Mary Timony.
After more than a decade that saw her work mostly in the rock bands Wild Flag and Ex Hex, singer-songwriter-guitarist Mary Timony will be releasing Untame the Tiger, her first new solo album in 15 years on Friday. As the acclaimed indie rocker recently explained, the type of material she was working on at the time seemed more appropriate for a solo project than a group one.
“They didn't sound like Ex Hex songs exactly,” Timony says. “I was sort of writing songs and seeing what they sounded like. I'd gone back to using this way of tuning the guitar when I did the other solo records because it's a fun, interesting tuning to play in. It’s just drop D and one other string is lower. So it makes me play a little different. I guess the short answer is they just sounded like solo songs.”
Untame the Tiger carries the signature aspects of Timony’s 30-year career spanning from her time in the ‘90s groups Autoclave and Helium through her solo albums during the 2000s such as Mountains and The Golden Dove to the present. The path towards the creation of the new record was not an easy one amid a period of upheaval in Timony’s personal life — most notably when she became her parents’ caregiver up until their deaths.
“My dad was sick for three or four years,” she explains. “And my mom was sick, too, but we didn't know it. She was not doing well. It was a lot and so intense switching roles with them. I don't regret any of that time. And I had lost a long-term relationship all at the same time. It was so insane. It was all during the pandemic, of course, which I didn't even notice because I was dealing with all this crazy s***.” (laughs)
“I think a lot of the songs are — some of them, anyway — probably reflect me going like, ‘Okay, well, my life is turning out to be a lot different than I knew it was going to be.’ Losing the people that you're closest to is a lot. Everybody goes through this stuff. Life is really intense sometimes.”
In recording Untame the Tiger, which was co-produced by Timony, Joe Wong and Dennis Kane, the guitarist says that she made sure it came out exactly how she wanted it. “I also wanted to do a solo record so I could play with a bunch of different musicians. I somehow enlisted [Fairport Convention drummer] Dave Mattacks, who is a hero. That was an incredible experience. He was wonderful and such a good musician and so great to work with.”
Untame the Tiger draws from such styles as post-punk, British folk and psychedelia accompanied by Timony’s distinctive guitar playing. Unveiled ahead of the album’s release, the first single “Dominoes” is upbeat-sounding, although the story behind it isn’t quite as feel good. “I have a tendency to fall for the wrong person,” Timony says. “So I think that's what that song is about. It's kind of more fun. It's just a story of falling for the wrong person and realizing it. That's all.” (laughs) The standout title track, which musically shifts from a cinematic-sounding piece to a pop number, has a similar backstory to “Dominoes,” as she says of “people that inspire you that are interesting and crazy [but] not to be in a relationship with.”
The record also gave Timony room to stretch out creatively, as is the case with the driving and urgent “No Thirds,” the longest track on the record at over six minutes, backed by string accompaniment. “I would say the lyrics have to do with losing people that you're close to and just trying to keep forging ahead,” she says. “Like when your future seems kind of different than you thought it was going to be. I guess mostly losing the long-term relationship. I wanted it to sound like a wide-open, kind of barren space.
“The strings—that was an example of something that I took so much time to figure out, an insane amount of time. Like I did one recording, and then I tweaked it, and then I did another recording and tweaked it and did another recording. I kept going back and back and back and trying to get it perfect. There's also EBow in there…it's like this way to play guitar that makes it sound more like a violin. So that's in the mix there, too. Now when I listen back, I'm like, ‘Oh, I could have just done fake strings.’ (laughs) But anyway, I wanted to get it right.”
Untame the Tiger’s cosmic, dream-like “Not the Only One,” ends the album on an optimistic note following the personal difficulties hinted in some of the previous tracks. It was one of the first songs Timony wrote for the record. “I don't claim much ownership in the sequence of the record. They're all my babies and I get so precious about every single one of them. Usually, the way I would want to sequence the record is that the stuff that I'm insecure about, I will put last, which is not the right way to do it. It should just flow. But I'm glad that that sounds optimistic. I always liked that one. I had a lot of fun doing the guitars.”
Timony will tour behind the new record starting Feb. 28 with support from the musicians who played on it, including drummer David Christian, bassist Chad Molter and guitarist Betsy Wright, Timony’s Ex Hex bandmate. “I'm going to play songs from the new album [and] kind of a mix of some Helium songs from [the 1997 record] The Magic City and then songs from some solo albums,” says Timony. “I just feel so happy that all these guys are going to be with me on the road. I’m psyched about it.”
One of Timony’s upcoming tour stops is on March 14 at Black Cat in Washington, D.C., which is also her hometown. While Timony grew up exposed to the D.C. punk scene during the ‘80s, her musical influences could be traced to ‘70s rock (check out her live rendition of Yes’ “Long Distance Runaround” from a few years back); additionally, she previously name-checked guitar virtuosos like Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmsteen.
“I'm a classic rock fan,” she says. “Most of the music that I really love is from the '70s. I'm a big psychedelic garage rock/prog rock fan. I do like punk music, but it’s not where my heart is, actually. I did go to music school a little bit, so that's where the Yngwie fandom comes from. I studied guitar pretty seriously as a teenager at this school called Duke Ellington here in D.C. And then I went to classical guitar school for a year. But I'm definitely a music nerd in my heart.”
WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 6: Mary Timony plays songs from her band Helium at the Rock and Roll Hotel. ... [+]
Timony has been widely regarded as a guitar hero; Rolling Stone ranked her as one of the 250 greatest guitarists of all time. As indicated by Timony’s earlier works, her guitar playing evokes a sort of mystical, English medieval folk sound. Timony explains that it’s possibly due to her days playing the viola as a kid. “I've always liked the sort of modal stuff that happens in British folk and old music. And so then I got into tuning my guitar in different tunings and got into kind of modal-sounding stuff. I guess it’s something that appeals to my ear.
“It's not like I was ever a totally serious classical musician,” she continues. “I didn't practice enough as a kid playing viola. I was always more like someone who played by ear as a rock musician. I'm really drawn to the sound of music from the 1500s-1600s. I love British and Irish folk music sounds.”
Timony has been part of two high-profiled bands in the last 15 years, first with the supergroup Wild Flag and most recently Ex Hex, whose two albums, Rips (2014) and It’s Real (2019), evoked glam and garage rock. “I enjoyed that band,” Timony says of Ex Hex. “It's streamlined and the songs are super edited and they're made to be played live. It's basically a pop band. The music's fun to play, and it has a fun vibe that people catch on to. Playing in that band is such a blast…it's all around super pozzy.”
Given her long career in indie rock where she deftly navigated through various creative endeavors, does she have a preference for being a solo artist or a band member? Timony says that it's all kind of the same thing when it comes to creativity. “There's pros and cons to both working in a group of equals and doing a solo thing where you're the boss. It's hard to be a solo person because it's all you. It's more vulnerable, I guess, and it costs more money. It's fun to be in a band and have it be collaborative. They're both challenging in different ways and good in different ways.
“I don't even know why it's worked out this way that I do this back-and-forth thing,” Timony continues. “It wasn't intentional. I kind of go with the flow with whatever's happening. So I don't know. I'm just doing my thing here.”
Mary Timony’s new album, ‘Untame the Tiger,’ will be released this Friday via Merge records.
