Before his family moved to Florissant, Missouri during his teenage years, Tim Reynolds had already lived several places. He was born in Germany and lived as a young child in Alaska, Indiana, and Kansas. After leaving Missouri, Tim has lived in New Mexico, North Carolina, and Virginia, where he met Dave Matthews and became an integral part of Dave’s band. Never one to sit still, Tim currently lives in Florida and called me from there. It was great to catch up.

DJ: Hey there, Tim.

Tim: Hey, how’s it going, man?

DJ: How’ve you been?

Tim: Good, I’ve just been actually really busy after not being busy, so it’s kinda like, I have no idea what time of year it is. I am at home, but it’s really confusing here because I live in Florida, and it’s not always obvious what time of year it is. It was right before I came home because I spent the last three weeks up in really cool places like Cleveland, Cincinnati, and New York, and Boston.

We had definitely a lot of the time that at night it was single digits. So, but yeah, it’s been busy, and I went home for a couple days, I think, but I have to go tomorrow to the dentist and then fly to Seattle to rehearse with Dave for a couple days for the next gigs, which is in Mexico, I guess that’s next week. But yeah, I just got off of being gone for a month.

I went to Outer Banks in North Carolina to rehearse with my band, TR3, and then we went on a tour for three weeks that I kind of feel we got really lucky, and it was a miracle that nobody got the Omicron. Because it was so pervasive and there was so much media about it, but I’ve already been on the road with DMB and I did a solo tour earlier in the year, so you kind of learn the drill, you know? Nothing is 100%, but you just, especially after DMB, we were on the road for like many months, and definitely people got go. Two guys in the band got it. Crew got it. A guy’s wife got it.

Luckily, I didn’t get it. And so by the time I did my tour, I’m like, well, if we play the protocols to the max and just don’t do certain things while we’re on tour, don’t overeat in a restaurant. Get food, bring it to the green room, bring it to a safe hotel room, bring it to the van.

That was pretty much it. But we got used to it, and I can’t believe nobody got fucking COVID. I’m like, I’m not going to fucking everything.

DJ: Yeah. It’s been like, just recently, my wife and I were talking about, we almost feel like we’re in the minority sometimes because neither of us have luckily got it. And we both tested negative the times that we did, just out of precaution, just we thought we should get tested because we were potentially exposed.

But yeah, we’ve managed to go without getting it anyway. But it’s crazy. You know, before I met you in school and before your family lived for some years in Florissant, Missouri, you had lived several places. I know you were born in Wiesbaden, Germany, but what other places did you live before ending up in the Midwest?

Tim: Well, it’s funny. I’ve lived more places since then now because was like the first 10 or 15 years of my life. But yeah, I was born in Wiesbaden and then when I was six months old, my parents moved back to, of course, since I don’t remember all of this, that the order of events is a little blurry, but I believe they would say it was for a bit.

And then when I first woke up in the world and I was one and a half or two, I have memories, we lived in a farm in Indiana near Culver. And that was my first memories is about probably three or four years on the farm. Wasn’t a big farm, we had like a goat and chickens and a cat and a dog.

And I remember playing in the cornfield ’cause it was like a giant forest cause I was like two feet tall, you know. And that was really cold, you know, that was like instant fantasy forest in the cornfield. So and then we moved to Alaska for three years and then we moved to Kansas for about a, maybe a year and a half and then we moved to Missouri and that’s where I was there ’til like 1980 or ’79.

DJ: Yeah, you were there through high school, I know.

Tim: I was raised, that was the seventies and I can’t stop feeling awesome about the seventies, especially when I put on seventies music. Oh yeah. 1970 in particular, but anyway.

DJ: Well, your parents were also very religious. Wasn’t your father like a minister or preacher in the army?

Tim: Well, he was in the army, but he was also a preacher. I don’t think he ever really had a church as it were where we had a house and you know what I mean, that kind of thing. He became a certified reverend.

DJ: Oh, okay. 

Tim: He was definitely a preacher. I mean, he actually, the second time he came home from Vietnam, he was preaching there.

He was a master sergeant, but he also gave sermons. And I guess he had like a, I don’t know if it was a heart attack or something similar enough that he came home. It was his second tour of duty.

It was crazy. He’d also been in Korea many years before that. So, but yeah, very religious, at my young age, it was kind of shocking at some points, because there was a really early period before the religious became a factor.

I even remember my dad having a beer and cigarettes, not that he got drunk or anything. I just remember a little more loose lifestyle in terms of the, and then I remember in Alaska, when we first moved there, me and my mom were in our new quarters, which was like these apartments, they were like probably half a dozen families across, and they were all two stories. They were kind of neat.

I just remember growing up there was like a TV show from a ’60s series. But I remember him, all of a sudden, I’m giving my life to the Lord on the phone. So I’m not smoking anymore.

So it didn’t really affect me personally until I got a little older, I wanted to listen to music and the whole general, usual putting hands with the adults about the rock music, especially if they’re religious. But in light of how others have paired worse, it’s just what it was. I mean, there were moments while it was happening, I certainly wished it wouldn’t happening.

Just like when you get older, you go through a day and “it’s like, fuck, I don’t know that to happen again. Sometimes in retrospect, that shitty day turns you to go somewhere great or not always the case. Obviously, a shitty day usually sends you down the shit road.

So they’re very religious, but also a great musical. And so it was the funny duality of, yeah, we love playing music, just don’t play that music. And it got kind of strict.

I had to sneak my way to do that, but I did.

I didn’t realize how much both of my families were waist-deep in music. I knew my dad was, because everybody in his family played an instrument, mostly piano. My dad played some guitar.

And my uncle Bill, who came and lived with us a few times, told me to play guitar. But I also know that my aunt Frances had a piano. But I came to find out just recently from my brother, and I love this story.

My mom, her mom passed away when she was like eight years old. So our grandpa raised her with his oldest son, Uncle Jay. So they were kind of like the parents.

But I didn’t realize the whole “time that they were growing up, because my mom plays piano, that’s how she met my dad. They toured as a gospel group, you know, like a tour bus or anything, probably just in their car, you know, in those hours. And they were the most famous.

And there was my mom and them. I was so touched to hear that. And of course, my dad was all into music too.

But my mom was a little more stoic and low key about things. And I bet that was really cool. And my dad was, he’s pretty, he’s too old to get mad about anything now, so it’s really easy going.

But you know, when we were young and he was younger, there was a lot of button heads, and that’s just normal for somebody who really wants to break out, and literally I did, and I ran away. But after two weeks, my awesome mom talked to my dad to let me go back home. He wasn’t going to try to stop me to do what I want.

That’s pretty sweet too, I thought.

DJ: That is, that is.

Tim: For the time, but it just showed that they really love “me. You know, and they want me to come home. And I stayed home for a while, and then I gradually left, but I was still living home.

I was fucking 23, I got married. And, but then I got frustrated and spent most trying to get gigs about that age. I wanted to play jazz, but I wasn’t really, what would I call it, can I say?

The jazz shit, enough to be doing all kinds of jazz gigs. You know, I would just learn how to play it. Any group that was, they were cool.

I remember it was Barbara, somebody, she had an opera singing chops, but she sang jazz and played flute. It was very unique. But the musicians, they had were cool cats from St. Louis.

You know, this older bass player, Jimmy Hines, it was really awesome. And anyway, I learned a lot from that, but there were just never enough gigs. We’d get a gig or two booked, I’d be like, psych, then there’d be one canceled song.

Now, psyched, one gig. You know, so it was kind of depressing trying to do that, but I was also probably going against the grain because at that point, there was so many kinds of music you could play like can get a gig, like pop music, I’m sure disco and all that. So, but I was very frustrated then.

So, and I’d already been in a pop disco band, and actually, God, I’m starting to remember all these details and not try to confuse you. But yes, my family was very religious, but also very musical. And I loved them all dearly.

We had disagreements as we were younger. We were all younger. But I think it totally informed many things to me.

I don’t really like going to church. I don’t want to ever. But I became kind of a Buddhist, but then I kind of, once you become a Buddhist, you kind of shed all your religious predilections because it becomes more of a basic, you are here and it’s just you and everything else. Spiritual.

Yeah, you just kind of take it in and don’t judge it, and then maybe it won’t judge you. But anyway, I used to love the Bible stories, even if a lot of them were kind of maybe had a mythical element that wasn’t quite true. The historical numbers, though, as far as timeline wasn’t that far off, but it stoked my love of history.

I’ve been a history nut ever since. I still read history like all the time, stuff just all over the place, like all over the world history. It takes a long time to kind of find different interesting go there, but it’s just been a great joy in my life.

And it does, even though I don’t really, I’m not a Christian at all. You know, I believe in the ethics and all, because, love your neighbor, you know, but I don’t have a belief in a God like that. But I do believe that we’re something small in the universe that’s really, really big and really awesome and is going really fast.

Like I could quote some trajectories right now, blow our minds that you may already know, that just every time I think of that, that information to me is what God is. It’s just like, well, that’s what we’re doing right now. And that’s something that’s so above and beyond us.

Like, you know, that we’re spinning thousand miles around on Earth, we’re floating around the sun as I mean, hauling ass around the sun at 65,000 miles an hour. But we always think of it as the sun’s orbit is, you know, we see the top of the sun and we see the bottom with like a flat plane. Like the planets are a flat plane around the sun.

But the sun itself is spinning in an orbit around the Milky Way, like 240,000 miles an hour. So the actual picture of our solar system, if we were to take it from the solar system perspective, would be that the sun is going left to right. And there’s a spiral slinky of planets following it as fast as they can, but they’re only going a quarter the speed of the sun.

So they’re never really level like a plate. They’re always following, and the sun’s ahead. So it’s like the sun’s at the bottom.

If we flip ourselves around instead of we’re looking up and down at the sun, the sun is really totally going sideways to that look. So if we tilt our head all the way to the left, that’s more like how we’re really traveling through space at 240,000 miles an hour. But “anyway, when I think of those things and try to imagine what that’s like, that blows my mind so much.

I get religion on that.

DJ: I love that analogy too. It’s a big slinky.

Tim: It’s the biggest picture of beautiful music I could ever imagine.

DJ: So, I’m flashing back to, so we met, you and I met in high school. And I think in those days-

Tim: Was it junior high?

DJ: Yeah, well – It was like the late junior high and then early senior high. But yeah, in the ’70s, but it seemed like we all, all the guys kinda knew the other guys that played guitar on some level, even if we didn’t know them personally. But you and I had a few classes together, and I think pretty soon we figured out that I think we must have just been talking about. We had a love for T-Rex and Marc Bolan, and I think what helped was you and I bonded over, I think we both had a really warped sense of humor. So then, before you know it, I mean, we were talking, and I would, after school, I would schlep my fairly heavy Les Paul and my little amp over to your house, which was, it was quite a few blocks away, but my memories are that your parents were never there. I guess, I don’t know if they were working at the church or whatever, we had the house to ourselves.

Tim: Yeah, they worked it. We somehow, I think we’re on either one side of split shifts, right?

DJ: Oh, that’s right, split shifts.

Tim: Because it was either, it must have been when we went to school in the evening, because in the morning, well, it worked out both ways. Because when I went to school in the day, we’d get home in the afternoon, my parents probably wouldn’t get home ’til five or six. And in those days, those couple hours could seem like hours and hours.

We had time to fuck off on our own. Or the other side was when we went to the nighttime shift, in the morning, I would fucking have people over at eight or 10, fucking doing acid and shit before I go to school. So that was another flip side, the dark side.

DJ: But the nice thing was, I mean, we could play, not that we played insanely loud, but we could crank it up. But I remember, one of my fondest memories though, is that one of the first times we got together, maybe it was the first song, you were like, hey, play this and I’ll play along with it. You showed me to play, and it’s instrumental by Santana, that was “Song of the Wind”.

Tim: Yes.

DJ: Yeah, and I would play that. I mean, the whole song is just two chords. I mean, it’s like F major seventh and C major seventh over and over and over throughout the entire song.

But I would play that, and then you’d take off. I mean, you were like flying solo. But I do remember, I still remember this today, I don’t know if you do or not, but you said to me one time, you’re like, I like that you don’t mind just playing two chords over and over so I can do my thing.

And I don’t know, it just helped me, because I was a rhythm player. It was really all I kind of wanted to play, but I was happy to play that and just watch you just go into these incredible solos. It was really, really great.

Tim: Oh, thanks. I think I was just trying to mimic the guitar, because that’s a great Santana piece that, I used to think it was all curls, but I think some of the shit that’s over the top is Neal Schon.

DJ: Yeah, Neal Schon, because then that all kind of went into Journey or early Journey days and all that stuff.

Tim: But some of those records, I went back and, because I always thought almost, there’s a few times I knew when it was Neal Schon because he would play a strap, but he also played a Les Paul. And some of the breaks that are like, well, he sounds like Santana is really going ape shit. It’s Neal Sean going ape shit with a Les Paul.

Like there’s a couple of places, I looked it up, I was so fanboy, I still geek out on that actual song quite often. And because it’s, there’s two chords, but it’s like, those are two beautiful chords. Like Genesis, the band Genesis, they’ve written so many songs with those two chords.

Like they’re most, you know, it’s a great, or a version of that basically. But yeah, I still geek out on that shit, man. That first three Santana albums are like the best.

DJ: Right, and the Caravanserai, I just love that. And that’s the one with the Song of the Wind. But also I remember, even though I was a rhythm player and that’s what I was playing, I think you just, I don’t know, you had the confidence in me, because you showed me, we got into some Wishbone Ash songs and you were like.

Tim: Oh yeah, double leads.

DJ: Yeah, the double leads and you would say, here, you basically showed me like, let’s play “Lady Whiskey”. And we used to play “Lady Whiskey”. I think we played, we might have even taken a crack at like, “Blowin’ Free”, but really…

Tim: Yeah, we probably played a bunch of those songs.

DJ: Well, a really beautiful song that I think is beautiful by Wishbone Ash is “Persephone”. And I know we used to practice that. Yeah, that’s like the last, the final song on There’s the Rub, I think.

Tim: You know, it’s funny, I didn’t reconnect with that record till probably within the last 10 years, because I had Argus and the first one, two, three, yeah “the first three, and then I found that. And I was like, wow, because that’s them, you know, with Laurie.

DJ: Laurie Wisefeld, yeah.

Tim: Laurie Wisefeld, what a great record.

DJ: Yeah, it is a great record.

Tim: Rockin’ kind of poppy, but really that song too is specifically “Persephone”. Yeah.

DJ: And I do want to move on pretty soon to your life after high school, but I was just thinking, I was kind of thinking about too, that it seemed like in those days, all the guys we knew that had bands, it seemed like they were mainly playing like “Proud Mary” and incorrectly playing “Brown Sugar” in my opinion.

Tim: Oh yeah, and also at the time I hated the song, but when I saw the Rolling Stones do it, I couldn’t help but just fucking love it. I was born and it crossed my heart. Because I used to think those licks, when you learn how to play something like Wishbone Ash, “Proud Mary” just kind of seemed, you know, and definitely that song, whatever.

I was like, what’s the name of that? Because I’ve since played it and loved playing it. But back when you’re trying to learn stuff and you think you’re above it because you’re a young snot, but when you get older, you realize, gotta get back to that shit or you’re gonna be great without feeling.

You gotta find where to always go back to the thing.

DJ: I just thought it was interesting that it seemed like that’s mostly what we were hearing if we did hear like a local high school band, but I don’t know, you and I were more drawn to like T-Rex and Mountain and Santana and Wishbone Ash.

Tim: Oh yeah, kind of like the FM rock stuff, totally.

DJ: Anyway, so we did, so we graduated from high school. We lost contact, like a lot of us did. I mean, I got married young and I went into graphic design and we just, you and I lost contact for years.

I had no idea if you were even still in town. You talked about it a little earlier, but how soon, you said it was your early twenties when you left town the first time?

Tim: Well, I asked my dad if I could join this band and he said I couldn’t and that’s when I ran away. So I did that and then that kind of folded. So when I left town, it was a couple of years later, I had just joined the Air Force, didn’t like it, but I didn’t want to go back to St. Louis because at the time, I felt like that was a dead end for me.

Having tried to, what’s the word, make it, which my idea of making it then was just to make a living playing music because Mr. Ammerman, our music teacher, taught me the basic lesson of life, which was, if you want to go do what you want to do and you can’t afford to do what you want to do because it doesn’t make a living for you, then get a job and make sure you can, as he said, keep a shirt on your back until you can make a living doing what you want to do. In the case of a musician, that’s pretty clear. So I just did that and it took a while.

And then, so I went to Virginia. My only impression of Virginia at the time, and Charlottesville particularly, was that there was just a blues scene there, which at the time, since I was on a whole different tip musically, I was like, that sucks. But I didn’t realize it was legit.

But I was just too young to get it. I was all like Genesis fusion. You know, different periods in your life, you kind of, because you’re learning, you kind of focus on something and that’s a way to learn, you know?

And jazz for sure, total jazz. So I moved to Charlottesville and I had to find actual work. And so I got a couple of jobs, but the one that lasted the longest was Kmart.

But I also had to make sure I don’t get my memories. I had a job for like three years in St. Louis that was being like a janitor while I worked with that other band. Anyway, so yeah, I get to Virginia and I’m working at Kmart, but somehow I meet a few people and I realize Virginia is not like a Southern blues town.

I hear about, I learned there’s a guy who works in this music store I’ve become friends with. He told me about a jazz workshop at this place called the Siena, which I didn’t also know at the time was a local, all kind of music’s great venue in Charlottesville. So I go to this jazz workshop and all these cats are there and they get to sit in.

And at that time, all I lived for was practicing bebop. Even though I probably didn’t play it perfect, I still wouldn’t if I had to. But you know, I love the music and I learned how to play it functionally, at least for myself.

So these cats blow and they want to, they want to kind of trip me up and call some fast swing tune. And I’m like, go ahead, man, cause I’m ready for this shit. And you know, we fucking blew some bebop.

And so I made friends that night with the jazz cats, two in the audience that are famous people. One definitely, well, two, LeRoi Moore was the MC, saxophone player from the Dave Matthews. Carter Beauford was a house drummer.

And this is before Dave Matthews even moved to town. This is like 1981 at the Siena Workshop, which is all jazz, right? And I met this trumpet player, John D’earth, who I’d eventually play in another band with.

So in one fell swoop going to this jazz workshop, I met all the cats, and I realized there’s some jazz shit going down here. And all of a sudden, I fell in love. I’m where I need to be.

Because to me at the time, making it was to be able to go play jazz gigs. I don’t care how much money it was. I didn’t need much.

I didn’t want much. You know what I mean? Go play.

In St. Louis, 25 bucks for a jazz gig. But in Charlottesville, when I started playing with this kind of more far out jazz band, they were smart enough to get college gigs with college funded things. So I remember the first gig, I got a hundred bucks for a gig.

There was nobody there. It was a college function, but we had a coolest band called Cosmology. It was like a lot of free form jazz, but also some tunes, you know, not standards.

You know what I mean? Right. And I was completely psyched.

I was like, well, damn, this is where I should be. I mean, eventually I got tired of doing just free form kind of jazz, and I started TR3 out of the rhythm section from that band. So it was, you know, interesting story.

So that’s how I kind of got included in the show. It was a really cool thing. I actually have a cassette somewhere. It’s a little warbly of that Siena Workshop jam.

And it’s definitely burning, man. I can’t play like that anymore. I used to come home from Kmart. I started working the night shift when I was worked there for three years, because the day shift was an amazing proposition. It was just basically dealing with customers all day, trying to clean up the toy department, which was always a mess, because people ripped off shit all day and ripped boxes apart. So me and this other guy volunteered to work a night shift where we could actually do all that shit and make the area in question.

And in fact, the whole fucking store looked immaculate. So they were down with us, working 13 hours a night, which actually we only worked about seven, because in that amount of time we did so much work, they couldn’t believe. And the rest of the night we watched MTV, which just came out.

So we thought this was cool. We can smoke cigarettes, watch MTV, work half the night and make them think we’re gods. So anyway, then I was home at 8 a.m. and go practice jazz guitar.

And at the time, I was really trying to learn the melodies, the chord melodies, because I was already into playing over the changes. So when I went to this workshop, I was prepped. I mean, now I would look at that and go, well, you were kind of partially prepped, buddy, but you could sure play bebop really fast.

And it sounds very impressive to a bunch of other younger guys. I mean, Norm was probably in his teens. Another drummer, Johnny Gilmore, also played in TR3 on some of the records.

You know, it’s just all these people, Norman Poor’s, Otis, guitar player, played a white SG, playing bebop. It was just amazing. Yeah.

Hey, this is Tim Reynolds, and you are listening to Frets with DJ Fey.

DJ: Well, it was obviously meant to be, and then you ended up being this vital part of Dave Matthews Band. But I told you this years ago, and I’ve told friends that, as I mentioned, I mean, I went off into my career, I just lost touch with so many people. And at the time, I guess, I have to be honest, Dave Matthews Band wasn’t, I knew of them, I wasn’t... They weren’t really on my radar a lot, just because I was into so many things. Anyway, my son came over, I had just started teaching Jeff how to play guitar, and he came over one weekend with a buddy, and he was all excited. He had a handful of CDs, and the first one he said, Dad, you gotta hear this. And he handed it to me, and it was Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds live at Luther College. And I was like, I just stared at it for a minute, and they’re looking at me like, I wasn’t really responding.

I was just kind of stunned for a second. And I looked at the liner notes, and I’m like, okay, that isn’t a coincidence. It’s not just somebody else named Tim Reynolds, that’s Tim. And it was so crazy, because I happened to be right by my bookcase, and I grabbed the old Hazelwood yearbook off the shelf, and I was like, look at this. I said, Tim, I’m telling these guys, Jeff and his friends, it was my buddy in high school, and we played guitar after school, many, many days. And a couple of years, it felt like, and yeah, they’re jaws are like dropped.

And then, yeah, it wasn’t long after I did see that you, and I don’t think it was called TR3, but you had a, well, I don’t know, you were playing at a small venue, actually not too far from where I live now. And that’s when I went to see you. And then on a break, I caught your attention, and then I was like, Tim, and then that’s when we kind of reconnected after many, many, many years. And then we caught up after the show, and it was great. It was just a great night.

Tim: I’m trying to remember what that band was called. It could have been either Puke Matrix or Electric Power Trio.

DJ: I think it was Electric Power Trio.

Tim: Yeah, it was, it’s basically TR3, but I wanted to drop the name at the time because I was just tired of it. Oh, of course, that didn’t really matter. Yeah.

DJ: Well, I still have the poster you signed for Jeff. You got to sign this for my son. And I still have it.

Well, yeah, then, you played with TR3. I know, okay, like when you’re playing with TR3, I think I’m right, that those tend to be mostly smaller venues than some of the huge concerts and festival arenas as you play in these big stadiums with Dave Matthews Band. I would imagine both experiences are very thrilling, but maybe quite a bit different in a way. Like, I mean, the sensation of it or the emotion of playing for these different size audiences.

Tim: Yeah, having just done it. And of course, after COVID, everything seems much more meaningful, even though that sounds a little weird, but it certainly is.

DJ: No, I know exactly what you mean.

Tim: Just listening to music. So, I played a solo acoustic tour and it was just like, it’s hard to put into words. And then of course, DMB everybody cries at first minute because nobody’s listening to me.

And with TR3, there’s something about playing in small venues. And it’s also, I have to admit, something about playing your own music. And if people appreciate that, that makes that probably the most special thing.

And it’s almost like apples and oranges. It’s like TR3, a lot of times, an agent tries to put us in some theaters that are a little larger than small rooms. And it’s a hit or miss as far as filling those kind of rooms.

Because we’ve never really tried to be a commercially appealing thing. It’s just kind of been my baby to do whatever. I mean, we’ve done records that are with vocals and stuff.

It’s not like we’re trying to be avant-garde or anything, but there’s no attempt to radio airplay stuff other than like, does this song sound good like that? Well, let’s do it like that. But it’s not a thing.

So I don’t expect it’s, but I do, like this last tour, man, I felt so much love from people and for them.

Yeah, because you’re finally getting to do that again. I mean, we just couldn’t do it.

Yeah, and it’s like the last record we did was so full of feeling and intention. There was no lyrics, it’s just music, but it’s real music. And like, it was just special that, like a lot of times we would, and most tours I’ve always done with TR3, we just always change up the sets every night because that’s fresh and we still did it, but we somehow happened upon doing this one song that’s kind of our favorite song at the beginning, and this other song that’s a new song that’s kind of our favorite song at the beginning and the end.

There’s so many things that play in music, especially when it’s... Some of my favorite songs that we play are very simple, but that’s what’s hard. It’s very zen.

Yeah, just kind of go right to this thing. But anyway, it just felt so good. Because it’s intimate, you get a much more intimate feeling.

DJ: Yeah.

Tim: And I just come fresh from that just days ago. Saturday night, we played our last gig. I mean, it’s fuckin’… emotional.

This past Saturday? Like one night, we just played a couple songs. I think it was a night. Anyway, I was just feeling how lucky I was to play with these guys.

And I told the audience, as soon as I had the thought, and they thought it was funny at first, I said, you know, I’ve done a lot of drugs, a lot of drugs in my con. But I said, the best drug I could ever take is playing with these guys.

DJ: I’m sure it’s euphoric.

Tim: I mean, some gigs, you know, feel great, and some gigs are half empty house, and it makes you kind of feel like, well, what did I do? You know, you feel like you did something wrong, you know, whatever. It’s never really blaming anybody.

It’s kind of like I always blame myself. What did I do to this happen? And then you kind of get toxicity for a minute.

But then when people appreciate what you do, even if it’s a few people, and you get that, and it’s something that you invest a feeling in, it’s not like super important, other than just that there’s some kind of expression that you still feel close to. That’s really awesome. It’s worth more than all the shit.

I mean, you know, being on the road is a lot of work after you get old.

DJ: Well, I haven’t made, obviously, I haven’t made every show, but I try, when you guys are in St. Louis, like TR3, when you play the Rock House shows and stuff like that, I try to come see.

Tim: I’m hopeful we do that again. We didn’t get them, we were close to that, but for some reason, there wasn’t enough. They weren’t available, we weren’t available for when we had our window. We always have to work with our DMB window.

DJ: Yeah, that was usually around the holidays, it seemed like you would come into St. Louis. Well, you answered part of this earlier, but the inevitable question, how did the pandemic and the lockdown affect you and the bands you play with and record with? I know it put a halt to like the touring at Dave Matthews, but did you just kind of, I don’t know, stay home and meditate, or did you really dive into some more guitar? How’d you do with that lockdown period?

Tim: That’s the only way to stay sane. I mean, right before it started, I was playing on doing a solo acoustic tour that April, I think. So I had already started, because I really wanted to have some new music to do that.

So I was starting on a kind of a writing spree, because I always keep, I’m always coming up with ideas, and I put them on a phone, and then I put them on a CD. And then when I start to have time to look at them again, and I kind of start shifting through, go, no, go away, go away, no, keep that. And then I start to have something to work with.

And then when I start working with it, then that kind of goes me to, maybe I’ll spontaneously create an A section or find another snippet that’s been recorded, and experiment with that as an A section. So I kind of got started on writing. And then when it just kind of all went, I just continued to write a lot.

And it kind of got really involved being that we were going through the fucking apocalypse. So I wrote about 10 songs, and they were all very focused just because this sense of focus became very, and I also learned this piece of music. It took a couple months because I wanted to learn on acoustic, which could have been easier on electric, but it was a piano piece by Beethoven.

And I just thought when I eventually realized I heard it as a kid a lot, and that’s what got it deep for me. But because I had piano lessons when I was a kid, and I’m sure I never played that piece of music because it’s not easy, but it’s not a fast bunch of notes, but it’s like this song, “Moonlight Sonata” by Beethoven. It’s very dreamy.

But I remember hearing the first couple bars and I thought, that’s like fucking Radiohead serious, like, you know, very passionate, dramatic, but not trying to explode, but looking, you know, slow and like creepy almost. So I set up on a tusk, and when I started, I eventually realized, this is going to be really hard, because so many places are still in things that are, you can only do on the piano, like to get that effect, like on a piano, you can play an arpeggio or something, because you have two hands, you can play a note that sustains all through a whole bunch of chordal movements, right? On a guitar, you can only do that with an open E.

So, I had to figure out ways when the top note was supposed to hang, because it’s a lot of top note hanging through chords, where I couldn’t really keep it hanging through the next arpeggio to kind of just, because it’s already so slow, just to kind of let it sit for a minute, so that note happens, then finish the arpeggio and have to get rid of the note. But I learned a way to play it and get the vibe of it. So it took a long time, but that became my therapy and the song that made me feel at ease during the COVID terribleness.

I mean, a lot of terribleness besides COVID. I mean, political violence, fucking insane shit. Yeah, it’s just awful, awful.

So, and I finally learned it, actually when I went on my first acoustic tour, I played that like every night, it was kind of like a therapy. And it’s hard to play it perfect, you know, that kind of classical music. One small step for incorrectness makes you feel like you blew the whole thing.

But I didn’t care, because I just wanted that music became an expression of a feeling that I had for a long time. Anyway, so, and so I wrote a bunch of music, and then I, to end that, I couldn’t go to a studio in one, two, because of all the circumstances. I was doing a lot of, I eventually over several months put out all those songs on YouTube, and then I did a lot of YouTube streaming performances.

Actually, it was kind of fun. I, at first, I took many of my earlier solo records, which I never would try to recreate, and try to recreate. One that was the most difficult, which led me to start working on Beethoven, was one that I just mostly improvised, and all kind of crazy shit.

So I tried to transcribe it, not like I can’t read music enough to literally write my shit out. I have to kind of write it down, like, here’s a note, and the other notes that are part of the chord I’ll write on top of it. And once I got about halfway, so I had to recreate all these things.

It was really fun. I spent about a month at a time. So I did, I can’t remember how many live streams that were themed on certain CDs, I think, that were plausible.

Because there’s some CDs with bands, I didn’t try to do that. One CD with drum machines, I did a couple of things with drum machines. So that was really fun as an exercise and staying busy.

And then things, you know, like sometime last summer, oh, I’ll tell Mark I didn’t want to do it. So we got invited and Dave sent his plane to take me to Charlottesville to record their next record last summer. And then eventually by June, you know, I started playing again.

But yeah, all the time off, I was just, like I went through so many different mind fucks. And let me tell you the one that was the most mind fuck, just thinking I suck so much because I was playing things so many times and then getting kind of, when you’re in a home by yourself, you’re not playing gigs, you get sidetracked, you could play in a piece of music. And you know, always there’s something, nothing’s ever literally perfect, that’s impossible.

So something would sidetrack me and I couldn’t get through songs. And it would like make me fucking, I would trip it on it. And then I was just thinking, okay, I just suck.

So it made me just practice way more. And then I realized, well, that’s better. At least if I fuck up, I can’t blame not practice.

And I realized it’s just nature. ’cause I’m so focused on the minutae, the details, like with my little solo tunes, they’re all like, just a guitar by itself. So anything that’s not completely spot on seems like a huge mistake, but most people don’t even know the song to begin with.

But anyway, it was a great learning process. So by the time I did my solo tour, I felt really practiced up. No excuses for sucking, no excuses, moonlight’s not because that’s a hard one.

But I played it every night anyway, cause it’s a beautiful piece of music. So yeah, I learned a lot of music and I’m realizing now that all those tunes I did, I wanted to record solo acoustic, but I’ve done so many solo acoustic records. On this TR3 tour, we learned one of the songs I wrote during the lockdown.

And it was so satisfying, deeply fucking satisfying that I want to now, the next TR3 album or whatever we call it with Dan and Mick, is gonna be all these acoustic songs that I wrote during the pandemic. ’cause they really have, they all have a vibe, you know? So it’s kinda, but anyway, I’m excited to, cause all these other songs are very well formulated and they will be, when I think about all the rhythmic shit that’s in them, it’s gonna be awesome for Dan and the drummer cause I, you know, he knows how I think, cause we played together for like 14 years.

And you know, he gets all my drum reference heroes, you know, Bill Bruford and you know, Phil Collins and John Bonham and countless others, Chester Thompson, you know, we’re drum buddies cause I love drums big time. You know, we don’t play like as often as DMB, definitely, cause they’re always on tour. It’s a“real special thing that I have with these guys cause they’re really good friends and sweet people and that makes, it kind of makes the music a little both of those things that maybe not everybody can feel, but in general, it comes across as a whole thing.

DJ: It absolutely does, yeah. Yeah, I love, I’ve watched quite a few of the YouTube videos you’ve done with just you playing, you know, playing acoustic or in your living room or whatever, but it was great. I also came across though, there’s a couple of great videos of you with TR3 at the Iridium in New York.

Tim: Oh man, yeah, I remember that. That’s like a while back.

DJ: Really fun. And my only time going there, and I’ve talked about this at least once on another show, it was on my list for so long, so much of my life to see Les Paul do one of his Monday night gigs.

Tim: Oh yeah, I never get to see him.

DJ: I did, yeah, my brother and my sister-in-law and I went on a Monday night, on a cold, chilly New York Monday night, and we saw him, and it was just great. And then, I mean, ironically, within the year, less than a year later, he passed away. So, I mean, that was on my list since I was, I don’t know, I don’t know how old I wanted to see him, but I got such a bang out of seeing you guys play the iridium, it was really cool.

I also came across a video, I forget how long ago, I came across this YouTube video of a concert from 1999 in San Rafael, where you and Dave were joined by Carlos Santana.

Tim: Oh, yeah.

DJ: And that was, of course, surreal to me, because I mean, I flashed back to you and me sitting in your house playing “Song of the Wind”.

Tim: You know what’s funny, I asked him about that song, he didn’t fucking remember.

DJ: He didn’t even know, that was Neil Schon. 

Because, exactly, because he had me show him Dave’s song before the gig.

DJ: So you’re teaching Carlos Santana.

Tim: Well, it’s just because he didn’t know it, it wasn’t like some hard thing, but he just wanted to know it, but he didn’t want to have to figure it out with a CD, you know what I mean? He was really cool. I mean, like, that was funny, because he was playing a nylon, he was ripping it.

But I remember that’s when I just smoked a lot of weed. So I was all over that experience. Yeah, that was a very cool, very cool experience.

I remember that. God, it was like, yeah, 1999, right?

DJ: 1999. Back when your hair was down to your shoulders.

Tim: Yeah, I had long black hair, with red tips sometimes, if I can put those on. I was just sent to be in God. I was all like, fucking Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson.

I still love Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson. I think he’s become a sex offender. Which is probably, and it surprised me because his character was kind of a sex offender.

It’s too bad he couldn’t have just done that character. Too bad. Next.

But anyway, fucking Trent Reznor is still a fucking genius.

DJ: I love the film scores that he does. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Tim: Oh man, I did yoga last year and he released this thing called Ghosts: Volume 2, which was instrumental Nine Inch Nails. And the first one is more what you’d expect, just no vocals, you know, but the next one was like ambient. And I do yoga to it.

It’s like the coolest thing to do yoga to. It’s so beautiful. Like the other side is called something else, it’s a little more creepy kind of ambient.

It makes everything in a house seem like it’s possibly gonna kill you. But the first one is just sweet, you know, really sweet.

DJ: Tim, so great to hear from you and talk with you again, my friend.

Tim: Hey, thank you, man. I’m so glad to be here. Haven’t talked to you for a long time. This has been great.

DJ: It’s been a while. All right. Love you, man.

Tim: I love you too, man. It’s so great to talk to you, bro.

DJ: All right, see you, Tim.

Tim: All right, peace, man.

Bye-bye.