A Pandemic Tale

A decade after the release of multi-instrumentalist/producer/songwriter Timmy Sean’s 2010 debut solo album, Songs From & Inspired By Noisewater ("One of the decade's most impressive pop discs” ~Absolute Pop), comes his long awaited full-length follow up, a 2020-inspired rock opera entitled A Tale From The Other Side.

Written, performed, and recorded quarantining in his Los Angeles home studio during the pandemic of 2020, Tale marks a return back to Timmy’s rock ’n roll roots. After spending the last five years fronting his synthpop/funk band Sir Video, while also working as a “hired gun” multi-instrumentalist (performing both regularly on the east coast with the NJ-based Mahoney Brothers, and in Los Angeles, backing up everyone from Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath and Poison’s Bret Michaels to performances sharing the stage with people as diverse as SNL alum Will Forte to LA Mayor Eric Garcetti), the new album finds Timmy back in the studio as a one-man-band, playing in the sandbox of some of his earliest influences such as The Beatles, ELO, Weezer, Oasis, and Ben Folds. And while one may describe the bulk of the album as pop-rock or powerpop, he’s also clearly rediscovered his self-described “teenage love for heavy distortion and guitar solos,” at moments, fully embodying the progressive and harder rock sounds of Soundgarden, Foo Fighters, Dream Theater, and even Metallica.

With the COVID-19 pandemic clearing his schedule of live performances and touring for the first time since he was 18, Timmy found himself in the spring of 2020 locked down in his newly-built home studio in LA with a pile of song ideas - some brand new, some dating back a half-dozen years - but all mostly lyric-less. Faced with a blank notebook to pull together his first proper solo album in a decade, instead of just composing a collection of unrelated songs, Timmy decided he would give a shot at writing something he had always wanted to attempt to create…

A rock opera.

Though he drew heavily from both classic rock operas like Pink Floyd’s The Wall and The Who’s Tommy, as well as modern takes on the genre like Green Day’s American Idiot and My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade that all tell a complete narrative, Timmy’s biggest spark came when he heard Butch Walker’s newly released American Love Story for the first time, an emotional, political, funny, heartfelt story about Red and Blue America in 2020. Timmy instantly began to sketch out a fictional tale, a loose allegory of all of the strange current events that were happening in the world, but especially the domestic turmoil bubbling over in the USA (hence the red, white and blue color motif of the album’s artwork.) If Butch Walker’s American-inspired rock opera was a small-scale love story indie film, this was aiming to be a giant supernatural thriller blockbuster.

He began to pull from his love of television, film, and classic horror short stories. Stephen King and Stranger Things meets Dawn Of The Dead and Tarantino. Lost and The Twilight Zone and Lord Of The Rings and Thriller and Edgar Allen Poe. They all started seeping into the outline. Episodes of The Sopranos and Darren Aronofsky’s mother! and Planet Of The Apes and A Star Is Born (the original 1937 version and 2018’s) and The Wizard Of Oz and kaiju films. The coronavirus became a monster attacking from the sea. Angry political mobs became a zombie army. “The Other Side” became a metaphor for a million different ideas, from political views, to death and afterlife, to new found perspectives. And the lead role morphed into an alter-ego Timmy briefly took on with his high school-formed band LUZER in the early 00’s: a young rock star named Guy Scorpio.

As the real world madness of 2020 grew, Timmy continued to put it into the album, writing more and more new songs, blowing right through the self-imposed November release date deadline of the aptly chosen Friday The 13th. But after numerous different endings to the album failed to meet his satisfaction, in early December, Timmy finally cracked the ending with a pair of brand new tracks: Come Back Alive and I’ve Returned. 

After eight months of writing and recording in lockdown, he had finally locked down the album’s track listing.

Though he refuses to overtly spell out the meaning of the final few tracks on A Tale From The Other Side, the climax of a long suite of songs that run together much like Side B of Abbey Road, Timmy does promise that there’s a number of clues embedded into the music that one day may be spelled out more clearly. What form that will be though may very well depend on how the world is able to move forward in 2021. Whether it is as a long-form music video, a graphic novel, or even a live musical, Timmy is already beginning to plan more ways to expand on the tale told in this album using a number of possible different mediums.

In the meantime, he invites the listener to draw their own theories, but warns that they “may find bone-chilling parallels to real life events from things that they will encounter on…

…THE OTHER SIDE.”

THE FIRST 20 YEARS

The New Jersey born-and-raised Timmy Sean Mahoney began his career performing alongside his father and uncles in the longest running Beatles tribute show in the world, Long Live The Beatles...though not quite on the stage. Right next to it, you could find three-year old Timmy acting out each era of The Beatles' career, complete with different instruments and costume changes (a bathrobe substituting for a Sgt. Pepper's uniform).

After winning talent shows by drumming along with recordings of The Beatles as a kindergartner, it would only take a few more years before Timmy would begin drumming and playing guitar professionally at the age of thirteen in The Mahoney Brothers' other production, Jukebox Heroes Live. Learning and performing the music featured in the show, including note-for-note renditions of songs by The Beach Boys, The Everly Brothers, and Buddy Holly, gave Timmy not only stage experience at a young age, but also an early master class in the basics of great songwriting and arrangement. The process of deconstructing and reconstructing classic hits gave Timmy a strong foundation to be able to begin to construct his own original songs as a young teen. He completed his first full-length album (written, performed, produced, and mixed entirely by himself) before he was old enough to get behind the wheel of a car.

The combination of Timmy's early appreciation for timeless melodies, and the setting of growing up in the 1990s, led him to fall in love with both catchy alternative rock like Weezer and Ben Folds, but also with mainstream R&B and pop - none so more than Michael Jackson. Though influences from both worlds can be heard across much of Timmy's songwriting to this day, that divide from his childhood has come to broadly define his two musical outlets in the late 2010s: Sir Video and Timmy Sean & The Celebrities. While Sir Video is heavily influenced by modern electronic pop music with an 1980s synth-funk sensibility, his solo material (with his live band The Celebrities) is an amalgamation of 1950s and 1960s rock 'n roll, harmony-laden 1970s glam, and turn-of-the-millenium powerpop.

Following the dissolution of his high school-formed band LUZER, Timmy (now going simply as "Timmy Sean" to avoid confusion with several other established music artists named Tim Mahoney) recorded and released his first official solo album in 2010. Songs From And Inspired By Noisewater, with the loose concept of being a soundtrack to an imaginary film, would land itself on more than a dozen "Top Albums Of 2010" lists. Review highlights included calling Noisewater a "power pop tour de force...one of the new decade's most impressive pop discs" (Absolute Powerpop), "a keyboard-based minor mode masterpiece" (Big Hollywood), and "If Noisewater were indeed a movie, and this album a true soundtrack, it should be nominated for best movie soundtrack. Genius...pure genius, through and through." (Bill Sullivan, BMF).

The success of Noisewater brought Timmy a recording and management contract, and along with that, a one-way ticket to Hollywood. Though things didn't go as planned with the management company, Timmy fell in love with life in Los Angeles. The home to a huge amount of his major influences, from The Beach Boys and Eagles to Phantom Planet and Weezer, Southern California had informed his music long before living there. But now he was presented with the chance to live out his lifelong dream as a true Angelino musician.

2013 found Timmy Sean in California without a band, but with the help of his longtime friend and fellow East Coast-transplant keyboardist/vocalist Frankie Pedano, who was already a staple in the LA music scene, that didn't last long. Timmy Sean & The Celebrities were quickly formed in the summer of 2013, releasing the East Coast Girls EP later that year. The EP was co-produced by Timmy Sean and multi-platinum producer/engineer Kenny Gioia (Hall & Oates, American Authors, Mandy Moore, Ingrid Michaelson).

Los Angeles also presented Timmy with a number of opportunities that can only happen in the entertainment capital of the world. A career highlight came in 2014 when Timmy was selected to perform on stage before his musical heroes, Weezer. Following Timmy's performance, Weezer surprised a completely unassuming Friday afternoon crowd on Venice Beach with a full concert. The event was featured in a series of Kia commercials in 2014 and 2015, including interviews and performances from Timmy.

In addition to shows with The Celebrities, Timmy Sean began freelancing as a drummer, bassist, and guitarist outside of his own music and The Mahoney Brothers for the first time in his life in 2014. Since then, Timmy Sean has shared the stage with a diverse list of musicians and entertainers including Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray, Bret Michaels of Poison, SNL alum Will Forte, Blues Brother Jim Belushi, Academy Award Best Actress nominee Minnie Driver, and what Timmy calls his favorite credit: drumming for Mr. Belding from "Saved By The Bell," Dennis Haskins.

With a career as both a solo artist and a "hired gun" musician blossoming, Timmy decided to pull together a new band featuring some of the most accomplished young musicians he had befriended in Los Angeles. After spending several years putting aside material he deemed too electronic or "out of place" with The Celebrities and his solo material, he would use this new line-up - with a list credits including everyone from Kesha to Prince - to bring the Michael Jackson-influenced synthpop/funk project Sir Video to life.

Sir Video released a pair of EPs in 2014 and 2015 on Timmy's own newly formed label Noisewater Records. Light Years EP and Young As The Night EP both re-teamed co-producers Timmy Sean and Kenny Gioia from The Celebrities' East Coast Girls EP. The retro-futuristic inspired project finally made its live debut at a sold out show at Swing House Studios in Los Angeles, appropriately enough on the exact date that Back To The Future's Marty McFly time-traveled to from 1985: October 21, 2015.

Even with the release of three EPs and a number of singles in the span of just over two years, Timmy was still sitting on a large pile of uncompleted music of all different styles and genres in 2015. With a desire to both give himself deadlines to complete all of this music, and also to find a fresh and creative way to share this eclectic collection of songs (a collection that seemingly didn't lend itself to a cohesive album), Timmy teamed with online music retailer Bandcamp to use these tracks to help introduce their new Artist Subscription service. He committed to release 52 new recordings to fan subscribers, one song a week for an entire year. Though the project led to many late sessions and sleepless nights, he met his goal of not missing a single week's deadline, all the while still developing Sir Video and working steadily as a drummer, bassist, and guitarist. And despite his early reluctance to compile them in this form, an album version of this "Songs Of The Week" collection would later be released as Weeks, featuring tracks mastered at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London in 2017.

Timmy spent the next few years splitting his time between his work as a highly in-demand multi-instrumentalist, and bringing Sir Video to stages around the country. Highlights with Sir Video include an east coast series of shows featured in a full episode of the Emmy Award winning PBS television show On Tour, performances at some of Los Angeles's most iconic venues including The El Rey Theater, The Viper Room, and at Lou Adler's world famous Sunset Blvd. theater The Roxy, where Timmy worked with Coachella founders Goldenvoice Productions to pair his heavily 80s-influenced band on a bill with new wave legends The Fixx.

Though Sir Video had success entering the world of commercials with a series of Alcatel Mobile phone ads featuring the band, signing Young As The Night to the renowned music sync and licensing company Hitcher (now a part of Pulse Music Group), and releasing an anthem for the Dodgers World Series-bound 2020 season The New Champions, Timmy put together a new Timmy Sean & The Celebrities line-up for a number of live opportunities in 2018 and 2019.

The new Timmy Sean & The Celebrities, featuring members of Sir Video and a number of friends Timmy had made in Los Angeles in the previous half-decade-plus including Fernando Perdomo (Echo In The Canyon, Jakob Dylan), made their live debut in late 2018 supporting founding member of The Beach Boys and Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame member, Al Jardine. That show also served as a single release party for a new single from an album that would later take shape as A Tale From The Other Side.

When COVID-19 hit the states in March 2020, any live plans for Timmy Sean & The Celebrities or Sir Video were iced. Locked in their respective studios, Timmy reached out to Perdomo, as well as Nick Bertling who had drummed with Sir Video on their 2016 east coast tour, to collaborate on some remote projects to pass the time. Within a week Shelter Skelter was born. The first video received over 10k views in a few days. Within a month, the trio’s “Coronavirus Rhapsody” video had gained over 150k views.

By early April though, Timmy had began to map out a new album. Little did he know that he was jumping into his most ambitious project to date, a project that would dominate every day of his next nine months.