Sponsored by Elixir Strings
Best Solo Artist AWARDS 2011
www.tim-rees.com
Solo artist Tim Rees explains that being a solo sing/ songwriter doesn’t mean that you have to restrict your sound to purely acoustic instruments…
Tim’s live work still see’s him travelling light, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and this stripped down format suits his music well, although Tim does insist that he is very keen that people don’t pigeonhole him as what he describes as “a depressing singer/songwriter”. “When you are in a band you are usually limited to drums, bass and
he bucolic idyll known as the South West of England is well known as a hot bed of acoustic talent but our Unsigned Awards Solo Artist winner Tim Rees insist that he wants to sidestep the stereotypical image of the acoustic guitar toting singer/songwriter. The chiseled 41 year old musician explains that after many years in bands experimenting with everything from heavy metal to synthpop - “Lots of dodgy haircuts and bad clothes!” he laughs – he finally found his niche after deciding to step off the band treadmill and concentrate purely on writing his own music.
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“ I wanted to produce and record my own stuff,” Tim explains, “Personally I much prefer (doing his own material). Sometimes the politics of bands or just the hassle of getting everybody together to organize practice and gigs drives you nuts and compared to that I really enjoy doing my own thing. I have set up a studio here at home that is fully kitted out with acoustic treatments, the whole bit. I can get back from work at six o’clock and then find that it’s two in the morning and I’m still beavering away! I find that it is a really good experience and find myself writing all the time. As for coming up with new song ideas I used to write a song on the guitar and record it but now I’ve got the music software I find that I’m starting to develop songs without using the guitar as the starting point; that’s very liberating, I think.”
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guitar but when you are on your own you can start with something completely different and just see where it goes. When I play live it’s just the guitar and me but I’m thinking that in the future does it really matter if I’m recording in different formats? I read a very interesting article about Bon Iver the other day where he said that for his next album he is going to start recording without his guitar, which I thought was very interesting. I might just start with a really good sounding sample and build up a glitchy sound around that. I’ll then record a lot of vocal ideas and eventually add guitar to it later on. One of the tracks on my Bandcamp site is just piano, so I think that I am trying to move away from just simply recording a guitar and a vocal and then building instrumentation around it.”
Even seasoned musicians like Tim can find the transition from band member to solo performer a bit nerve-wracking, to say the least. “I made sure that I was super-prepared!” Tim laughs, “I didn’t play live until I felt really confident and I think that I was always confident that, vocally, I could always carry a song pretty well. I wasn’t as good as some of the best guitarists out there but I think that generally (the gigs) went pretty well. I’ve always had good feedback and now I always take CDs with me with one track, to give away. The good feedback gave me the encouragement to carry on and it built up reasonably quickly. The plan now is to develop the promotion side, that’s the key to getting the music heard. The plan is to prepare to hit all of the major festivals next year, the loads of them locally here that I can play as well as going further afield. This is why this Playmusic Unsigned Award is so good because I want to use this award as part of my promotion and future plans!” PM
UNSIGNED
www.elixirstrings.com Tim Rees
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