A QUICK DOZEN with TIM BASTMEYER

Shane | 5 July 2017 | Reply

A QUICK DOZEN with TIM BASTMEYER

By Shane Pinnegar

Canadian blues guitarist Tim Bastmeyer has performed everywhere from The Melkweg in Amsterdam to The Beaches Jazz Festival in Toronto. His website biography suggests that, “you may have seen him playing solo delta blues with tasty slide guitar. Maybe you caught him on tour with Juno winners Julian Fauth and James Thomson laying down that classic blues sound. Perhaps you saw him on tour with the Tim Bastmeyer Project laying down virtuoso guitar work. Tim Bastmeyer has worked with a long list of major artists on and off stage producing and engineering. When not on tour Tim can be found at his recording studio in Uxbridge, Ontario.”

With new album Tim Bastmeyer’s All Star Blues Band just out, we sat Tim down for a Quick Dozen.

1. Tell us a little about your latest release, Tim Bastmeyer’s All Star Blues Band. Are there any hidden nuggets the band put in the material that only diehard fans might pick up on?
The album boasts nine new tracks with a foundation of classic blues progressions and lyrics featuring [Canadian] Juno winners Julian Fauth, James Thomson, Paul Reddick, Juno nominee Sean Pinchin and Cam de Latt. At the end of the third track, With You, you can faintly hear all of us laughing after Julian resolves the last note. You can also hear James crack open a nut at the beginning of Love Turns To Pain.

2. What got you into music, and can you tell us about the moment you realized you wanted to be a musician?
My brother got me into music when I was in my early teens, but it wasn’t till I saw a band jamming at our local laundromat after hours that I knew I wanted to be a musician.

3. Who would be your main five musical influences?
Jeff Beck, Robert Johnson, Tom Waits, Mel Brown, and Uli Jon Roth

4. If you could call in any one collaborator to do a song with, who would it be?
Tom Waits

5. How would you describe your music to someone who’d never listened to you before?
Blues with a few twists and turns

6. What’s the best thing about being a musician?
Sleeping in

7. When the band are all hanging out together, who cooks; who gets the drinks in; and who is first to crack out the acoustic guitars for a singalong?
Since everyone usually comes to my studio my wife usually cooks. We all drink if we’re not working and we all bust out the instruments!

8. If you weren’t a musician, what would be your dream job?
Being a musician IS my dream job.

9. Looking back over your career, is there a single moment or situation you feel was a misstep, or you would like to be able to “do over”?
No regrets!

10. If you were made ruler of the world, what would your first orders be?
Get rid of all nuclear weapons

11. If you could magically go back in time and be a part of the recording sessions for any one record in history, which would you choose – and what does that record mean to you?
I would go back and be a part of any of the sessions Robert Johnson did for the Vocalion label in 1937. It would be cool to see him play. That’s where it all starts for me.

12. What, for you, is the meaning of life??
I don’t know what the meaning of life is and I’m ok with that.