Local Musician

Local Musician Timothy Chivers

After five long years since a music workshop at Youth ARC, we interviewed local Hobart musician Timothy Chivers about how he became the local muso hero we all love to see! Tim started with a couple of originally written and produced songs, and since then, has gone on to write and create many more musical projects and performances, becoming more deeply involved in the music industry.

Let’s go back to the beginning. How did you get into songwriting, Tim?

I guess it started when I was 12 years old; that’s when I first picked up a guitar. High school was a pretty crappy experience as it is for most people (haha), but I had a lot of time by myself to just practice and learn guitar. I started writing songs then. A lot of it was self-taught, but I did take a lot of material from my music teacher at the time. My brother and dad were also really good influences, because they were both musicians, and my brother gave me his old guitar (which I think was a crappy Kmart guitar that his friend carved some pretty pictures into). It was a very beautiful sounding guitar though (for something that most likely came from Kmart). I literally self-taught myself; I took home a lot of music sheets from high school and just practiced heaps at home. I’d spend hours in my bedroom learning how to play ‘Smoke on the Water’. That’s where I got my start!

Okay let’s fast track a little bit. You’ve written some songs, but now you’ve gotten into studying a bit more on the technical side?

Yeah, I decided in year 12 that I wanted to study music technology at the University of Tasmania because I thought I needed a lot of help with the performance side of things, and in retrospect I definitely needed help with performance. So at the end of my degree I decided to get into a Diploma of Performance in guitar. It was quite a challenge at the time.

What’s it like being connected in the Hobart music scene, meeting other songwriters and key people who contribute to creating opportunities in the music scene?

Meeting people like Amy Fogarty, a key person in the music scene in Hobart, has been one of the biggest blessings. To her credit (and for the people reading this, she runs Meraki Management) Amy is one of the most intelligent, honest and hard-working people on Earth! She helped me quite a bit in succeeding and actually making an income from music, which a lot of people don’t think is possible. She helps lots of musicians too, not just me. Musicians are also very resilient people

as well, so I think that if this social isolation becomes a way of life, then musicians are still going to find ways to make it work. During this time too, a lot of things that people have been doing while self-isolating have involved listening to music, reading books, watching movies etc. So we need artists right now. I know we’re considered ‘non-essential’ workers, but I feel right now more than ever, artists are essential! In the long run, I think it’s going to be a good thing for music because musicians are out there right now in isolation, practicing and writing amazing music. They’re refining themselves, and that’s what I’ve been doing too. I haven’t been recording as much music, although there’s been a little bit of that. Mostly I have been practicing and trying to make my sound as solid as possible. So by the time this is all over, there’s going to be an entire generation of musicians who just go out there and kill it! I know people were killing it beforehand, but there’s no limit to how good a musician can sound in my opinion. So by the time this next generation of musicians gets out there and gets the word out that music is still alive, audiences are going to start listening and saying to themselves, ‘Woah, this is amazing!’

What was the first music project that you did after you had a few songs under your belt and where has it taken you?

I’ve been chipping away at quite a few things. I started a couple of projects at Youth ARC in the songwriting workshops. It was in those workshops that I met a longtime collaborator Ruben Nomikos, who has played bass and keys for me. We even started a band called Nice Pie, which