// INTERVIEW
Tyler Hilton
-Central Coast Teens
Tyler Hilton stopped by San Luis Obispo on June 8th 2003, armed with James Dean like good looks and instantly memorable original songs, this emerging artist, who recently signed with Maverick Records, gave an inspiring performance that wont soon be forgotten. Central Coast Teens sat down with Tyler after the show and discussed music, high school and more. Look for his new CD in August.
CCTeens: When did you get started in music and was there a certain personality that inspired you along the way?
Tyler Hilton: I was so young when I got started, I cant even remember, every song that I could find and learn I would just sing over and over, much to everyone else's dismay and annoyance I think after a while, but then when I started latching on to artists that I actually recognized, like Frank Sinatra and Elvis were the first two and Diana Ross and the Supremes, then I started to learn their songs and singing them all I could, like Karaoke, I got my own Karaoke set for that, but my family, they were always writing songs and playing guitars , every time we all got together with my uncles and aunts and everyone , so I couldn't really get away from music so it was great for me . But once I started playing guitar, after awhile its like "what do you do with your hands?" I got kind of bored with singing without a guitar so I learned guitar like everyone else in my family and just kept learning the songs from people like Frank Sinatra and Elvis.
CCTeens: How would you best describe your music?
Tyler Hilton: I heard an artist describe it as "Folk Pop" once, and I thought, "That sounds about right", that's probably the closest description I've heard. It goes through phases every year though depending on, not venturing to far from like the soul of what I'm about but depending on who I'm listening to or whatever.
CCTeens: What do you write about? What inspires you?
Tyler Hilton: Most of the time its about personal appearances, a lot of times Bob Dylan and Arlo Guthrie, a lot of them will write about their personal experiences with a much more worldly view, and I feel myself going towards that subject matter but most of it has been personal experiences, and that can go as far as having conversations with homeless people or a terrible romantic occurrence or something like that.
CCTeens: Describe the events leading to your signing with Maverick Records and the music on your new CD.
Tyler Hilton: Well Maverick Records was, we had been shopping the record for so long to all these different people and I was still in High School and I had a little bit of publicity through the Mark and Brian Show, they had been playing my songs every once in a while on the radio at KLOS but people weren't catching on for some reason, I look back on it now and I was very young and I don't think I was ready to go for the full experience of touring and everything. A guy from Capitol Records saw my independent CD reviewed in Music Connection so he wanted to sign me there so I went to Capitol and I did a couple of recordings there and all of a sudden my A & R guy just got fed up with the label and just left, and so I thought, awe man, I'm a typical signing story, I'm done, but he went to Maverick Records and he took me with him which I was so grateful for and then Maverick picked me up, and him at the same time so it was really cool, so that's how it happened .
CCTeens: What do you think of the label (Maverick) so far?
Tyler Hilton: I've been signed since October but I've been working with them since September and I like them a lot. From my experiences so far at other labels Maverick has been really cool. For instance, they have an office in L.A. and I can walk in and see the whole office and everyone in it as soon as you walk in the door, its relatively small as opposed to like Epic Records, when you go in there its like a lot of hallways and stuff, which is great because it's a big record company but Warner Bros. is backing Maverick so its got like a smaller company feel, which is what I wanted but its got the money of a big company behind it. I feel like I'm in an ideal spot and really grateful to be there, and then what with Michelle Branch and everyone being there to I've made a lot of friends. CCTeens: When it comes time to tour the new CD will you be going out with another Maverick artist?
Tyler Hilton: There's no one really on Maverick that I would want to tour with ideally, I've played a couple shows with Michelle Branch and she was really cool so that wouldn't be bad, but I'll be doing more of the club scene and shell be doing large arenas with the Dixie Chicks soon. I think it would be nice to tour with an acoustic or like a folk artist for a while.
CCTeens: Anyone in particular you have in mind?
Tyler Hilton: If I could tour with like, Elliot Smith or Guster or maybe Patty Griffin or any of those acoustic, bluegrass, folk type people, Jack Johnson or G Love and his whole crew I think would be great.
CCTeens: While were on the subject of shows, which performances of yours stand out to you and why?
Tyler Hilton: Well some of the better ones that I did were, you know what's really weird about touring is that you do a small place one night and the next night your on stage in front of all these people and the next night your doing a coffee house, it so weird, but I think some of the better ones I did, the Strawberry Music Festival twice in front of 30,00 people, it's a massive Bluegrass festival, its like the Bluegrass Woodstock or something, and I did the Wiltern Theatre also and I played the Roxy Theatre with Michelle Branch and that was really nice. Some of the worse ones were, I did a Border's Tour, not last summer but the summer before and there were some pretty hairy shows where like no one would come and I would be just playing to my dad and its like so hard to try to make good music when there's no one there to bounce ideas off of, no horrible shows come to mind but those are the ones that stand out.
CCTeens: How supportive were your friends and family when you were starting out?
Tyler Hilton: My friends have always been supportive, even though like at school I had a CD for most of my High School life and I was always playing gigs and stuff, it was never like anything crazy, but my friends would be supportive and always come to my shows. It was fun; it would be like everyone meeting at one coffeehouse to hang out, that's what the shows would be like, everyone coming just to hang out. My mom was really supportive but I think she was, she comes from a family where almost everyone's a teacher, so it was odd that she married my dad and into that whole family because they are like the complete opposite, like the artists and everything, but I think it was very odd for her to hear that I was going into a music career, of art and creativity, so it was always very hard for her to understand if I had to leave school or miss a couple days of school or even miss a weekend of spending time with her to be at a gig or something like that it was very difficult to explain. My dad has been very supportive from the beginning, he's always toured around with me and he's my current manager. It's really cool because that keeps a level of stability there, having a parental unit on the road. CCTeens: You mentioned being on the road a lot, being 19 years old do you feel that you have missed out on some things growing up?
Tyler Hilton: I really made a conscious decision and a trade off in Middle School or even before then and I still wanna go back to College, its not even about the grades or degree because I don't think that could do anything for me now because I'm an artist but it's the knowledge that I really, really want, and so I made a decision though that I would give that up for my youth, that I would go to college later on to tour around and do music or act and so when that opportunity finally came, I decided to take it. Sometimes there's regret like I look back on the College and I think I'll go back to College but there will never be like, the dorm experience, there will never be that, but then again there are certain times on the road that I'm hanging out with certain Idols of mine, or having a drink with someone I've read about or something you know? And I think, if I was in College the grass would be greener on this side. What's great though is a lot of my friends are in College so when I hang out with them it's kinda like I'm getting the best of both worlds.
Tyler Hilton: I think my favorite city to play, and my favorite city in general was New York. I played this place called the Village Underground, which is THE place to play and I opened for Tonic there, I did a tour with them on the east coast and it was just like such a cool vibey place, it really was. The people in New York are so accepting it seemed like, maybe that's just in relation to L.A., because L.A. crowds are so tough and judgmental, but in New York it just seemed like everyone was so into it and would look to you to do something good.
CCTeens:Any venues you look forward to playing?
Tyler Hilton: Ever since I've been a little kid I've wanted to play so bad at The Strawberry Music Festival, and just recently I've got to do an opening spot for two acts there, so that much of it has been fulfilled, but still there's nothing like headlining that show and I still think to headline that show would be unbelievable, I think that would be my dream, would be to headline that festival, that would be really cool.
CCTeens: Describe the feeling when you're on stage, and do you prefer that over being in the studio?
Tyler Hilton: It's a weird thing, when I was in the studio and even when I was outside the studio, I just couldn't wait to get back in, I have a studio at home and I love that whole aspect. I was going to go to Berkeley College of Music for production and writing and I'm just so into that whole thing, and that's always where I am like 3 or 4 in the morning at is in the studio, its just the most creative spot to be. But there's nothing like living life on the road and playing shows, it's just so much fun, it's more fun than creative being on the road. I think if I could only do one it would probably be the studio.
CCTeens: How long does it take you to write a song?
Tyler Hilton: Sometimes some of the best ones come in like 10 minutes, like I'll sit down and it will just be there, but sometimes songs take months and months of revisiting, I think it was Elton John that said once "If a song doesn't come in 10 minutes its just not worth writing" or it's just not going to come right then, so I usually do that, I give it like 10 minutes or something, if nothings coming, maybe a change of scenery will help.
CCTeens: What's your favorite song you've written so far?
Tyler Hilton: It's always the last one I've written so right now it's a song called, actually it's currently untitled but I wrote it about a romantic experience I had and then I kinda added fiction on to that, it was like 6 in the morning so I wasn't thinking clearly, but I really like how the song came out.
CCTeens: How did your appearance on The Mark and Brian Show come about?
Tyler Hilton: I've been listening to Mark and Brian since I was little and that was like my pinnacle experience, which is crazy it came so soon, I could have been like touring the world with millions of people coming to see my shows and I still would have been like, "Man I would love to be on the Mark and Brian show". I was a big fan of Jonny Lang at the time and they were giving away some Jonny Lang tickets and so I called them up and played them a Jonny Lang cover I do, and they were really into it and asked if I do coffeehouses and I said yea, so they asked me to call up every time I have a coffeehouse gig and they would promote it, so I called them up once every two months when I had a show and they always had me play a song on the air, and then one time after four or five times of this they said, you know you have to come in the studio one time and I about passed out ! So I went and did the whole studio thing about two or three times after that. That's so weird because your in a room with them, and Frank and the whole family, you're just in a room with these people and you're just talking like you're, you don't really think that you're on the air. Brian's so funny and Mark and I really hit it off, after we met we started hanging out and he really, really became like a father figure when I moved to L.A. and I was away from my parents, we exchanged numbers and when I was going to do the whole acting thing before the record came out he got me into this great acting school that I think he went to and he really embraced me into the whole thing which was really cool and he's really helped me out a lot, really gone way above and beyond and made it more of a family thing which is really cool.
CCTeens: Tell us about your acting experience.
Tyler Hilton: I was going out for acting and music and wanted to see which one made it first and music happened to take off, but I cant do one without the other, I have to be doing both. I did an acting competition in New York, I won a National competition I went back there for and William Morris, who was going to sign me for music saw that show, a Shakespeare competition, and so they just signed me across the board for acting and music so I was stoked about that. So now that the records done I'm auditioning some different things.
CCTeens: What are your goals for the new CD and beyond?
Tyler Hilton: I don't really want it to go right to radio I'm thinking because you never know how that goes and sometimes that could be like a stalling plane. If I had to chose between the two, which I hope I never do I would much rather tour around than be a radio artist, but that's my plan for awhile to put the CD out there, hopefully get on some soundtracks and keep on touring around the country.
CCTeens: Are you making a living doing music now?
Tyler Hilton: When I moved up to Los Angeles the record company took care of everything so I could work full time on music, its really a different lifestyle, especially when I got back from Europe and living on the streets and doing that whole thing and when your living in L.A. and have everything taken care of and walking through life easy it's kind of weird because so many of my songs are based on hard times that I've had you know? So when every things going well, it's kinda like, it's weird, I tried to get a job like at McDonald's and I tried to get a job at a gas station and this restaurant down the street just to, I told them, listen, you don't even have to pay me, I'll just help out, sweep floors or whatever, I just need something to do you know? But none of it worked out, but I'm starting to cope (Laughs).
CCTeens: Although you are still 19, tell us about your Teen years.
Tyler Hilton: There was a time I can remember not fitting in and that was the transformation from 5th grade to Middle School, its always a crazy transformation because your friends go through volatile changes that you just cant predict .As far as Middle School and High School, when Theatre came in to play it was great cause there was a Theatre click to hang out with, there was all of a sudden the eccentric artists and people that you could understand. Even at Elementary and Pre School I always knew I was different from my friends in that I was, you can tell the difference in the kid who's very smart with numbers and very intellectual and the kid who's very artistic you know? When I started siding myself with people that are the same way as me, man it was great.
CCTeens: Any parting words for your fans here on the Central Coast?
Tyler Hilton: I would say: Thank you for reading this article!! And I'll see you at the next show!
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