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EvansFest: Featuring Tim Hanauer |
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Written by NEXTnc staff reports
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Friday, 07 September 2007 |
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 For many years, Tim Hanauer tried to ignore his calling.
He went to Colorado State University like a good boy and got a degree in English in 2001, a degree he planned to use teaching, a profession that impresses the parents of cute daughters and inspires tear-jerking movies. He loved to write.
Hey, this just might work.
And then he had his first interview for a job, and the final question was probably the most popular question in all job interviews. Where do you see yourself in five years?
“It should be an easy question,” Hanauer said in a phone interview, “and I really didn’t have an answer. That’s when I realized I didn’t want to be there.”
What he wanted was to play guitar and write songs. That’s what he knew since he was 17 when his sister got a toy guitar for her birthday. He took the guitar and for two weeks taught himself “Come As You Are” by Nirvana, almost non-stop, until the guitar broke (sorry, sis). He graduated from Bear Creek High School in Lakewood in 1995 and got a guitar from his dad and his dad’s husband and learned the art of songwriting and, therefore, wrote songs all the time, well into the night, for two months.
 He needed a five-year plan, he realized, and that plan had nothing to do with teaching English.
At 29 and a resident of Fort Collins, he’s completed year one of that five-year plan. That may sound like he’s been mostly goofing off. Far from it. One of the goals was to play at the Taste of Colorado, and he’s doing that, along with playing at EvansFest, which starts tonight. He wanted to complete an album, and he released “Boomerang” in 2006. He wanted some success, and two of his songs have played over CBS’ “Ghost Whisperer” and the WB’s “Joan of Arcadia.” He just completed a tour of California, and a small tour was another one of those goals. Maybe he just had a pretty ambitious five-year plan.
But Hanauer always had the ambition and was willing to work hard. When he got that first guitar, he moved out of his mother’s house and moved in with his father. He became nocturnal, waking in the afternoon and staying up through the night, even, sometimes, forgetting to sleep for 48 hours. His father’s husband, Faren, a guitar player, taught him the importance of bridges and lyrical passages and hooks, and Hanauer dove in.
“I got completely wrapped up in it,” he said. “I was writing songs almost instantly. It’s my way of dealing with reality.”
That reality still shapes his songs. He looks back on those days in his father’s basement, watching old Star Trek re-runs and writing music, as good memories. His father, Ted, died of colon cancer two months after he was diagnosed in 1998.
“Many of my songs are about loss and gain at the same time,” Hanauer said.
One song on the album, “Skipping Stones,” talks about taking your time on the top before you sink to the bottom. “Boomerang” deals with an emotionally abusive relationship his mother, Carol, struggled with (Hanauer credits his mother as the stable presence in his life).
All that reflection, the consequence of an English major, shaped his music, too. He prefers the acoustic guitar and easy singing style of Jack Johnson and David Gray, though he also likes Derek and the Dominoes, Ben Harper and Feist. It’s the kind of music that allows for deep thoughts and lyrical passages, the kind that, say, wouldn’t work in an AC/DC song.
“I’m definitely more Simon and Garfunkel than death metal,” Hanauer said. “I think your soul picks what instrument you play. For me that was acoustic guitar.”
He continues to work hard at his calling. He’s writing new material all the time in between hours spent at his part-time job at the Blasting Room, a recording studio in Fort Collins. The TV shows were a big break but not the big break. He still needs to work, but he’s encouraged by his album sales. He printed 1,000 with the help of a few loans from friends, and he’s only got 200 left. He intends to release another album next year and then another at the end of his next five-year plan. He wants a hit on Billboard in the next five years.
“Yellow Raincoat,” that song featured on CBS’ “Ghost Whisperer,” talks about a child wearing a yellow raincoat, and as long as he has that yellow raincoat on, he’s able to do anything, even fly. But as we get older, the yellow raincoat comes off and we’re afraid to do anything.
Hanauer is following his calling, but he’s always having to remind himself to have the courage to keep after it.
“This is my dream and no one but me will make it happen,” he said. “You have to continue building, and it’s a difficult thing to maintain.”
So he’s working on year No. 2, and maybe, in five years, he’ll be able to work on a new plan.
“You sort of imagine someday you’ll reach your goal,” he said, “but unless you make these tiny steps, how will you get there?”
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MORE INFO
For more information, visit www.timhanauer.com, www.myspace.com/timhanauer, www.sonicbids.com/timhanauer, www.cdbaby.com/timhanauer or visit iTunes, where his music is for sale. | Only registered users can write comments.
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