118 Joel Timmons on Surfing, Songwriting, and Soulful Journeys

Podcast - SURF MASTERY

  Joel Timmons on Surfing, Songwriting, and Soulful Journeys

If you’ve ever found yourself seeking balance between creativity and passion, or wondering how to turn life's challenges into powerful art, this episode is your invitation to explore that path. Joel Timmons, musician and lifelong surfer, shares how his emotional songwriting and connection to the ocean fuel each other—and how vulnerability, self-work, and rhythm tie it all together.

• Discover the deeply personal story behind Joel’s standout track “Say It To My Face” and the emotional reconciliation that followed.

• Learn how Joel’s journey from coastal South Carolina to Nashville—and back again—influenced the sound and soul of his new album.

• Find out why both music and surfing are lifelong pursuits of flow, mastery, and humble progression—whether you're in the studio or in the lineup.

Tap play now to hear Joel’s heartfelt journey through music, surf, recovery, and rediscovery—and why he’d pick a surfboard over a guitar if he had to choose.

https://open.spotify.com/artist/40Gd49hHE75WtRiqYGGhGj?si=_WNyIrmQQLG7n77zxft70A

https://www.joeltimmons.com

https://www.instagram.com/joeltimmonsmusic/

Episode music: “Say it to my face” - Joel Timmons

Transcript:

Thanks for joining. Thank you.

I've been listening , to the new album. Sweet man. Yeah, I'm enjoying it. How's it translate down under Pretty good, man. You're in New Zealand, huh? Yes, I am. Cool. Yep. very popular here. But I did spend some time in the States, , so it was introduced to it over there and cool.

I'll just say my favorite song on that album is say It To My Face. Oh, cool man. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, for me at least, it's the most lyrically it's the most relatable song. Cool. Yeah. Very good. It's pretty, pretty direct, yeah, no, I like that. yeah, this sounds like there's a lot of I self work thing going on as well.

I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think songwriting is like a big tool for me with that, , almost like journaling can be, , and then sometimes , those journals end up out in the world and that is , quite therapeutic. Yeah. To have some secret little kernel of pain or question and then articulate it to yourself and make it feel nice to yourself and then get to share it with an audiences.

Definitely transformative. I guess songwriting is very cathartic in that way. Yeah. The good ones are, , that particular song, I was just at home, just like crying my eyes out. The words were just pouring outta me, like the tears, and since that moment, , I had had.

The opportunity to get back together with that friend and have the conversation that we needed to have, and bef even before I went into the studio to record it, , so then being in the studio, it was really magical to be able to access the pain. Of when we were at odds, but then also with the knowledge of , okay, we, we did it.

And that kind of jam out at the end of the song, that sort of resolves to a major key. . And that musically was that reconciliation. . So it was, yeah, it was really a beautiful, , journey, yeah. It's a beautiful song. Sophie sent me an earlier version of it before it was released, and then.

Oh, cool. Once it was released, I went on to, the album was released. I went on to Spotify, and I assumed that would be the most popular song. I was quite surprised to see that it wasn't interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Uhhuh. Yeah. And it I didn't release that one as a single. So some of those songs that have singles were released to singles, have had a little more time out there.

We, I don't, I just know like of the few people that I've talked to into the Empire, people like that song, which I didn't. I lo I love that song, but I didn't kn know that it was like gonna be re special for some people, I'm glad to hear you say you like, say it to my Face.

We played that one Friday. I hit a release show here in Oh yeah. In Town. And we played, we played the whole album Top to Bottom Live, and that one, oh, red, that one felt really potent. I'm really enjoying the trying song as well. It's it's really cool. Yeah, that's, that one was also very fun.

Live. That was like the last, we were at the finish line on the record and you could really cut loose. People were dancing and everything, so it was a good time. Yeah. So , let's keep it surfing a little bit. When did you start surfing? Yeah. So I grew up, , on a barrier island in South Carolina, Sullivan's Island.

So we, we were like riding boogie boards and little styrofoam surfboards when I was, a toddler, four or five years old. , and my family when we moved to Louisiana for three years, when I was . Entering fourth grade, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. We were in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. So there was no ocean there.

My mom was a winds surfer, so we did a little windsurfing in Louisiana, , brought that from South Carolina. And then when I moved back, like all my little buddies that I grew up with were all surfing at that, at, , I guess that was in seventh grade when I was like 13. So I started, yeah, I started surfing, and study and like reading the magazines and watching,

endless summer and that kind of thing. , and then I guess like it's the surf season here is we get, hurricane swells in like the late summer and early fall, and then really most of the waves come in the winter. , but I wasn't, when I first started, I wasn't surfing in the winter time.

It was probably high school before I got a wetsuit and started surfing year round. . And the year I grad, when I graduated high school, a couple of us took a surf trip to Costa Rica, which is a rite of passage for an east coast surfer. Yeah. , outer ba, outer banks in North Carolina, Florida, , and then like the Caribbean or Central America.

Yeah. Puerto Rico as well. I've been to Puerto Rico a couple times. Not, I didn't go, I went there in college for the first time, so a couple years later. , yeah, that's a really close flight and man, an awesome surf destination. , yeah, I went, I guess I've been there maybe four or five times now.

Yeah. To Puerto Rico. Yeah. Yeah. I've been there once and it was, the waves were huge. I was so surprised how much swell they get there. Yeah, I just got back from the Virgin Islands, , which are just like, , the US Virgin Islands, like the next islands over from Puerto Rico. Yeah. , and , I've been going down there every winter for about 15 years and have scored some great swells down there.

This year was like, I. A bit off. , when I showed up, everybody was like, it's the best season we've ever seen. Like these, the old guys were like, it, the waves haven't stopped since September. And then there was one more swell when I got there and then it stopped and it's gone quiet, but I did get to say catch one Good swell. Yeah. Down there this year. , are you a surfer who plays music or a musician who surfs? I'm a musician who surfs. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Definitely. Nobody's paying me to show up and surf, yeah. And I do get gigs. , I don't know which one I would choose.

If I had to choose one of the other, both of really. It guided me and helped me at different times, yeah. If you were stuck on a desert island, would you choose a surfboard or a guitar? Surfboard. Or a guitar? Golly, if there was waves, I'd probably have to choose a surfboard or I'm trying to think of some loophole, where I can like get a guitar that's shaped like a hand plane or something, , what's harder surfing or music for you personally? I think surfing's harder. , I don't know. I don't know. I I the Surf Mastery title of the podcast is scary for me 'cause I definitely don't feel like I've a master of it and I don't feel like I'm a master of music either, that's what the concept of mastery means. It's not that you've mastered something. It's that you have a drive to get better no matter what level you are. Yeah. Just, yeah. Yeah. You want to improve. Yep. And I do think that's something para there's a parallel there in music for sure.

As with surfing, like I, I definitely, it's something, I'm 45 years old now and I wanna be. I'm remember, I'm like realizing now oh gosh, I am one of those old guys now at this point. But there's a generation or two ahead of me that I look up to and wanna still be doing this in 20 or 30 years, both music and surfing, yeah. And it's like learning, and like I, and improving, even though even if my body presents limitations to me, , it, it's along some point, if my fingers aren't as fast or my pop ups not as fast, to like still be. On a journey with it.

Definitely. Oh, for sure. And I see a lot of, synergy with music and surfing. I think surfing is far more an art form than it is a sport. And, you can pick your own journey, you could spend your entire lifetime. Only playing country music and never master it and then decide to go into another genre and be all like a beginner again.

And the same with surfing. Yeah. You change it. Different type of board or a different type of wave that you wanna surf and begin your journey all over again. And yeah. Music's interesting too, because there's probably. Th There's probably amazing classically trained jazz music musicians living in New York, who barely earn any money.

And then you've got people like, yep, you've heard of the chats. You heard of them in Australia, the chats, no Uhuh, no, they're an Australian band. Just grunge, punk rock, basic music. But their lyrics speak to the entire culture of Australia. So they're cool. Sold out shows. Yeah. And there's certainly by no means talented musicians, they're not terrible, but so music's cool like that, you don't have to be an exceptional, talented musician. You just have to, play and speak from the heart and and be good enough to perform, to to make it, yeah. It's, I, I. When Jack Johnson had his records that were really hitting, that was super inspiring for me, to be like this guy, okay, this guy, we know him from his surfing and his , writing in the surf world.

, and his music is beautiful, but it's not fancy, it's very like direct and plain spoken. It's sounds like something you'd hear at a bonfire. And when that was like, wow, this can really resonate with so many people. That's amazing. Yeah. I found that encouraging as like a young songwriter, trying to find my sound and.

My way, yeah. . On that note, what advice would you have for, let's say, someone who's starting to play guitar later in life? , do you ever look back and go, if I had to start all over again, I wouldn't do this and this, instead, I'd focus on that. That's interesting.

Yeah. It's such a different environment now, like with. All the teaching tools on the internet, , I have a few, I have a few guitar students, , mostly like young kids, a couple that are like teens and then some , eight and 9-year-old little dudes that are just kinda like exploring to find out what they're into, , and it's easier for those kids, I think, than it is for an adult. , I was probably 12 or 13 when I started picking up the guitar. And I was just, for some reason at that point, so driven to do it and had free time to , dedicate hours at it, and today I don't know that I would have the focus or the time to devote to like a new thing that it took, that I had when I was that age.

Not to discourage any adult learners, but just it's gonna, that it's like. It's difficult and it's, and there's like this, the painful part of like getting the mechanics of your hand to just hold the, press the strings down, that's like really defeating at first and it doesn't sound good, once you pre and when you press through that and it becomes fun and rewarding it, 'cause you're making pleasant sounds. Yeah. But it's, do you play any other, yeah, maybe just any other instruments. I'm a percussionist. I play yeah, ham, a lot of ham percussion, some drum set. My wife's a upright bass player, so I've gotten better at the bass. I'm not really like hireable yet.

'cause my physically can't do it for a whole, whole gig. It's 10 minutes and then my this finger starts getting a blister and this hand starts cramping up. , it's a physical instrument, but yeah, I'd say percussion, guitar vocals, my main expressions. Yeah. That's interesting because you, considering you.

You have a background in percussion and a guitar one would assume bass would be quite net easy for you? Yeah, the bass guitar I can play and feel comfortable with that, but the upright bass is just like such a, oh yeah, there's no frets there. Strings are really big around and you like really?

Have to one, have good technique and also just have a certain amount of strength and callous to like, make the instrument speak, yeah. And my wife plays bluegrass music, so it's just like boom on the bass, and like in the jam situation, I. You gotta just keep that going and it's gotta be even, and it's gotta be loud, , and she could do it all night, relaxed with good technique and beautiful tone. And I'm like, hit take the base. And I'm sweating and inefficient with my movements and it doesn't sound as good. It's not as in tune, and then I'm like, okay, I, sub please. So I just haven't devoted the hours and hours it takes to get, just get that basic good technique down, yeah. Yeah. With that instrument. But I'm. There's one right over there. I could work on it here after this. That's a, it's a, that's a rewarding, , instrument for me. Yeah. The fright bass, it feels really good to play it. When you play live with your band, do you have a do a double bass player?

, at certain groups I do. The band that I played with this, on this album, Ethan Je, is the bass player, and he played both double bass on some tracks and then bass guitar and some five string bass guitar, some four string bass guitar. , we were, we recorded it. . This guy, Mike Elizondo ISS recording studio, and Mike's a brilliant bass player and producer, and Ethan was a kid in a candy store.

, I'm gonna use a different one on every, every, with this particular nuance of this song requires like this particular electric bass from this era. And Mike had 'em, had all of 'em there, so cool. But yes, sometimes it's bass guitar, sometimes it's upright, sometimes it's both. Yep.

How many guitars do you own? , 15. Upwards of 15 or 20 maybe. Oh yeah. How many surfboards? Half a dozen. Not too many. And if you had to choose one surfboard, which one would it be?

I think I have a nine three Bing, like a single fan. Classic longboard. , I. I guess it would probably depend like where am I gonna be? But I guess if it's just the board firm, I can still go anywhere I want. , of the boards I have now, I'd probably stick with the nine three 'cause I get mo more days here on that board than anything, yeah. Though I'd get myself in trouble if I was in real heavy surf with that. Yeah. Break it in half and then I'd have two, two, short shorties. . Do you see many synergies between surfing and music? Yeah. Yeah. I mean with we were talking about just the the long arc of the journey of, of it's something I've been doing since I was a kid and I'm still really excited about it.

, and still improving in some ways, and, , and that , the vast majority of people that do it. , don't ever make a dollar off it. , it's just something like innate in people and it's something joyful and a sense of expression. And then there's this like little industry that is, makes money on it, ?

Some people are professionals at it, but that's just a small part of the experience of music or surfing. , and yeah, I'm lucky. I'm lucky to get to, to be. Making money, doing music and traveling. , but I think I would still be doing it whether or not it was my job, it would still be a part of me.

. So you're doing it for the right reasons, let's say. And when you're performing from that place, , is that the performance in the song that, that tends to resonate most with the audience?

I certainly, , I. When I go to a show, it's generally pretty obvious energetically. If the performer is like fully invested in the moment, or disappointed or thinking about whatever. It's like a really challenging life to be away from home and putting your best self out there every night, , usually I can find that joy and that and the excitement of the moment, . That, yeah that both, surfing and playing an instrument or singing a song challenges you to be in the moment and be focused on immediate surroundings and task at hand. Yeah. Do you ever find yourself struggling to get into that flow state as a performer?

Yeah, sometimes. , if the audio is challenging, if I can't, if I can't hear the guitar or my voice in the way that, that I'm used to, or if, the instrument won't stay in tune, sometimes I'm like fighting the mechanics of it. Or if, I've had too many gigs and my voice is worn out, if I'm thinking about just the physicality of it, .

That can be a challenge, but then, I don't know, sometimes you can press through and yeah, I it's not something that I'm like thinking about usually on stage, , but I think that's probably like a indication that some that I'm there, whether or not I'm like enjoying it.

I'm just like really focused on and . Primed up into the end of the moment. Why are you able to, the same thing in surfing would be the next question.

Yeah. Except when it's real crowded. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I have I really struggle with that. Yeah. To not have my mind like, just taken by the social or the dynamic when there's, when it's a lot of folks out there, yeah. Or get f get frustrated on the wave count or whatever.

Yeah. It's a, it's where I live here, like my local is just a big sandbar, so you can spread out. There's certain days where it's crowded everywhere, but that's a, just a handful of days a year. So usually I can just spread out and then surf traveling. Sometimes it's not, it's not like that.

Yeah, performing as a musician is unique like that, once you've got the stage, you've got the stage. It's true. Yeah. Or do you sometimes have exceptions to that? Yeah. What would be an exception? You have a sit-in musician who wants to steal the limelight or something.

Yeah. The sit in the harmonica player, that would, that won't take a hint, yeah. We, when I was on this recent tour in the Virgin Islands, we actually had a really beautiful gig that sort of, it morphed into this kind of showcase of all these local musicians had shown up. And we'd been down there for a week and it was like our second to last show, and we had a steel drum player that came in for a while, , and a saxophone player, a harmonica player, all these guys,

at the end of the show, we're like, wow, that could have just gone so sideways. And it was just wonderful. Everybody, read the room, played appropriately, didn't overstay their welcome, and it just flowed, but that, that, when sometimes when you're mixing too many ingredients in or just have , Audi, if we're playing bars where there's not really a stage, it's just a sand dance floor and a sand stage, and then you have.

People that invite themselves on think they can play the tambourine, oh, yeah. It sounds like a crowded lineup. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. And then when it's you and your buddies on stage, that's like surfing with you and your best mates. Yeah. Yeah. That's the best for sure. Yeah. And then of course you've got your solo sessions, which are extra special.

What would the equivalent of the solo session is like, you're just in the bar, you and the bartender, you're like, man, this sounds so good right now. Yeah. Or just you within the, in the bedroom with an acoustic, yeah, no, that's true. That's true. That is that's where a lot of it starts.

Yeah. How many hours a day, when you were first, , really inspired and coming up and learning, how many hours a day would you spend on the instrument?

I would, I think I spent like upwards three or more hours a day when I was first really tackling it, and then maybe backed off that at some point. And then back to that point again at different periods, I'm actually, I'm signed up to go to a bluegrass guitar camp.

This May it's like a, there's a big tradition of like fiddle, banjo, bluegrass camp camps, like in the Appalachians and out west, all over the us, and,

. I'm like adjacent to that scene, I've grown up here bluegrass music, but not like playing it and going to those camps, whereas like my wife is just deeply bluegrass from the, from before she was born, and part of it's like wanting to be able to keep up with her and her friends, but also like I'm genuinely interested in getting better at this kind of music. It's gonna be fun to go and like sort, like what you're saying, to be a beginner again in this particular genre. I'm like, yeah, okay.

I get played paid to play the guitar, but I. Not this type, yeah. You're going there as a student? As a student. As a student, yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, , I sent my application, my video in, and sent my money in. And yeah, it'll be three or four days.

I'll have to leave from one of the days to go play a gig and then come back miss one of the days. But I'm excited about that. I haven't ever done like a, a surf camp or anything like that. , the first time I went to Costa Rica. I guess 'cause that was like a minor, we went to a camp that it took us around to the beach.

So I guess I did do that when I was a kid. Yeah. No, those types of camps are becoming more and more popular in surfing, where you go on a surf trip for a week or so. And the objective is to actually learn and to get better at surfing and or learn a new style of surfing. Those are become, yeah, more and more popular.

Yeah. Yep. Totally. Yeah, in music there's, there seems to be less arrogance around that, , even though you love to play and perform and write from the heart, you're still very aware of, Hey, you know what? I could, I, I could do with some theory and learning some different styles or whatever.

And there's a humbleness within the music industry that hasn't really infiltrated surfing culture as much yet. Yeah, and I was just thinking it's there. Though there are like videos and stuff and people breaking down surf lessons it seems like a much more difficult thing.

'cause like we can, I can sit here with my guitar and stop the video, and play it in slow motion, and like really integrate a lot of stuff with a YouTube instructor. But I. Watching a video and then going out and paddling around and trying to integrate all that is like a much slower, more difficult loop, to get your reps in.

Yeah. I guess surfing with that analogy, surfing would be more similar to singing, whereas when you are singing, you. And then you hear yourself back on a recording, you're like, oh, that's not how I thought it sounded. Yeah. Uhhuh for sure. Yeah. Because yeah, when you watch yourself back on footage of surfing, you're like, oh, but I think in the same way of singing like the more you record and listen to yourself singing, the closer those two things become, the way it sounds when you are singing. I think so. And the way the recording sounds become closer and closer with more experience, has that been your. I think so. Yeah. And maybe you just get more used to that sound of the amplified voice, and like it not coming through your head. . But I've gotten just more comfortable with that and more comfortable with knowing you have the stage monitors with your voice coming back and knowing how much of that I want.

And if it's too muddy or too bright, how to get that to where it feels comfortable but doesn't be back, and I can sing quiet and hear myself, or I can sing loud and not blow my head off, I think that is, that has come with experience. Mic technique.

Yeah. It's same with surfing. Like when you watch yourself on video, it's, and then go back and practice those two things become closer and closer the way surfing feels. Yeah. The way it looks. Starts to line. Yeah, totally. To line up. Yeah. Did you have lessons growing up, music lessons growing up?

A little bit. It was more, a little bit more just like playing music with groups of people that were also, like there was other kids that were getting instruments at the same time. I was, and there was like this an art school. That one. One of the kids I grew up with, his mom started it when we were real, real little and it grew into a program.

And there was an early American folk ensemble that this lady, Hazel Ketchum she taught it. We were like all probably in seventh, eighth, ninth grade and, like playing guitars. And she was teaching us everything from Grateful Dead songs to old English ballads. , and it's acoustic music teaching us how to be in an ensemble.

, and it, but it was. More like we did read music a little bit, but it was a lot of learning by ear and harmony, singing by ear. , and then in school I was in the choir, in the band program, so getting a little bit more structured musical education there. And then , in our off afternoons, my friends and I were making up songs and like jamming in the garage on our electric guitars and drum sets and stuff, so I was getting it from all sides.

Yeah. Not too many like private lessons, I don't think. A handful at the be very beginning. Yeah. On the guitar. Did your parents musical? Yeah, my mom, , she had a guitar at the house. She played guitar. , and like at church, we all would, sing in the choir at church.

, she, she would, they would, before church, they would have a little, more. Informal kinda like song circle type thing, and that's like the first place I saw people playing the guitar and singing, and I was just amazed like how fast they could move from one chord to the next.

Like just right in time with the song, not even break, 'cause I would place my fingers individually slowly stretching them to get that, and I remember being just amazed at people that could just fluidly move between 'em, yeah. . But not, they weren't so not professional, but in a, in a in irreverent way.

For sure. Yeah. Who's your biggest influence musically? Some of those I. It'd be like, would tough, be tough to not say my parents, if I'm thinking about the earliest, those early musical memories, them taking me to see concerts, having the guitar at the house, encouraging me to be in the choir and stuff, also had a really great choir instructor in high school, Ms.

Austin, who she also sponsored the guitar club at our high school, which was like, like the, boys with guitar toys jam space, during homeroom. So Ms. Austin helped me a lot. And and then Led Zeppelin is like still maybe my favorite band of all time.

Like I was, they were long since passed when I discovered 'em through cassette tapes, but still, it's like about as vibrant as there ever has been. . You mentioned concerts. What was the first concert that made a big impression on you?

I have a really, like early memory. , there's something in Charleston, South Carolina where I grew up called Spoleto Festival and it's like a real arts from around the world kind of thing. It's still going on. It's some of it's highbrow opera and chamber music. And then the city does its own sort of sister festival at the same time.

And I remember seeing these guys playing. These Andy and Pan pipes, it was a whole ensemble of dudes, play like playing in concert together. And I just remember blowing, totally blowing my little mind. , and I have memories of the of choir at church and like the first like rock and roll concert I went to was in seventh grade.

Aerosmith, a friend of ours. Yeah. One like the, the cool mom. Loaded us, a bunch of us in the car and drove us two hours up the road to Columbia, to the Coliseum. It's all Aerosmith. Wow. And yeah, that was awesome. Yeah. What year was that? I'm thinking that was like 92. Yep. How, wow. So they, they were already old rockers by then.

That was , I don't know if that was like the what was the tour when they had all the cow graphics? It might've been that era. Yeah. Oh, cool. They still played like sweet emotion and stuff. . Yeah. That would've been amazing. Janie got a gun. Yeah. , what's the first song you wrote?

At least the one you remember that comes to mind when I say that. Yeah. There there's I can't remember. There was two songs. This is like probably seventh grade or something. And there was one I wrote by myself that's, I can't really, it is super mellow, melodramatic. My life is full of misery.

You love everybody, but you just can't stand me. Real sorry for myself. 12-year-old kind of, yeah. Emo, yeah. Smash smashing pumpkins, and then Yeah. Oh yeah. At that same time. For sure. Yeah. Those, those were blind melon, smashing pumpkins, Nirvana, and all that stuff on the radio.

Yeah. And then me and my friend, Natonya co, co our co-write, we wrote a song about a stick. This is a story of a lonely stick. It was like the of an in story about an inanimate object buried at Tom Robbins, which I didn't really realize at the time. It is the whole life story of this stick.

Neither one of those have ever gotten recorded. Ah, maybe they should be Dig back. Yeah. Why not? You never know. Yeah. And sometimes, I know sometimes, like the child, there's a lot of like wisdom in the child, childlike perspective. Yeah. Or even it makes me think of, for some reason, makes me think of Hazard by Richard Marks, and I think that was a, yeah.

Cool. That was a, songwriting, , project given to him by a teacher. Cool. Okay. What He wrote it Cool. Yeah. He didn't necessarily write it for any reason apart from that, and it became one of his most famous songs. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. And I definitely there was one song, I can't remember the title, but I heard a.

A lot of John Prine influence in one of your songs. Cool. Yeah, he was a huge influence for me for sure. I do remember hearing John Prine for the first time, not live, but we, my friend Joey his dad lived up in the country in McClellanville, South Carolina, and we would go up there sometimes on the weekends, probably around, around that same.

Seventh, eighth, ninth grade and stayed at his dad's dirty Dan's house and dirty Dan was like, you guys need to listen to this. And he played us, Sam Stone and Paradise and Angel for Montgomery. And yeah. And then, since then John has been like a total songwriting light for me, the way his plain spoken delivery.

But then there's just layers and layers of empathy and humanity in there. And, . Got to see, I gotta see him live a couple times in Nashville. He lived in Nashville when I was living there. And one time we were, we went to Arnold's as like this meet and three restaurant. My mom was in town, my wife probably both my parents and my wife and I all went for lunch.

And then here comes John. This is one of his regular spots, and he goes to the buffet and I'm kind my. And he walks past the table and she does, she can't keep it cool. She's I love you, John. We love you, John. Thank you. She was like, okay. Yeah. And I was so embarrassed at the time.

And then, a few years later, COVID happened and he, we lost him in the early days of Covid. It's really grieving that a lot during a very crazy time, and I was so glad that my mom told him that she loved him when she had the chance, yeah. Like even it was like, a little bit inappropriate, but hey, that's your chance.

She took it, and Oh yeah he, so he knew it, yeah. I'm sure he appreciated. Appreciated it on some level. Yeah, totally. It was, she didn't grab him or jump up and try to take a picture or anything, I was probably like going, like taking a picture over my shoulder at him.

Yeah. Oh, funny. , I gotta see him. How long did you spend living in Nashville? I lived there for about five years. , and Pro was visiting Shelby, my wife there for about a year before I moved there. , so I think I moved there in 2015 and then 2020 we moved outta there. But, . Heading back there next week.

I love it. Yeah. It's an awesome place. How No surfing though? No, it's a long way from the beach. Yeah. Yeah. How important was that Nashville time to your musical development? I think this new record is like, wouldn't, definitely wouldn't have happened without Nashville. It's de me trying to document and take a Polaroid of that time and the people that I met while I was there, .

It's, there's lots of songs about South Carolina, the low country where I'm here and my youth on the coast, but all the sound, the sounds, the, the fiddle and the pedal steel, that was really fell in love with that in Nashville. , and just, I got more serious about songwriting and storytelling,

Just man, just the musicians that I got to meet there. I just, you just get better just by getting to hear those people play regularly and watch their approach up close in, in person, . You're just surrounded by it. It's like going to the North Shore as a surfer. Totally. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You better learn to duck diver, go back to Alabama. Yeah, psychedelic surf country. What inspired that title? It was after we'd made the record. , and, it's oh God, here comes another one of these decisions. We'll have to figure out what to call it. And I was de, I was just describing the sound to somebody and I was like, I don't know, it's like psychedelic surf country.

Huh. That kind of sounds cool, . So in the first play I was using it was describing it like as a genre or a amalgam of sounds, but then I also like thinking about it like it's a place. 'cause my friend the other night was like, oh, I thought it was like a, a place, where you're from, and I was like, oh yeah, sure, that too, but yeah, it just kind came outta my mouth and then I was like, oh, I think I like that. I think it sums it up. Yeah. Sums it up pretty good. I quick Google search. It wasn't like a already a band or anything, yeah. Lots of psychedelic surf rock, lots of surf, psychedelic like country even, but I didn't, couldn't find the three of 'em together.

So I was like, I think that's, that'll work. Yeah. Does it describe your three favorite things? Yeah. Pretty well. Yeah. Three interests for sure. Yeah. Uhhuh. Oh, funny. Yeah. The, yeah, the psychedelia is when. The walls started getting fuzzy and the boundaries between things get blurry and you realize that there's a great unity behind everything, , and that's like music and genre list place, yeah. That gave me the image of, what's that? What's that cartoon? , with the black musician who has an outof body experience. Have you seen that? I don't know if I have, I don't know. I have to think of the title. Is it like one of the yeah.

Was it one of the ones that's a documentary where they have the the cartoon? Like voiceovers or? No? Oh gosh. It's a really good movie. It's about a music. It's about a music, a black music teacher who gets offered, who finally gets offered a gig with a famous jazz musician. Oh, cool. Yeah, I haven't seen it.

Yeah. But then he dies and has an outof body experience and come backs. Oh, I have to think of, I have to put the title of that movie in the show notes if I don't remember it before the end of this. A really cool movie though, all talking about, yeah. Cool. Yeah. The soul of music and Yeah.

But he very much loses himself, in the music and has when he is jamming that psychedelic experience. Yep. I think I'm very much an amateur musician, I've certainly had jam sessions where you're just playing a song and you the song takes over and you're almost like witnessing yourself.

Yeah. And I think those are the best surfing sessions as well. When you become one with the rhythm of the ocean and you're just you're not really thinking, it just moving in time and rhythm with the waves. Yeah. Yeah. That's a noble pursuit. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And I think so for , for getting better at, .

At surfing, I always say to people , if you wanna become a good musician and you're not, naturally gifted or you don't play by ear or anything, then you're just, you, there's no way of getting a, you have to spend some time, learning your chords and your scales.

Yeah. And your mode and your modes. And then when you jam. If those modes and scales are just in, in your muscle memory, you don't have to think about them. That's when you can slot in and really have that creative expression. And I think surfing is the same thing, obviously. It's more athletic.

You've gotta, it's full body movements. It's not just your fingers. But if people wanna become better at surfing, they really do have to practice those movements of surfing over and over again. And just install a slow motion pop up and a tube stance Yeah. Needs to be ingrained into your nervous system.

Just like a music scale or a chord shape. Yeah. And do you have people doing those motions on land, like Yep. Yeah. Doing shore based Yeah. Fitness and, yeah. That's the, this, if you didn't grow up surfing as a kid for eight hours a day and you're, you come to surfing later in life or you get to a stage where you wanna really improve, there's no way of getting around it, yeah. Because even if you go surfing for three hours. Maybe if you're lucky, three minutes of that is actually spent with surfing. , the rest is just, yeah. So there's no getting around sort of those surfing exercises. , rest of it's paddling around circles. Trying not to drown is what I tell people basically.

. So I always use the analogy of music and, musicians always humble themselves and they do the scales and they, yeah. Learn the chords, and they learn the theory and. And that's what gives way to jam sessions and music writing and that sort of thing yep.

. Yeah, totally. , where in New Zealand are you? I'm in a place called Hawke's Bay, which is on the east coast of the North Island. Yeah, cool. Long way away. I got to visit New Zealand just once. Yeah. But it was 2003. And, I was like doing an around the world itinerary, put, had finished college, worked for a year, saved up some money, and we flew to Tonga.

, and then crew, a crew, a sailboat from Tonga and then Oh wow. Came in the Bay Islands. I, bay of islands. Bay of Islands, yeah. Yeah. Uhhuh and then caravan around New Zealand for six weeks. Oh it was awesome. It was, and I cannot believe that I haven't been back. 'cause it was like life changing.

Yeah. Yeah. As, and I've been back to Australia a few more times since then. But doing shows back to New Zealand. Yeah. Yeah. Doing shows we've done, my wife and I have done two tours of Australia. So I guess I've been to Australia three times 'cause I went on that same trip. Yep. After New Zealand. Oh yeah.

Were you here in New Zealand? Were you playing music while you were here as well or? I had a little backpacker guitar with me, and we were just cruising around and met some house truckers, and and did some car park jamming, but not any, no, no gigs or anything.

I wasn't at that was like the trip where I decided yeah, okay, I wanna do music for real. And so when I came back to the states that started, I'd already had a band and had been playing gigs and stuff, but I was like, no, okay, I'm not gonna go to grad school. This is what I wanna do.

How old were you then?

2024. Okay. 23. 24, yeah. Was that a scary decision? Yeah, I guess so. Maybe not at the time. Like at the time it didn't, when you're 23, anything you can do, anything, and there's been scary parts along the way and like re. Reevaluate and re reinvest and dig back in moments, but on, on that same trip we were Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, and then, Indonesia, Southeast Asia and Nepal and India. And then the plan was to go to Europe. But in India I got super sick and ended up in New Delhi with Guion Bere syndrome. It was like a, basically fully paralyzed.

Oh, wow. It was a real, like near death experience basically. And when I came back to the States, I was like, in a wheelchair, couldn't sing, couldn't play the guitar. , but just, I knew that's what I wanted to do, and it, and focusing in on the music and just like the people, my old, my band mates that would accommodate me and, and let me play just a little bit and encourage me back onto that journey, it was a real part of my recovery. Oh wow. How long was recovery? Like a full year. Wow. It was nuts. I was in the hospital for six weeks and when I came out, I was super emaciated and then it was just like physical therapy for better part of a year. Oh, wow. After that put, retraining every, learning how to walk again and, everything.

How important was nutrition and lifestyle on that journey? I. Ex extremely. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And surfing too. I, , I did, I through, I was like, initially body surfing and body boarding and then long boarding and stand up paddle boarding. Like it all, it opened my, through my different physical restraints, it opened my eyes to all these different ways of getting out there and wi riding waves and getting benefits, the nutrition was more like, it was more, it was for a long time it was kinda like, just eat anything and everything that you can because I was down to a skeleton and really for me, I mean I'm, I've always been thin and so it's, I just try to eat a lot but make sure I eat a lot of vegetables too.

Yeah. Yeah, and that's and lifestyle is a challenge being a musician. For sure. Like having a regular. The time you go to bed and a regular time, you wake up and you're three square meals and it's sometimes I'm in a different bed in different town every night. And there's always alcohol and Yeah.

Every other stuff around all the time, so it's a challenge. Yeah. But I yeah, have, I've managed to not go to jail or die. I've seen plenty of people that have, yeah. And the wreckage along the side of the ways, it's yeah. Yeah, it can go either way. Yeah. Yeah. But so when you finally made that like commitment, , okay, I'm gonna put everything into music, was it a relief in some ways?

Maybe yeah. Yeah. It definitely . Yeah, allowed me to just let some of these other voices go about, I studied ge, I studied science and undergrad studied geology, and so it was like, that's a field where you there's a lot more opportunity if you go to graduate school or get a PhD.

There was, I was just this question about higher more education, and lingering in the back and also would. I wondered about, being like a wilderness instructor or something like that, or a few other questions. But then just you, just diving into the band, treating it like a business, moved into a house with, my buddies, my best friends, and kinda everybody had their role.

It was super DIY, , not necessarily punk rock, but yeah. Very communal. , approach to sharing our groceries and. , getting in the band and getting in the van and driving across the country and playing shows and piling together what we could, what we'd make out of it, , but yeah, it was pretty, pretty dang fun. , but also very scary and like you're watching your friends I'm gonna take this exit off this lifestyle, and, , go have, have a wife and settle down and have some kids and have a normal life. And I've, there's been.

Folks that take the off-ramps when presented with them, and for whatever reason, I've continued to stay the course. Yeah. You mentioned a little bit of a, there's obviously a scientific side to you, an interest there. Yeah. Did you put some of any of that into your songwriting?

Did, have you written songs based on music theory, things like that? I've written a couple, I wrote a song, it started off as like a kid song, , working at a camp in North Carolina. , and this was right around the time the band was kinda like getting serious. I'm not sure if this was, it was probably a, it was after that trip to India that I was back at camp working.

, and it was for the summer solstice. And so I wrote a song explaining. The position of the planets and like what the solstice was and why we have the seasons, and then it's turned into like a jam that my band, soldier and train has played for years, but it started off as a nursery rhyme science lesson.

Yeah. Huh. How cool. Yeah. Some bur some book report songs about, local history stuff too. . So what's the future hold for music? What's next? Do you have another album concept or are you gonna focus on marketing and performing this one? Yeah. It's gonna be, it's gonna be some performing and, , doing the press stuff with this record.

, I'm heading to Nashville day after tomorrow, put to play a show there. And my wife, I mentioned, she's also a musician. She's got a listening party for her record. So it's coming right in the. From the Tale of Mine. So part of my going to Bluegrass Camp is gonna be to get good enough at playing bluegrass.

So maybe she'll hire me in her band when her record comes out. Yeah. And and then I'm also touring with an artist named Maya d Vitri. She's a Nashville songwriter that I met when I was living there. And we've got a bunch of, we're heading out to the West coast. And March and have a bunch of tour dates throughout the summer with her.

, my band, soul Driven Train is these guys that I've known since childhood here in Charleston. And we have a scattering of shows too. Next ones are in Key West Florida, so I head down to Key West at the end of the month. Yep. Yeah, just domestic US tour dates with a couple different bands.

. Yep. Ah, cool. What is the. I'd like to get your opinion on the music scene in general. There's a lot of talk, , about the whole influence of AI and ai written music, et cetera. Yeah. Are you experiencing any of that or is it all hearsay? I've heard some, I've heard some pretty damn funny AI songs.

Oh, shoot. There's, there. It's getting pretty good. It's getting pretty good. . I'm simultaneously terrified and fascinated with ai. I use Chat GPT. , I've resisted like using it for songwriting, though I think it would be a brilliant, songwriting partner. But I've, used it to write difficult emails or even , the other day I was doing this TV thing and I was like, Hey, what?

What should I, it helped me sequence my record. I was like, gimme five different, here are the songs, and a little note about each one. Gimme five different sequence possibilities, and not that I used any of those, but it put a song first that I never would've thought of. And I'm like, oh, wow.

What? Huh? What does that mean? It's just it's a, it just generates I ideas that I wouldn't necessarily think of really rapidly. , as far as like the generative. The songs and the recordings, that it can make, , I'm sure it's gonna get, it'll be perceptively good, at some point.

I, it's not quite there yet. But it's pretty funny. And that's , I wish I could remember the name of this bluegrass song that my wife played for me. It was something about, ricky Scaggs in outer space. And it's very strange. Ai, AI bluegrass, but it has like a banjo role in there and it gets the elements, , yeah, I think every field is gonna be affected by it, . The music in industry's been through a lot, man. When you first. We are getting into music. A lot of musicians would've been making money off CDs, and Right. Yeah. And now we know those musicians spent all that money and they've gotta go back on tour now.

Yeah, totally. Hootie and the Blowfish is a a local Charleston band that was absolutely blowing up in the early nineties, when CDs were like at the peak, yeah. Multi-platinum. Multi-platinum, cracked rear view, yeah. Held my hand. Yeah, man. And Darius is, he's still out there.

I don't, I don't think he spent all his money, but he's out there still touring, doing country stuff, yeah. And Mark Bryant's still super active in Yeah. Charleston scene too, yeah. But we, I definitely missed the missed that, the boat on that one. Yep. Yeah. Wow.

It's, most. I've been a live, live performer my whole career really, is how I've managed to make it work, and the recordings support that and give us something to talk about and a way to get better at capturing the songs, but most of the revenues come from face-to-face old school.

Yeah. Yeah. Which I don't, th I think that's a, I think AI is a way off from being able to replicate that, the experience. I don't think it, I don't think it ever can. Yeah. Unless you're, I think you West World, no, I think that there's like that, yeah, we'll see that pretty soon.

Oh, I think that might be a long run off robots. Yeah. That are basically jukeboxes, in bars that can play any song, but it's not just a jukebox, it's an actual robot mechanically striking the drums, yeah. I think I'll see it in our time, maybe. Maybe Chuck E.

Cheese used to do that, but they, that was, they just play the recording and have the puppets. But I think, oh, yeah. Yeah. I think you still want to see the real person, don't you? I think so. I think it will. I think they're, I know there's, there'll be a place for that. That's always always special, of person to person. Life. Life transmission of heart and soul. Like Rick Barato tried to quant, he quantized the John Bottom beat the Led Zeppelin song. Oh, yeah. Sounded terrible. Uhhuh. Oh yeah. So yeah, Uhhuh, there's those unique drummers that you just, I don't think anyone can ever, that vibe of a band like Led Zeppelin, you can't be replicated, I don't know. I'm skeptical. I think that that you could progra, you could just dump all of those John bottom drum tracks in there. And then you'd have a robot that would have the sound. Yeah. The tone and like the discrepancy of where the pocket is. He would, it would analyze that and know where it is.

But the point is it's been done. It wouldn't, it's been done. Yeah. No, it's true. It would not be new, but it would be Bon esque and it wouldn't drink all the beer. Yeah. I have to ask you, are you a fan of, and have you heard of Crowded House? Yeah. Yes. Alright, cool. Yeah. And what did what did Tom Petty mean to you?

Man, I love Tom Petty. I did get to see, that was the early concert too, like high school. I saw John, Tom Petty. Oh, wow. Playing the Coliseum in Charleston. Yeah. Wow. What a songwriter. What a what an artist. I didn't the sound was bad that night and I thought the performance was lackluster, so I didn't have a great. Impression of the live show. And I've seen enough videos since then to know that yes, he was a fantastic live performer, or his band was one of the best ever, but as a 16-year-old I was kinda like unimpressed, but yeah. But yeah. Yeah. I love Tom Petty.

Yeah. That Wildflowers album is probably maybe my favorite. Oh yeah. Yeah. Special. Yeah. Awesome. Where can people go to find out more about you and listen to your music? I am on the streaming services. My name's Joel Timmons and joel timmons.com is my website. So that's the main portal.

I'm a reluctant user of Instagram. That's about my only social media footprint. Yep. But I'm on there pretty regularly. Yeah. Oh, awesome. I'll put links to everything or your website and your your Spotify profile, et cetera, in the show notes. And Joel, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it man, Michael, thanks a lot.

I appreciate you having me on. Cool. Alright.