Although based in London, Jimmy T Hills, is a Kiwi singer-songwriter that finds his musical home in American roots. Jimmy T is stepping out on his own and bringing his rock n roll energy to his new introspective and personal songs. Like many musicians during 2020, Jimmy T set up his home studio to bring his new songs to life. Country and Rock n Roll music allow Jimmy T to share his experience of the world through his Americana-styled songs. At the same time, he basks in influences such as contemporary singer-songwriters and lead singers Nathaniel Rateliff, Butch Walker, Brian Fallon, and Brent Cowles.
Eager to share the miscellany of new songs that he has been creating throughout the pandemic, Jimmy T returns with a fusion that is bound to have you falling into his enigmatic appeal. “For Once” taps into a Country/Rock mingling as the ubiquitous soundscape has you embracing a mid-tempo fusion of power. Each reverberated twang allows you to traverse the chambers of profound authenticity that Jimmy T shares in his delicately sung narratives.
Although gentle with his vocalization, the ability of his comforting timbres to radiate has you keen to hear how “For Once” will unfold as it clasps on to your emotions immediately. The uplifting manner in which the music sheds an optimistic luminosity is truly striking in the development of “For Once.” The lyrical motifs stationed throughout this piece have another motive with the way that they tell a story of a never-ending cycle pulling Jimmy T to face the straw that broke the camel’s back in a relationship that is past its best before date. By accompanying the tones emanated lyrically and in the instrumentation, the relief factor gets kicked up a notch as you rejoice in the victorious tones this single displays as an urgency to move on comes to light.
Jimmy T perpetually allows his audience to unite with him on an intimate level. As he continues to do so, he permits his vulnerability to open various doors in the realm of relatability. Giving us a taste of what’s to come, we’re ready for anything Jimmy T sends our way.
Congratulations on the release of “For Once.” We love the structure of this track and how it plays out until the end. Job well done! You wrote this song and many more amidst the pandemic. What was it like creating out of your home studio versus going to a studio setting that you may be used to when recording?
Firstly, thank you! It’s great to be able to create new music from home and share it with the world amidst the pandemic. This has been a bit of a learning experience for me but I think the biggest difference was the recording and mixing process. In my home studio, I am more limited in the quantity of recording gear that I’m using compared to the array of top-quality gear I’d have access to in a proper studio setting. I also found that because I was recording and producing myself, the process took a lot longer as I was the only one in the "studio"! But that’s not necessarily a bad thing because although I couldn’t bounce ideas off others around me it meant I could try different things within the song, then keep the good bits and get rid of the bad bits without worrying about running out of studio time! I’ve learned more from each moment in the home studio and ultimately I’m happy with how “For Once” turned out. Was “For Once,” shaped by a particular moment or story in your life? What does this song mean to you? Yeah definitely, it’s a song about the feeling of 2020 for myself and others around me. I started writing “For Once” around April/May 2020, which was a couple of months into the first COVID lockdown here in London. There was so much uncertainty around what was happening and a lot of speculation around when it might all be over and I was trying to capture the feeling from the conversations that I heard people having about the COVID lockdowns. The song had a few re-writes but I finally finished it in December 2020 when we were put into our third lockdown - that's when I finally felt I could finally articulate what a lot of us were feeling. It’s not meant to be a particularly political song or anything like that but it was definitely written out of the frustration that we were feeling about being separated from each other for so long. How did you find the creative process come to life when creating and recording this song? Could you please share a glimpse of what it looked like for you to bring this song to life? “For Once” took around 6 months to write with quite a few tweaks along the way, but the core of the song was written in the first writing session! I started with the opening guitar riff, which was written on an acoustic guitar, then I locked down the chorus chords and melody. But it was the verses that I chopped and changed quite a few times until I settled on the final chords, lyrics, and melody. In the early stages of writing the song I had it in my head that “For Once” would be a fully acoustic song, but when I started recording an early demo, I started to layer a few parts and liked the energy I was getting from a fuller band sound. So once I had the core of the song set in stone I filled out the sound with extra instrument layers until I was happy! Usually, when writing songs, I like to play them live to get a sense of how audiences respond when you’re in the same room but obviously, we haven’t been allowed to play gigs in over a year here so it's all a bit scary recording and releasing a song that hasn’t been “road-tested”. However, the reaction has been positive so far and I can’t wait to get out and play to live audiences again! What do listeners have in store from the various creations you managed to lay down throughout these uncertain times? I’ve still been busy recording and writing and I've got another song set for release at the beginning of May, with another in July! There will be an E.P release coming in the second half of the year too, but a date hasn’t been set for that yet. The most exciting thing is the UK is set to ease all lockdown restrictions on June 21st, which will mean we can once again play to live audiences! So I have lined up some venues and will be out playing venues again from June/July and be playing this new set of songs - both solo and with a band.
