Becoming an Entertainer: 1998-2005
Supporting himself by bartending and insuring he stay immersed in the nightlife, Tyler Christensen played Arizona’s bars, clubs, coffee houses, book stores,art galleries, and private parties. Always conscious of the dream as number one, Tyler’s employment had to support and coincide with his musical ambitions. Dividing his nights between pulling taps and spilling booze into glasses for patrons, to the other side of the bar spilling the booze out of his own glass on stage.
In 1998, Tyler’s core group of high school friends moved to Los Angeles, and Tyler intended to soon follow. But, the time he spent semi-isolated from his buddies pushed him to seek the dream at greater depths. He began playing solo something he hadn’t done much since forming the band Promiscuous Chicken and the myriad of bands that followed. Tyler had grown weary of the sometimes diffucult dynamics of performing with a band and he sought to simplify.
“I wasn’t hearing the music anymore. It was more like I was onstage with this swirling muddy noise and my job was just to move my hands and mouth at the proper times. People cheer, beer bottles clink into the trash. (murmur murmur.) It’s kinda like being a deaf marionette.” He recalls. “I just wanted to pare everything down, to simplify. I needed to search for sound. Up until then I was just kinda molding myself into the proper size and shape for the particular “sound” of the band, but, never quite becoming myself in my own music.”
Tyler began writing voraciously, he had seemed to find a formula, and it was working. Pop melodies and blues-tainted rhythms began pouring out of him. And as with everything, Tyler sought balance and crafted languishing ballads rounding out his ever approaching signature sound. He was delving into interests ranging from The Violent Femmes, Nirvana, Soundgarden, The Black Crows, Rakes Progress, and Toadies to Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Elliot Smith, Ryan Adams, Jeff Buckley and Damien Rice.
Tyler seldom played cover songs in his earlier sets, but with exploration came discovery and he soon began working out new arrangements of popular music. This seemed to help him along in his own songwriting as arrangements became more complex, and less formulaic. And his lyrics took a sharp turn and began to scratch deeper than the surface.
He formed and disbanded a few more bands, such as the guitar, piano, drums pop trio: Sun Machine. But, his devotion was now squarely placed on his development as a solo performer. He performed seldomly and wrote tirelessly and it came to be 2005, and Tyler was looking to test himself musically.
“Music is a pure form of communication, like mathematics. Music is universal. I wanted to test my music, my ability to communicate if you will. I guess I went to Prague to live the dream, really live it. Outside of my comfort zone, at the mercy of a place where noone knew me, and most didn’t speak my language. I wanted to busker, gig at clubs in a foreign city. I wanted to use my music as a means to explore another place. I left for Prague on July 4th, 2005. He says with a smile. “My own Indie-penance day.”
