Recording - July 2013 - 54

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So it definitely runs in the family. And you grew
up here in Southern California, right?
Yeah, we kind of moved around all over
Southern California. My dad is a pastor, so
we went to a few different churches where he
was associate pastor. He’s always played
music; he’s a good musician. And my mom
plays piano, and she’s self-taught. So, yeah, a
musical family. And it’s pretty funny now
because my wife’s family is really musical too.
So at Christmas it’s hilarious, everyone’s grabbing instruments out of my studio and doing
a whole jam. Everyone wants to record in my
studio. It’s pretty funny.
They must be unbelievably proud of you.
Yeah, they are. It’s cool.
So you wanted to play. Nobody had to like force
you like, “Timmy, come inside. It’s time for your
piano lesson.” None of that?
No. And when I was really little we had like a
family piano, and my brother would go up
when he was a toddler and pound on the

“If you’re relying on just 20 or 30
songs a year—fully recorded songs
that you can show to people—it’s not
going to happen.”
—Tim Myers
keys. And my sister—who is younger than
me—when she was little, would pound on the
piano as well. My mom said that I would go
up and press individual keys, you know, and I
just kind of liked the sound of it, so she
thought she should put me in piano lessons
since I really seemed to be liking music. So I
definitely think there was something natural,
more so than with my brother and sister—
something that I naturally had.
You gravitated to songwriting at 14 I remember.
Do you remember the first moment where you
had that desire to write a song?
Yeah, it’s pretty funny. I’ll try to make it a
short story. But, actually, the first time I was
in a band was probably junior high—I was
12-ish—and there was this popular punk
band in our junior high. They had a lead
singer who played bass, and he wasn’t playing
with the band anymore. It was a horrible
band, just really bad. And I played a little bit
of guitar. I had learned guitar listening to
Nirvana songs and different Beatles songs
and things like that. I was kind of self-taught
a little bit, learning power chords and things
like that. But they were looking for a new lead
singer that played, and I said, “I sing,” and I
54

did. But then I lied and said, “I play bass too.”
And they said, “You do? We thought you
played guitar.” “No, I play bass.” And then I
went home and said to my dad, “Ask one of
your friends, I really need a bass. I need to try
out.” And he was like, “OK,” so he grabbed
me a bass from his friend, and I got in the
band. That was the first time I started writing
songs—just really aggressive, Rock, Punk
kind of sounding songs—in junior high.
So you were in the band Limousine, but the
band got dropped by the label before you even
finished the record. How did that make you feel?
It was hard. And I was really, really young,
just out of high school. So getting dropped
was a bummer. We had put a lot of work into
the album, and I got a really bad taste in my
mouth for major labels from that experience
for sure. But it was an amazing growing experience. Do you know Eric Valentine? We
recorded it with him. He had done Good
Charlotte and Third Eye Blind and all these
people. So that was really cool to be able to
be working with him. He was kind of overseeing it; he wasn’t necessarily recording with us
every day.
So, after that, you joined up with Zach Filkins
and Ryan Tedder in 2002—not that much
later—and you guys became OneRepublic. Then
you got signed again by Columbia. How did you
find the courage to want to be signed by
another major after that?
I was always putting my hands in all different
kinds of fires, and putting my eggs in different baskets, I guess. You know, there were
about three different projects, and that was
one of the projects. I had met Ryan and
started writing songs with him, and it happened really, really fast from point
A—starting the band—to getting signed. It
happened—boom—really fast.
How fast is really fast?
Like six months.
Wow. Was it kind of a love-at-first-sight thing as
far as you guys writing together? Was it magical
the first time you sat down?
Ryan is insanely talented, and I was so young
that I was learning so much from him. And
also, the biggest thing that I was hoping to
get across in those notes that I wrote out for
the audience is work ethic. That was the main
thing I learned from him and some other
great songwriters that I was lucky to meet
along the way. You have got to work so hard
and write tons of song—just a ridiculous
amount of songs. Write 80 songs a year, and

record all of them completely, and send them
off to people, and meet new people, and
really get out there and make it happen. You
know, if you’re relying on just 20 or 30 songs
a year—fully recorded songs that you can
show to people—it’s not going to happen.
I know people who do three or four a year and
they wonder why they haven’t gotten signed
yet. I often wonder why they dwell so long on
just a song trying to perfect it. It’s like finish
that and move on to the next, because you’ll get
better with every one. You have clearly proved
that.
At some point OneRepublic got dropped by
Columbia, and you guys got picked up by Universal, but then you left the band. Man, that was
one of the most courageous things I’ve ever
seen a musician do, because that’s everybody’s
dream to get signed by a major. And you left
and then chose this stuff and your own solo
career, which evolved both into an artist career,
and the advertising stuff and film and TV placements. My money is on you for long-term
income and happiness.
You’re doing what you want to do every day. Tim
works from nine to five, five days a week, takes
weekends off to be with his family. I mean, look
at this face—this is a happy guy. It’s just like
you’re the prototype for all other musicians.
That’s why I wanted you here so badly to instill
that work ethic in them. So how do you wake up
every day and walk into the studio and do it over
and over again. Doesn’t it get boring? Doesn’t it
get tedious? Doesn’t it get laborious?
Some days I go into the studio and it’s not a
good day, you know, like I don’t write a good
song. Not every day is an amazing day where
you write the best song in the world, and I
think being able to discipline yourself is the
best thing in the world. And there are a lot of
huge, huge songwriters that you can look at
through history that had that discipline, and
also famous painters like Picasso and Monet
that had a discipline like that, where they
would paint the painting every single day. And
not every painting is amazing, but there’s
always that magical one or handful that are
just absolutely amazing pieces of art and stand
the test of time. So, yeah, waking up in the
morning, I walk my dog, and I’m able to…
Even when I take a shower sometimes,
melodies will come into my head where I’m
hearing certain melodies or a good lyric idea. I
keep the notepad and I’ll jot down all these
different ideas of titles of songs that could be
Continued on page 57

Recording - July 2013

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