Australia based creative Tim Godwin has been heavily influenced by music since a very young age. Over the years, he has studied violin, piano, trumpet and drums while working with very talented and knowledgeable people who helped him along the way.

Tim has also been involved with various forms of music therapy and research working with elderly and critically ill patients.

Writing and performing in a variety of styles, Tim embraces everything from quirky synths to punk rock to experimental to street performing and improvisation. His sounds often blend or include indie rock, pop, industrial and groove metal. Tim also stays busy juggling multiple projects that span across these styles.

In this interview spotlight, I chat with Tim about his new single (and video) Erase, challenges, working in music therapy and more.

Full Q&A along with links, music and the video below.

Where are you from and can you describe the style or styles of music in which you typically write songs?

I’m from a small country town in rural Australia, Armidale. I tend to hang out and base myself in the Inner West of Sydney. But I keep a place in Armidale and have built a studio here, where I do most of my production and recording. The overheads are a lot less, and there’s something about the cold winters that help with writing.

What led you down this path of music? What motivates you to keep going?

My parents where academics at the local University, and likely they read a bunch of research saying music was good for children’s development. They are also pretty straight and sent me to violin, piano and trumpet lessons. I hated it, all I wanted to do was play drums! To the point where I got a job scrubbing dishes and saved up and bought my own drums!

That was a long time ago, I guess now music gives me a voice to express myself. I have a really busy mind, and being able to translate the anxious driven mess of my cognition into a piece of music is really satisfying.

I’ve always played in bands, but I guess I’ve only really started to focus on my music as more than a hobby in the last 12months. I’m not living of it yet, but it’s been really cool to watch my audience grow and find people along the way that get behind and support what I’m doing. People often send me messages via socials encouraging what I do, ‘cos they love it or inspires them and I guess that’s about as rewarding as it gets as an artist.

How is Erase different from previous releases Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?

What I love about Erase, is that it came pretty naturally to me. I was going through a lot of change at the time and reflecting on my life, and was feeling a bit lost. It’s definitely a lot softer than THE SOCIAL NORM and a has Indie feel, rather than rock or punk, but still quite large and powerful.

I wanted the listener to be able to relate to a time in my life, where I’ve been nomadic for about 12 years, living in different places, meeting cool people, arseholes, having good and bad experiences. You get a almost ‘out of control’ feeling looking back at all of those memories with rose coloured glasses and kind of lost with what to do next, but also humbled by all the great times I’ve had.

Can you tell us more about your work with music as therapy for the elderly and ill?

Up until last week I was a practising Registered Nurse, I just resigned, but have practiced for about 12 years, predominately in Critical Care. I did a Master of Nursing a few years back whilst working in an intensive care unit, and as part of my study I designed a research project looking at the lived experience of survivors of intensive care who had used music therapy.

You have to be careful with the term ‘Music Therapy’ because music therapists are an area of allied health of their own, and formal music therapy is fairly complex and often involves personal composition.
But the basic concept of nurses using music in critical care is simple really. It involves playing slower tempo music, with minimal dynamics or lyrical content as a adjunct or ‘as well as’ pain relief and sedatives to keep patients calm and comfortable with the invasive life support they are requiring. Such as a breathing (ventilator) and/or kidney (dialysis) machine. Most of the evidence shows a fairly significant reduction in pain/sedative medication use which is pretty remarkable!

I was able to use this experience in a small rural remote faculty which provided emergency as well as residential and dementia care. I raised funding to be one of about 20 public hospitals to pioneer ‘Music & Memory’ which involved taking history from aged residents to find music that was relatable to them from their ‘golden days’ of youth and play it back to them using an iPod. The responses from the residents was awesome and the community support in the town was fantastic! I put on some charity gigs to get additional funding for the project, and people really got behind it.

On a clinical note the evidence shows a significant improvement in quality of life, mood and behaviour of elderly residents.

Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?

The first challenge is keeping up and remaining consistent. Social media platforms are really useful, but we are at mercy to their ever changing algorithms and floating as companies, hence now costly to market on.

The second is the definition of ‘indie’ it self. Everyone clams to be indie, and I guess to some respect they are unless they are under contract to produce music. But there is so much electronic music, hip hop and other really super produced music that seems to saturate almost every ‘INDIE’ playlist. I guess to me, indie regardless of the sub or main genre, is a tad raw, performed and not brutally quantized and pitched corrected. Super produced stuff isn’t what indie is about. These days ‘indie’ is a hip and marketable concept, so all of a sudden we have to compete with all these business savvy hip hop, rap and EDM stuff because its been marketed as ‘indie’.

It’s funny, literally I just had a chat to a local record store and small live music venue owner about the amount of money mega groups spend on marketing. ‘MILLIONS’ But in reality these days, the cost of releasing a track is next to nothing, and if you can embrace digital marketing, a lot let costly to reach a wider audience. My single, Erase has been out for less than a week and its clocked over 3K streams on various platforms and been played on a bunch of radio shows. Now if I were to press 3000 units of vinyl or CDs and get 3000 people to play them. How much would that cost me?

I self produced Erase and my good friend mixed it. I got it professionally mastered by Steve Smart @ Studios 301. The video I self shot and another friend edited it for me. Other than the out lay of my equipment (which I use all the time) it cost me $150 AUD to produce ‘Erase’ and the video clip. Pre-digital there is no way in hell you could do all that for $150!

What was the last song you listened to?

Connan Mockasin latest LP – He’s a kooky indie guy from New Zealand.

Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?

I love vinyl, I’m a vinyl nut. It’s always a drunken argument as to what’s better, digital or vinyl, so I won’t go there!

How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?

Up until recently I used Band Camp a lot – Mainly ‘cos if you bought the vinyl off band camp you would get the download and stream as well. Recently I caved and subscribed to Spotify, purely due to the accessibility to music. Apple is likely just as good, but I’m a PC android guy.

Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?

I find Instagram quite useful at connecting with fans, but connecting with artists, venues etc Facebook seems to be my go to and then connect over messenger.

Since I got Spotify i tend to see stuff on socials then I check it out on Spotify!

Anything else before we sign off?

Nah, its lunch time and my caffeine level just got dangerously low! Thanks for your time!