Timi Temple - the fiercely independent DIY star discusses songwriting and what he is all about.

26/5/21

VIDEO - Timi Temple at his recent huge launch for his single 'Yuck my Yum' at The Landsdown

LG - Hey Timi, tell us a bit about yourself, who it Timi, where's he from, what's his background, when did he get his first real six string?

howdy lennox groove, well, timi is me, i'm blue (da ba dee) love snakes, love crocs, love DIY and most of all love making and playing music! my first guitar was a hand me down from dad, i played it for the first time at my year 6 farewell in primary school and dad had taught me two surf songs... wipe out and pipe line!

LG - Your recent vibe is BLUE. Australia's bush dwelling Satin Bower Birds are renowned for decorating their nests with eclectic blue items. Yet your totem is a Snek the enemy of the ground dwelling bird. explain.

ahahaha those lil blue collecting birds are so dang cute! a few people have asked me about this surprisingly... snakes are deadly... 'sneks' on the other hand are cute and friendly! smol spelling difference, big danger difference

LG - Speaking of eclectic we feel your music has a wide variety of influences, and you do not seem afraid to channel shredder rock whilst also keeping in touch with super relevant indie pop. How would you describe your style and genre? Who are your influences from the past and now.

i feel like my shredding days are slowly phasing out to be honest... the more i fall in love with my voice the more i want it to shine through the tracks i think! but combining genres is definitely something i enjoy!! i would say my style and genre is "cool nerd" aka softboi indie rock aka a nutella pizza (its like a main mean but a desert/snack at the same time)... as far as my influences go, early influences are silverchair and weezer meets clairo, gus dapperton & beabadoobee

LG - You have put out a lot of singles over the last few years, are you moving towards an EP or record? Tell us about that coming release and what tracks you have already released will be upon it. How relevant do you think those descriptions of collected musical works are these days? Can we just release singles forever and be damned with "Records"?

big big debate about releasing singles forever or releasing records... releasing singles makes sense to me when you're fighting for attention and momentum... you don't want to dump all your songs at once and then nobody listens to them. so it's better to slow drip them in that sense... and then a lot of artists repackage the singles and call them an ep... i think a record ep or lp should have a certain mood/concept/idea surrounding it and tying all the songs together... this is pretty hard to achieve with a string of singles unless they were all written and finished as a package and then split for marketing purposes! i'm sitting on a collection of songs right now that could be released as an ep... but maybe i'm still in the fight for attention and momentum stage so who knows... ;)

LG - You seem to be a master of promotion, recording, dozens of instruments, chin ups. Are you steadfastly independent or who is on your musical team?

hahahaha - master of all trades... jack of none??? seems like the saying is backwards to me haha - i get addicted to the early stages of learning something where you see rapid improvement and i guess that's why I seem to be good at so many random things... once the progress slows down i tend to pick up something new again hahah - and yep. i'm independent, i run a one person DIY operation here at timi temple HQ haha

LG - What is your songwriting process.

i'm going to simplify this BIG TIME - live life > remember life event later on > write story > come up with melody and change chords so they're not my first basic choice > change story to lyrics > record demo vox and guitar > record all instruments properly using demo as structure > record vox > mix > master > release

LG - You are joining Garage Sale on their big show next Thursday at Crowbar along with openers Clouder. What do you think of those bands and how do you relate to their shoegaze styles. What about the venue - have you played Crowbar before, what do you reckon?

i'm super stoked to be joining this line up! i think clouder are ultra gaze and garage sale would be the baby if timi temple and clouder had a baby in terms of style haha so hopefully any gig goers will see the supports as parent 1, parent 2, then marvelous child prodigy hahaha - crowbar is sick, i haven't played it before, but just was at a gig watching egoism and tiarnie play just last week and its such a killer room!

LG - we are a bit low key obsessed with Youtuber "I'm Cyborg but I'm Ok" who weaves amazing movie montages with indie tunes. We see Yuck my Yum was set by her to the film 'Can't Buy Me Love" starring Sean Penn. How did that come about? What did you think of the music v movie pairing.

i'm high key obsessed with cyborg! a mutual friend put us in touch a couple of years back and i generally send cyborg my songs prerelease to see their vibes on the track - in the instance of yuck my yum they had can't buy me love pop into their heads immediately and asked to put the two together for me ~ pretty stoked about the internet because we've never met but often chat online so definitely consider them one of my friends <3