Recording - September 2013 - 55

SEPTEMBER 2013

TAXI Road Rally 2012

Tim Myers Interview, Part 3
Interviewed by Michael Laskow
Our VP of film and TV Music was in NY a few
months ago meeting with ad agencies. He
called me after a couple of meetings and said,
“They all want Tim Myers… ‘just find us stuff in
the Tim Myers vein.’”
Tim left the band OneRepublic in 2007 to
become a solo artist. His songs have been in
countless TV shows and commercials. Here’s
Part 3 of his interview at the TAXI Road Rally in
November of 2012.
At the end of this interview, you’ll find a set of
notes that Tim prepared prior to the Rally.
People who attended the live interview got
handouts, and we’ve included it here for you!
So something as simple as just letting people
know how thankful you are for their efforts
really works that well?
Yea, it goes a really long way. And I know it seems
so stupid and simple, but don’t ever feel like you’re
sucking up or something. I know a lot of people
have this feeling inside like, “Oh man, if I tell this
label person or this publisher that I’m thankful for
what they’re doing that I’m gonna look like a total
suck-up.” Just take that thought out of your head,
because that little bit of thankfulness goes such a
long way, and it makes you feel better too. Just
being thankful to different people you will all of a
sudden feel better about yourself too. You’ll just
feel really good. It’s really weird.
It’s amazing that you’ve realized that at such a
young age. Well, I’m certainly thankful that you
came today and that you joined us and
shared… I’m gonna go out in the audience and
take some questions from these guys, because I
think that we’ve covered everything that was
on my sheet.
Thank you so much for having me. [applause]
Audience member: Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I really appreciate your
thankfulness. Based on staying current—I
know a lot of people here are not in L.A. or in

Tim Myers explains that sometimes it’s the little things you take out of a mix that make a song work.

Silver Lake, like you mentioned—is there any
specific place that you like to research music on
the Internet? How do you stay current, other
than being in this geological area?
A lot of it is just word of mouth, you know, with
different friends of mine. And there are so many
good websites and blogs and different things like
that. I don’t read Paste and Filter, but I know those
magazines are really into the tastemakers. You
know, they’re talking about Passion Pit or Mumford & Sons, or different people like that before
they ever come out. I think there is a lot of really
good material out there. Also on iTunes on the
album charts, if you just take a quick glance at that,
there’s lots of stuff there too that’s already
happening.
Audience member: When you’re writing as many
songs as you do, are there times you feel like
you’re repeating yourself lyrically, and how do
you avoid it? Do you have any suggestions for
that?
It does happen. There will be times where I accidentally repeat a lyric, and my publisher will say to me,

“Tim, this sounds too much like this song. You
need to change it or just completely start over lyrically.” And that’s good having that team around
you to keep you accountable and to be able to fix
that. That is definitely a problem that comes out.
You’ve got to always stay fresh and try new things,
and try all different kinds of sounds.
ML: Do you retain all of your publishing?
Certain songs with them I do a co-pub deal. But
their standard deal that they do with people is a
commission-based thing. So we have that as well as
the co-publishing deals.
I’ve got to believe that you are in the power seat
now, that you can pretty much go anywhere and
drive any deal you want, which is a pretty sweet
place to be.
I absolutely love my team, and would think I plan
on working with them for years and years until I’m
too old to write.

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Recording - September 2013

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