watchtower so sometimes you’re kind of covering the cover, you know. “I suppose there are one or two Dylan songs that you don’t want to go near to because he does seem to have done a truly definitive version, such as Like A Rolling Stone, which, err, I haven’t really got my head around doing a version of that … in fact, ha ha, I didn’t try anything that was too hard.” Ferry also feels he has much in common with Dylan. “We both listened to a lot of the same music when we were kids, you know … and we both come from kind of blue collar, quite bleak parts of the country; him in the mid-west of America and me from Newcastle in the north-east of England. “It’s funny, my 15- and 16-year-old children last year took me to my first Dylan concert because they’re big fans. It was really good. Very good.” Was he tempted to go backstage and say hi? There is a quietly emphatic explosion at the end of the line, as if I had suggested something untoward: “Oh God, no. No. I’m as private as he is, I think, in my own way. I never do that backstage thing, as a rule. No. Funny enough I met his son the following night and he was telling me that his dad always has a very quiet time. And I do, too.” Yeah, sure. This from the man described as the Coolest Living Englishman? There is another burst of laughter: “You mean ‘almost-living Englishman!’ Well, yeah, I think, er, well, yes it’s true. Ha ha ha! “What do you say to that? I think it’s funny when people say ‘the tallest singer in the world, or, um, the one with the most suits, or … if only they knew. I never thought of myself as cool in that sense. I think I’m reserved, probably …” So Ferry is The Most Reserved Living Englishman? “Exactly.”