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Tim Lee brings new album, new band to Two Doors Down By Steve Wildsmith It’s known as the KISS Principle, and while local rocker Tim Lee may never wear a T-shirt with the acronym spelled out, it’s a philosophy to which he certainly subscribes. KISS — “keep it simple, stupid” — advocates that design simplicity for an array of disciplines should be the goal, while unnecessary complexity should be avoided. With a career older than most local rockers have been alive, Lee — who brings his new trio to downtown Maryville tonight — finds himself coming back to that principle with each new song he creates these days. “I think that the older I get, the more simple I like things,” Lee told The Daily Times this week. “With this band, we do keep things pretty simple. The recording process for this new album (“good2b3,” officially out next month but already for sale at Lee’s live shows and at Disc Exchange in Knoxville) was one where we did everything live except for the vocals and a few overdubs. And right now, that’s very appealing to me. “Every other process is perfectly legitimate, but that’s the way we did this one. A lot of bands, I think, try to avoid that because it’s an insecurity thing — they think that if they do something that’s simple, then perhaps people will think it’s stupid. But to me, the best songs are really simple. They get to the point, and they don’t mess around. I really do think that a lot of musicians just over-think it — they’re afraid that if they don’t put 14 parts into a song, people are going to think they’re stupid.” It helps, of course, that Lee came of age when rock — in particular indie rock, and more specifically early 1980s college rock — was returning to simplicity. The rock ‘n’ roll of the ’70s had gone from anthemic to progressive to elaborate, and when punk died out and New Wave embraced technological augmentation of traditional three-chord rock, a new generation of bands went the other direction. Lee was a part of that movement — he started playing music in Jackson, Miss., in 1982, and his work with the power-pop duo The Windbreakers is considered some of the most influential, if unknown, influences on college rock in the 1980s. Along with his Windbreakers recordings, his solo works and side projects with Matt Piucci (of Rain Parade) and Howard Wuelfing (Nurses, Half Japanese) have garnered critical praise from Rolling Stone, Creem, Matter, Forced Exposure, The New York Times and more. He’s toured the country extensively with his own bands and as a sideman for Let’s Active, Marti Jones, and the Swimming Pool Q’s. In 1988, he released his first solo album after recording six with The Windbreakers. “What Time Will Tell” featured members of the Bongos, the dBs, Chris Stamey Group, the Wygals and Let’s Active, and was hailed by one critic as “a stunning album, the kind of unexpected triumph that restores your faith in the power of art.” Another solo album led to the regrouping of The Windbreakers and retrospective recordings with several side projects. In the mid-1990s, he took a break from the music business and, along with Susan, moved to Knoxville. He didn’t stay out of the music game for long. After releasing “Under the House” in 2001, he returned with “No Discretion” in 2004, an album that showcased a more rocking, confident sound. “Concrete Dog” carried that one step further in 2006, and over the past couple of years, Lee has found regular bandmates in his wife (on bass) and drummer Rodney Cash, a long-time member of the local music scene. “It really is just musical compatibility,” Lee said of his partners, with whom he plays as the Tim Lee 3. “I’ve played with a lot of people, people I think really highly of and probably will play with again sometime. But really, the three of us are on the same age. Rodney and Susan hear things the same way, which is remarkable for a rhythm section. They’re both just kind of in-the-pocket players — that’s kind of a trite term, but they like to find the groove and go with it. “We’re a rocking band, but they both play like that. And the thing about Rodney is that he’s grown up listening to some of my favorite bands — The Faces, Mott the Hoople — bands that are not so incredibly precise but have a lot of feel to what they do.” Going back to those roots influenced the guitars on “good2b3” as well, Lee added. Combined with his wife’s vocals, the new album is a lean cut of rich rock ‘n’ roll beef — meaning it’s good however you want to serve it up. Loud and rocking, as will be the case tonight at Two Doors Down … blaring from the speakers on a road trip … background noise while you wash the car … turned down low while you make dinner for the family … it’s an all-purpose, no-frills rock record that doesn’t get made very often, at least not these days. “People making records these days go into a studio, and they have all of these tools and toys lying around, and the temptation is to use all of them that you possibly can,” he said. “It’s fun to make a record like that, and I’ve made a lot of them over the years, but there’s something that often gets lost in that approach. The older I get, the more I approach music as an in-the-moment kind of thing, just letting things happen and trying to go with a gut reaction to stuff rather than over-thinking or overdoing it. “Going with my gut has always come pretty natural to me, but these days, it seems more comfortable than ever. Somebody told me that I seemed to be going that way with the guitar playing on this record, but it’s pretty easy to play guitar like that with this band. I don’t like to waste a lot of time dilly-dallying around, worrying about a lot of things. I like to dive in and move on.” Originally published: April 18. 2008 3:01AM |