Dan Tyminski is one of the most successful musicians of recent history. He gained fame as a long-time member of Alison Krauss and Union Station, and has become bluegrass legend in his own right. He is also known widely for giving the singing voice to George Clooney’s character, Ulysses Everett McGill, in O Brother, Where Art Thou? Additionally, he lent his voice to Swedish DJ Avicii for his song ‘Hey Brother’ which has over a billion world-wide streams and hit #1 in at least 18 countries. In all, he has racked up 14 GRAMMY Awards so far. His current project, a solo album, titled ‘Southern Gothic,’ is different than anything he’s done before.
Dan’s work ethic is second to none. Rather than taking some well-deserved time off, he secured a publishing deal in June 2015 to “find a way to be productive” during some planned downtime for Allison Krauss and Union Station. What eventually became this album started out as songs that he was writing with the intention of pitching to other artists.
However, after a few months writing as a member of Ten Ten Publishing he began to feel very passionate about the songs. “I remember the tide shifted the day we wrote ‘Southern Gothic.’ I remember driving home from that song write after being in a room with Josh Kear and Jesse Frasure for the morning. I drove home with a song that we’d just written that I found myself completely jealous for. I just loved it so much, I wished that I could do it. I was in the process of accepting that I couldn’t do it for me.” It was right around that time that fate would intervene. Mike Dungan from Universal Records reached out to Barry Coburn from Ten Ten Publishing and asked if Tyminski might be interested in doing a record. “When this was presented to me, I didn’t quite know how to process it because the music I now was so passionate about was so different from everything else that I’ve done in my career, there’s no way to really compare it. It’s just different music. I thought long and hard and considered if I was willing to take the front man position to honor this music. I couldn’t record it without taking a band out and touring with it, I feel too strongly about it. So, once I decided that I couldn’t accept not honoring this opportunity, the rest is history, we just all systems go.”
Tyminski chose Jesse Frasure who he had been writing with to produce the album or as he put it “bring this music into some real estate that is not currently occupied.” He says he put his trust in Jesse; “(he) has such a fresh new way of looking at things, we found that when we collided, two completely different worlds what we got was fresh and exciting and new… Once he said he was willing to do it I completely backed away and just let him steer.”
That sound truly is something new and fresh. Tyminski didn’t pin it to any particular genre saying that “as a whole it kind of defies genre, no one’s gonna say it’s straight up country or straight up pop or bluegrass or swampy, churchy, dark.” However, each of those sounds is represented, sometimes many at once, on the album. For Tyminski the album was his way of “hold(ing) up a mirror to society and letting people take a look.” This mirror motif is something that is used heavily on the marketing and visualization of the album. He tried to not be preachy or judgy but just observational. The title track, ‘Southern Gothic,’ for example, aims to illuminate the darkness that is in the world. Its chorus: ‘Devil right here who whould’a thought it, In a town full of god fearin’ people, Dogs and deadbolts guard the night, Nothing left to do but kneel and pray, We’ve got a church on every corner, So why does heaven feel so far away.’
The album is very much laden with finding opposites and balancing them off one another. Tyminski says once they realized where the project was going the writing became steered to ensure a complete album, not a bunch of mismatched songs, came together. “I don’t know if it’s a theme to the album, or just a theme to how I write music, a lot of what I write, I tend to point out the light and the dark of whatever the situation is…We were really conscious of making a journey, something that was designed to listen to in its entirety. We’re at a point now where it’s about just single releases, it’s about one song, not necessarily a collection of work that brings you through a roller coaster of emotion that I think this does.”
Throughout this album Tyminski’s voice has a tension to it that allows the listener to feel, as much as hear, that conflict in the songs. He says the key was working with Jesse and not overthinking or overdoing anything. “I didn’t exhaust these vocals like I’ve done in the past. I didn’t sing these vocals a million times working with Jesse. I’ll use Southern Gothic as an example, the song that you hear was written, recorded, produced and finished in about a 3-hour window… It’s the way Jesse works. As soon as he felt that tension, we stopped… For Jesse the common thread that holds this album together is the vocal and how he represents the content that we’re singing about. So that’s awesome to have someone who can pull that out of you.”
Listeners will also get the chance to become viewers as for the first time ever, Universal will be putting out video content for 100% of the album. These visual accompaniments further reinforce the “spirit of this music.” Tyminski put it well: “the same way you also eat with your eyes, if your food looks beautiful it tastes better, if you can have something to bring your imagination somewhere else and have something to watch while you listen, I think you’ll experience it in a different way.”
Before any of his success Dan Tyminski grew up in New England. He credits his parents taking him to see live music almost every weekend for building his love of music. “the part of the country that I grew up in was not necessary viewed as a hot bed for bluegrass music, but if you were a fan of bluegrass and country music and you were willing to drive a few hours, my family were able to find something to go and hear every week of my life almost. So, I got to see so much local and live music in New England that it’s absolutely what fueled the fire for me to play this music and of course when southern bands would come through and I’d get to hear the Ralph Stanleys and Bill Monroes and Jimmy Martins and the people that I idolized, I didn’t’ even consider that I was going into a southern style of music, I just played what I loved.” Speaking with him, it was evident the passion he has for live music.
He’s hoping to give us New Englanders a show to go see as he will be taking this project on the road soon. He will be going by just Tyminski for this project as to differentiate between anything he’s done in the past with The Dan Tyminski Band, Avicii or anything in between. The full tour has not been announced yet, but you can check out his super cool website http://www.tyminskimusic.com/ for dates.
Southern Gothic is available on iTunes now.