Tim Chandler passed away almost two months ago. One of the admittedly selfish but immediate thoughts at learning of his death was “What does this mean for the music of The Choir and Daniel Amos?” Here are my thoughts on the issue.
Let’s look at The Choir first. I’ve gone into at length elsewhere how The Choir was instrumental in my early Christian walk, allowing me to see that I wasn’t alone in being imperfect and giving me lyrics deep enough to cause one to chew on them a bit. However here I’m just going to lay it out with no sugar coating. The Choir haven’t put out a good album since 2005. There. I’ve said it. I write album reviews for a local publication and always enjoyed being able to toot the horn of my pet bands but for the past few albums I decided not to write a review of The Choir. I mean, it’s one thing to gush over a band few have heard of in the hopes that they might gain a few more fans but it accomplishes nothing to write a negative review. Tim and I had been friends for about twenty years and he would call me after each release to ask my opinion, telling me that he appreciated my honest thoughts. I would tell him that songs I liked and why as well as what I didn’t. Sometimes it seemed that the lyrics seemed trite (at least for a band founded on poetry) but often it was that the songs just weren’t very strong or that the music seemed a bit light. It seems to me that for the past ten years or so Derri and Steve have been trying to muzzle Tim’s manic playing, lowering it in the mix or not letting him play as extravagantly as he felt the song might need. Sure, I understand why. Steve and Derri had tasted some small bit of success in the larger Christian music world and wanted to appeal to a larger audience (and pay some bills… I have no problem with that). However Tim was still interested in making art, another foundation of this once seminal band. It’s was often Tim’s deranged bass lines that took a simple “silly love song” and added tension. Consider “Flap Your Wings.” Without all of Tim’s noise and sonic destruction it’s just a slightly interesting introduction song. Other times Tim would play notes outside of the key of a song, often subliminally adding interest.
As further evidence of my theory is the recent acoustic version of Kissers and Killers. This was their most raucous, distorted album and Steve and Derri recently endeavored to make an acoustic version, stripping off all of the grit. Sure, it makes it easier to tour as a duo and gives an easy album release to sell, but it just feels to me like they’re trying to rewrite history.
So even if Tim was still alive, how much effect would he had been allowed to have on their next album? The horrible answer is that Tim wasn’t even officially a member of the band when he died. In very early July Tim called me because he had been kicked out of the band by Steve via text message. Tim was more incredulous than anything. There had been no meeting, no discussion, just a text message. Apparently Tim’s ex-wife said something that the source could only have been Steve so Tim called him out on it. Shortly thereafter, Tim was out. I don’t know more than that, though I have some speculations, and admittedly I only have one side of the story. I called Tim a month later to see how things were. This was the last time I ever talked to him. He and Steve and Derri and Dan were on friendly terms but he was not back in the band and Robin was going to play the gig in the fall. Who knows if the fences would have been mended by the recording of the next album so that Tim would even be playing on it?
Tim had expressed his frustration to me on a couple of events during the recording of Bloodshot and how the band wasn’t really reaching for the brass ring anymore. I remember him saying “There was a reason why I never jumped in the air and landed on my back with The Choir.” But he did do so with Daniel Amos.
I have less insights into Daniel Amos, mostly because they are not as active as The Choir so Tim didn’t talk as much about them. But what he did say was always positive, both about the music and the other members. I fear that the passing of Tim, however, means that Daniel Amos has also died. They have put out two albums in the past twenty years (one was a double album so let’s call that three) plus a Swirling Eddies release. Tim had been a member of DA since album number five and was an integral part of their sound. According to Terry, Tim pushed him to be more adventurous musically. If you’ve heard any of Terry’s Patreon recordings it’s easy to see that this is true. But to be fair, it’s true for everyone. What makes bands interesting are the blends of influences. Take one person out of the band as a solo artist and usually it’s pretty bland. The best example of this I heard was the Beatles song “Getting Better.” It’s a cheery McCartney song but Lennon adds just one line: “It couldn’t get much worse.” This one humorous, pessimistic line takes what would have been a saccharine ditty and makes it great.
So would Daniel Amos have made another album? There was always talk of doing another one. The fans were certainly there with their wallets open. My guess is that they probably would have done one more album before Terry or Ed got too old or had health issues. I mean, Terry is only sixty-eight but in his Patreon videos he doesn’t look overly robust. I know that might be taken as unkind, but the man is definitely slowing down and that’s okay. That’s normal.
That’s about all I have. I’ve had this blogpost rolling around in my head for quite a while and just had to get it out.
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