Born and raised in San Francisco, Tim started taking classical piano lessons when he was five years old and folk guitar lessons when he was nine. He didn’t start playing music seriously until the age of 15, when he picked up an electric guitar and discovered how much more fun it was to play rock and roll.
Bands
After playing in the high school pep band and some wannabe garage bands, he formed his first real rock band, East 80, in 1990. The metal-pop five-piece band performed regularly at local pubs and other events in Davis and Sacramento, California. In 1993, members from East 80 formed Stonefly, a grunge four-piece with hints of punk rock and funk music. In 1995, Tim and his sister, Kathleen, formed Waxhead, a “no-holds-barred” power-pop trio. After moving to Portland, Oregon, he played for four years in Portland’s premier classic rock cover band, Hot Rod DeVille. After returning to the Bay Area, he joined forces with the hard rock bands, The Sonic Heavy and Space Giant, and is now playing with the dad rock duo, Bright Tree Village.
Producing/Songwriting
In the early 90s, Tim dabbled in home recording with his trusty Tascam Portastudio. Nowadays, he works in Pro Tools and Logic Pro and has written and/or produced music for The Foxy Pockets, Worry Stone, Norval Way Freighbors, Mara Leehane, Navigator to Bombardier, The Mollymawks, Audio Terrorist, KALIB, Space Giant, Jeff August Ego Trip, and Leigh Allison Pollack.
Collaborations
Recently, Tim has been collaborating with other West Coast artists, including Kalib DuArte of Asylum Arts. Tim sat in with his band, Audio Terrorist, for some live performances, engineered a remix of Your Heroin., and mastered Audio Terrorist’s greatest hits album, Who Are You? They are currently working on an acoustic album that will be released by KALIB. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Tim started collaborating with Jeff August from Jeff August Ego Trip, releasing several singles during shelter-in-place. He met fellow songwriter, Leigh Allison Pollack, during an online songwriting class and the two have been writing songs together from across the country as The Apologists.
Community
Tim is currently a member of the board of directors for SVCreates, as well as leads the San Jose chapter of the world-wide music community, Balanced Breakfast.
Influences
Tim’s influences include many bands in any genre of rock that includes layered vocal harmonies, big guitars and diverse songwriting. Some of his early favorites were Boston, Journey, Def Leppard, U2 and The Eagles. Later on, he was influenced by the Seattle sounds of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, the pop punk of Bowling for Soup and Green Day, the industrial metal of Linkin Park, and the alternative rock of Silversun Pickups. More recently, he is listening to the 80s synth-revival of Bleachers and The 1975, and contemporary singer-songwriters like Frank Turner, Ben Rector, and Mat Kearney.
If you’re in the San Jose area and looking to collaborate on new material, get some demo recordings done, or just want to jam, you can get in touch with Tim here.
