What happens when you return to a passion you put on hold for decades?
In this episode of Plot Twist Radio, Erin sits down with songwriter and musician Tim Tye, who spent 45 years practicing law before fully stepping into his creative life. From writing songs as a teenager to releasing multiple albums and earning award nominations—including recognition tied to the Grand Ole Opry—Tim’s journey is a powerful example of reinvention and persistence.
Together, they explore the songwriting process, where inspiration really comes from, and why creativity doesn’t follow rules. Tim shares how life experiences—from heartbreak to reflection—shape his music, and why some songs take an hour… while others take decades.
They also dive into the realities of today’s music industry, the challenges of independent artists, and what it truly means to create something out of nothing.
If you’ve ever put a dream on pause—or wondered if it’s too late to start again—this episode is for you.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- How Tim Tye transitioned from law to music
- His unique songwriting process and inspiration style
- Why creativity can’t be forced (and why that’s okay)
- The truth about streaming, awards, and the modern music industry
- Why it’s never too late to chase a creative passion
Listen now and rediscover what it means to create.
Where to find Tim Tye:
#Tim Tye interview
#songwriting process
#independent musician podcast
#music industry reality
#creative reinvention
#second act careers
#from lawyer to musician
#songwriting inspiration
#creative passion later in life#indie music artist journey
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Welcome to Plot Twist Radio, the show where creativity,
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storytelling, and the unpredictable path of the
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creative life all collide. I'm your host, Aaron Egnatz.
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Today's guest proves that it's never too late to return to the
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things that once set your soul on fire.
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After a 45 year. Career in law Tim Thai didn't
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just revisit his passion for music, he built something real
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with it. From garage band beginnings to
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award nominated albums and a growing presence in the
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independent music scene, Tim's journey is 1 of persistence,
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creativity, and reinvention. In this episode, we talk about
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the evolution of songwriting, the reality of the music
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industry, and what it means to create something out of nothing,
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whether you're picking up a guitar or chasing a dream you
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once put on hold. If you've ever wondered what if
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this conversation might just be the nudge you need, let's get
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into. It Tim.
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Hello and welcome to the show you have.
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Spent 45 years practicing law. That's a full career.
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When did music first start calling to you?
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I was probably 15 or 16 and, you know, like everybody back then,
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you know, I wanted to be The Beatles or The Rolling Stones or
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something like that. You know, I got a cheap guitar
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and, you know, I played on it and I, I got a little better and
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I was in a couple of bands in high school and I, I started
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writing when I was pretty young. I was, I was pretty good with
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words. The lyrics were pretty easy.
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It took me a while before I was comfortable writing the music as
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well, but eventually that happened.
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I, yeah, I I kept playing and writing, but between college and
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law school and starting a career that that really went on the
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back burner for a while. Makes sense.
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So did teenage Tim think he grew up to be a lawyer, or was it
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just a musician you wanted to do?
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You know, I'm kind of a garage band guy.
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So. So yeah, that was that was
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probably never going to happen. I didn't.
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I never really made any effort to promote my music until I was
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on a trip and I met a dentist and he'd written a bunch of
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songs and recorded them, made an album, and they weren't really
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very good. But I thought maybe I could do
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this. So I talked to a couple of
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buddies of mine. Hero musicians got introduced to
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an engineer and, you know, we started cranking them out.
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It took, I took several years. Sometimes it was difficult
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getting musicians together. You have to coordinate their
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schedules. Some of them, believe it or not,
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are a little quirky and then some of them worked out better
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than others. But finally that started in 2009
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and in 2014 I released Dark Stretch of Rd. which was the
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first album and I thought it's done.
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I did what I wanted to do. And then few, few years later,
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few good years came out, and then a few years after that.
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So for the modern world. And the new one is called Just
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Before Dawns. You know, once I was rolling, I
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kept going. I thought, you know, I think
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I've become a better songwriter over the years, which anybody
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would hope to do. Yeah, I understand the, you know
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how your writing evolves. What is your writing, your
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songwriting process like? I never sit down with the
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intention of looking for an idea.
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The idea comes to me random. It might be a line from
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something, could be from a movie.
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And all of a sudden it just sort of like bounces around in my
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brain. I'm thinking there's, there's
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something here I like. I like that, like that line.
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And that's why I pick up the guitar and sort of start
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strumming away. And normally one thing leads to
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another. Yeah, Before you know what I've
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got, I've got the song mostly written.
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I tend to tweak it a little bit after it's almost done, but
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that's how it works. Most experts will tell you
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should try to write every day, You should try to set some time
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aside. I've just never done that.
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It's just doesn't work for me. It's better.
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The inspiration comes from somewhere and then then I'm
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ready to try to turn into a song.
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Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
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Some songs get written in an hour and some I've spent 20
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years before I finally got it to where I thought it was finished.
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Yeah, that, that seems to be a common theme.
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No matter if I'm interviewing an author, songwriter or a
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screenwriter, it seems the same thing.
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You know, some can just come out of nowhere and there they are.
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And then other others, you know, they drag out over time.
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What are some of the inspirations that have inspired
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some of your songs? 2017 I got divorced.
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So that tends to that's tends to inspire you to write some things
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not necessarily positive. But then I started dating and
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that was just a hotbed of inspiration, mostly positive.
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You know, there was, there's, you know, a little bit of, I
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suppose heartbreak in there. At a larger level.
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I, I view songwriting. I view it like the the beginning
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you see in many movies inspired by a true story.
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Not saying it's true, you know, it's not, you know, it's not a
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documentary, but you get to, you know, you get to a point life,
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high point life where you had a lot of experiences and you may
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not consciously be drawing on those, but they're there and
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they're and they're, they're, they're driving what it is that
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you're able to compose. Do you write more from pain or
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hope or reflection? If I.
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Had to choose one. I think I'd say reflection.
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You know, there's some of my songs that people said, wow,
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that's pretty grim. And I said, well, that's how I
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felt when I wrote it. The last song on the third album
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is called Even Forever Ends. And the topic is guys saying
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don't, don't say you'll love me forever 'cause Even Forever
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Ends, yeah, it's, there's, there's like no hope in that
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song whatsoever. But I can't.
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I came up with the title first. I was thinking about like, even
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forever ends forever should be without an ending.
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But the counterpoint there is, yeah, in the real world it can.
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Do you find that songwriting is therapeutic?
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Like for my writing that, you know, I write fiction, but I
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still when I get lost in my writing, it seems very
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therapeutic to me. Absolutely, absolutely.
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You're right. You know, you're expressing
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things. One of the things I find
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gratifying about music is I'll express things that I might have
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a hard time expressing otherwise.
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You know, I mean, there are things that I'll, I'll say in a
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song that I probably wouldn't say if I were sitting in a room
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just discussing things with people.
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I think to some extent you can hide behind the music.
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And it's almost like writing fiction in the first person.
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But that's not me. The author's writing it, but
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it's a character who's speaking. And that that puts some distance
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between what the author is actually thinking and feeling
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and what goes on the the written page.
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I think it's the same way with, with songwriting.
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Well, don't take this too seriously.
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I'm not saying I actually, I'm not saying I actually felt that
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way, but songs have characters. A lot of times it, it's the
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singer, it's it's essentially the narrator.
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Other times you have trait characters who sort of work
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things out for you. Yeah, it's it's very
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therapeutic. I agree.
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I agree. So you said you're from Dayton,
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OH and it has its own musical history.
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Has your hometown influenced your sound at all?
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Dayton has a wonderful performing arts culture and we
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have a lot of great musicians, many of whom I've used on my
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work. We have some wonderful venues.
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We have venues where artists tend to perform their own work.
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I don't want to like, step on too many toes here.
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I just have never really been satisfied playing in a cover
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band where you're just trying to mimic as closely as possible
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someone else's recording. I understand it's entertaining.
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Many of musicians, they're fabulous musicians, you know,
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I'm not questioning their talent, but there's a difference
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between talent and creativity. I mean, you, you can and you can
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hit every note down on. But somebody else created that.
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And I, I, I know it's a problem. You know, if you're playing in a
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bar and you say, hey, now we're going to do one of our own
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songs, Everyone goes to the bathroom.
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Yeah, 'cause they wanted to hear, they wanted to hear
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Fleetwood Mac or a version of Fleetwood Mac.
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But yeah, we've got we've got small venues, we've got a couple
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great outdoor venues. We've got Schuster Center for
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the Performing Arts, which is the World Class Auditorium.
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So there's yeah, there's lots to do.
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And Cincinnati's 40 miles down the road, much bigger city and
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it it has a vibrant music music scene as well.
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It does. I I went to College in Zenia,
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Ohio, so I spent a lot of time in Dayton and Cincinnati.
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Just wonderful areas and I enjoy it every time I go I'm in
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Indiana, so you know anytime I can get out of the corn stage.
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So in a world full of. Fast.
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Digital music, what keeps you grounded in storytelling?
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Well, I don't pay much attention to what's going on.
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If you ask me, for example, if I were to watch the Grammys, I'd
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wager that I, I might not have heard of 90% of the artists.
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And a lot of my buddies are sort of the same way.
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You know, everybody gets stuck in the past.
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You know, there's that purity of your life, high school and
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college when you listen to music all the time.
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That's why oldies stations are so popular, right?
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So I don't, you know, sometimes, every so often, someone will
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criticize my my recording and say, well, it just doesn't sound
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modern. OK, I just, I never, you know,
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I'd, I'd like, I'd like to think that my, my work is somewhat
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commercial. I'd love to have someone else
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record one of my songs. As far as production's
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concerned, I'm not thinking I need to make this a hit.
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I'm thinking I need to make this the way I'm feeling like it.
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And I always have a Co producer, which is critical because
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somebody has to say at some point, Tim, you're just this
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isn't working. And and I I have no problem
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being told that because, you know, anybody I'm working with
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knows a lot more than I do about the recording and engineering
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process. Absolutely.
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It's, it's very important, I agree, to have a producer.
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And for those of you listening, if you're a writer, listen to
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your editor, listen to your producers.
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You don't know all I learned. You get, you get married to a
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song, you know, I'll, I'll go into the studio and I've given
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everybody, you know, a scratch version.
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And especially with vocals, you know, the vocalist will take it
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in a whole other direction. And my first thought is, you
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know, you're not doing it the right way.
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You know, you're wrecking the sun.
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But that when I got the guy sitting next to me, the
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engineer, the Co produced, he says, Tim, I think you ought to
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give this one a chance. And they always turn out to be
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right. But when I look back and I think
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this is this is so much better than the way I envisioned it.
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But it's a matter of interpretation.
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You know, the pauses, the phrasing, it makes a ton of
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difference in in the feel of the song.
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For sure it does. So you say take the.
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Musical journey that defines your life.
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What does that mean to you? I was just something I thought
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up a long time ago and I I was trying to promote the first
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album. It's it's it's sort of AI mean.
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It's an egotistical statement. But the first album, I mean, I
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try to be as thoughtful as possible, arranging the order of
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the songs, which frankly is sort of like silly anymore because
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most people don't sit down and go, OK, I'm going to start and
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listen to this in order. And they jump around, they
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listen to one song. But I've told people over and
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over, if you want to know a lot about me, listen to one of the
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albums. So what I probably should have
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said if I'd been more humble, is take the musical journey that
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defines my life. It makes sense.
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So if someone is listening right now who put their creative
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dreams on hold, what would you tell them there?
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Are a few things in this life that are more satisfying than
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making something out of nothing And and I think that music and
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and I think to a large extent writing the most artistic
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mediums you have, you know, a painter has brushes and paint
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and a sculptor as clay. Most things you start with some
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some sort of physical objects, whereas when you're writing
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music literally are making something out of nothing and you
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should take advantage of that. Don't worry about whether it's
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good or not. Most people don't start out
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writing a fabulous song. You know, I've got recordings
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that are over 50 years old and you know, some of the songs
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aren't bad. Others, you know, I would
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probably disown if someone tried to depend them on me.
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So it's, it's just it's fun to have a craft.
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It's fun to have a hobby. I don't know if you've heard of
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a guitar player named Steve Vai. He's a fabulous guitar player.
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He's backed up a whole lot of different bands.
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He's a shredder very fast. And he said in an interview,
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once he goes, you know, he says you can be in high school, you
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can be picked on, you can be having the worst day of your
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life. But if you've got a guitar and
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three chords, it can take you to another world that's.
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That's brilliant. That's true.
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Yeah, I agree. I get that.
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That's a that's a great statement.
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So tell us. About the new album.
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The new album is a we we took some stuff that's older but was
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never promoted, some brand new stuff and we put it out.
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I wanted to get it out in time for sort of the next award.
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Cycle 24 was a great year for me.
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Last Hope got nominated for like album of the year, but that the
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Issa Awards in Atlanta and the Josie Awards at the Grand Ole
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Opry. I didn't win, but I never
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thought I'd be at the Grand Old Opry as a nominee.
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That's incredible. 2025. I really didn't have, you know,
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much to submit. You know, I'm hoping that at
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least get another nomination or two.
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Absolutely. I hope so too.
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That's incredible. Because you can't be in this for
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the money, right? This is more of a money pit, to
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tell you the truth. Because everything costs
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musicians studio time, and it's very tough to make a jump from
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independent to, you know, wide, widely popular.
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There's almost no money in streaming.
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Best case you're maybe getting a half set per stream.
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And that the industry, it's skewed so that people are
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selling a lot of records are probably getting more than their
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fair share because there's a computer model says, OK, we've
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got all this money and this is how we're going to distribute it
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based on how popular we think you are.
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So to me, that the payoff has been recognition by people who
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don't care if they hurt my feelings.
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Now your friends say, Oh my gosh, Tim, you know, you're
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amazing. You're great.
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OK, maybe they think that, maybe they don't.
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But when you get an an award nomination, they don't know me.
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And they're they're industry professionals.
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So that's. Yeah, that that was one of those
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things. I I never foresaw that
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happening, but then it did. It did.
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And hey, the opera that's that's legendary.
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So congratulations on that. What is up next for you?
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I'm promoting this album. I'm trying to get lined up for
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the awards season. Still riding.
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I mean, I've got, you know, we're recording stuff right now.
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When I when I've recorded the first album, I thought, OK, I
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did it done. Then I thought that after the
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2nd and I thought it after the 3rd.
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And then I, I'm still, I'm thinking it now because the new
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album is somewhat fresh. I just, I don't know.
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I was talking to a guy the other day who is somewhat experienced
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in the music industry and mostly retired, but he was very, very
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complimentary. And he says, well, you know, I'm
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going to make some phone calls and see what I can do.
00:16:02
I'm not counting on anything, but you never know.
00:16:07
You talk, you talk about an unpredictable business, music.
00:16:11
You know, some some people can have 50 year careers, people
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like The Rolling Stones. Then you've got those people
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that had this gigantic hit and that was the end of it.
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There are people in Dayton that you know, that played with
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fairly well known bands and now they're saying you want fries
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with the burger. I mean, it's it's hard to
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imagine that you could that you could have such a big hit and
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yet for whatever reason, bad management, bad luck, you know,
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some people have, you know, it's like you hear some, some some
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people have one great novel, you know, like Gone with a win.
00:16:46
OK. I mean, that was pretty much it.
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And then she got run over by a car down in Atlanta, To Kill a
00:16:53
Mockingbird. I mean, ultimately there was a
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second novel, but for a long time it was just To Kill a
00:16:58
Mockingbird. And I guess that happens with
00:17:01
songs. Yeah.
00:17:04
You get the just the right song, right production and it, you
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know, the public latches on to it.
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And then after that, you know, you remember a song called in
00:17:16
the year 2525 by Zeiger and Evans that may be the best
00:17:22
selling single of all time. What was their follow up?
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I couldn't even tell you who it was that sang it, so yeah,
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you're right. No one knows.
00:17:30
Yes, yes. It was like, I mean, Denny Zager
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went on to build really, really great guitars and and did a lot
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of teaching, but it was a monster hit.
00:17:41
Yes. But whatever they did after
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that, nobody heard. Yeah.
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It can turn on a dime. It really can.
00:17:48
Yeah, it's, it's got to be disappointing.
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There's something, there's something sort of safe about
00:17:53
being in my zone because it's not like I've ever like been at
00:17:57
the top of the mountain and all of a sudden, you know, I'm
00:18:00
rolling down the side of the hill.
00:18:02
I just can't imagine what it's like to be, to be recognized by
00:18:06
everybody. One minute and a year later,
00:18:09
your old news. It's a rough industry, it is.
00:18:12
Although I would I would take the risk of being at the top of
00:18:15
the hill. Yeah, right.
00:18:17
I would too. I absolutely agree with that.
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And I'm thinking of all the one hit wonders right now going
00:18:23
through my head and I'm like, yeah, you know, you don't see
00:18:25
them again. They just where did they go?
00:18:27
So yeah, that's a good point. So where can the audience find
00:18:30
you? My.
00:18:31
Website is midnight, skymusic.com.
00:18:34
There's a lot of stuff there. There's you can listen to some
00:18:37
songs, there's news. What's, you know, what's new in
00:18:40
my music world? I'm on all the platforms.
00:18:43
I'm on Spotify and Apple and everything else.
00:18:46
So yeah, it's not, it's not hard to define my music if you'd like
00:18:50
to listen to it, and I hope people do.
00:18:53
I do too, and I will make sure that they are all LinkedIn, the
00:18:55
show notes. But Tim, thank you so much for
00:18:58
joining me. I appreciate it.
00:18:59
Well, thank you. It's been delightful.
00:19:04
Tim's story is such a powerful reminder that creativity doesn't
00:19:08
have an expiration date, it just waits for you to come back to
00:19:11
it. Whether it's music.
00:19:12
Writing or any form of expression, there's something
00:19:14
incredibly meaningful about making something out of nothing,
00:19:18
and even more so when you allow yourself the freedom to just
00:19:21
begin without worrying about perfection.
00:19:23
If you'd like to check out Tim's music, you can find him at
00:19:26
midnight skymusic.com, as well as on Spotify, Apple Music, and
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all major streaming platforms. I'll have everything LinkedIn,
00:19:33
the show notes for you, and if this episode resonated with you,
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if it made you think about something you've been putting
00:19:39
off, I'd love to hear about it. Leave us a comment or you can
00:19:42
always reach out or connect with me over Instagram.
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Until next time, keep creating, keep questioning, and keep
00:19:48
embracing your own plot twist.