Timmy and The Five Minute Opera
Recently at Moths and Giraffes, we received an email that made us write this tweet:
By ‘mental’, we mean the British term of mental, in that the unbelievable scale of the song we were hearing blew us away beyond definition. That song is the debut single by Timmy called ‘Spoiled Brat Syndrome’. Take our hand and join us as we follow the yellow brick road of this recording and production masterpiece, with a concluding Q&A from Timmy shedding more light on just how he put this bombastic debut together.
Hailing from Gateshead in the North of England, vocalist and songwriter Timmy has been out honing his chops in a plethora of bands from the age of 13. Since the pandemic, he’s been quietly working away and refining his solo music. Timmy’s six octave vocal range is one of his most eye-opening musical assets, as well as his ability to remove the barriers between genres and make them sound as if they were all meant to co-exist.
Demonstrating both attributes immensely here, his monumental single ‘Spoiled Brat Syndrome’ is the first taken from his forthcoming debut album – strap yourselves in, wear headphones, and play LOUD.
You could be forgiven for thinking ‘Spoiled Brat Syndrome’ is something a little more sedate when presented with an opening of didgeridoo-esque drone. This is quickly dispelled by a frantic drum and bass breakbeat and octave guitar reminiscent of nu-metal, building up to a <’GO’> full blown metal track as if the first thirty seconds of this song hadn’t happened. Timmy lets rip with a power metal scream before dropping to the other end of his vocal range in a guttural growl. And this is all before any of the lyric begins.
‘It’s beyond my imagination the attention someone be craving, when resorting to shooting out false accusations, ruining reputations with their sick, specific, fictional situations, cause fucking implications, defamation.’
Here ‘Spoiled Brat Syndrome’ changes tact, as Timmy embodies a cartoon delivery akin to Eminem’s Slim Shady persona, taking the listener into an NHS examination for autism spectrum disorder gone horribly wrong. His anger at the outcome morphs back into his metal growl before a rapped verse explains the misunderstanding from a student nurse ‘permanently fucked my NHS record’.
Transforming his vocal again, Timmy’s chorus for ‘Syndrome’ is anthemic as he struggles to deal with the situation; ‘Traumatised, cracking bottles every night, just to get by, different day, same ol’ shite. Consumed by distorted memories, my appetite for these illusions mess with me, whilst the grief won’t just let me be, eventually I potentially won’t care?’ It’s during these choruses where Timmy combines his Axl Rose hard rock voice, with the vocal backing and layering discipline of 1970’s Queen, but this is far from the end of Timmy’s vocal acrobatics.
In the second verse, Timmy manages to retain his higher vocal range used in the chorus, but deliver it in a metal scream, ‘But what the fuck did you fucking expect? Though I’m pretty sure I’ll see Jenni in my DMs.’ This mentioning of the character Jenni isn’t the last we hear of her in ‘Spoiled Brat Syndrome’.
In the meantime, Timmy takes on the role of an unnamed woman during a phone call with her daughter Libby; ‘Hiya Libby, it’s Mammy, I’m really fucking sorry for sniffing coke with your friends whilst you were in bed upstairs…’ The words of the responsible parent, as well as the earlier verses feature jazz piano performed by Barry Hyde, vocalist and guitarist with The Futureheads. Otherwise, it cannot be stated enough that every single vocal, guitar part, drum performance and beyond is performed single-handedly by Timmy. This also includes the recording and production, amounting to a mammoth 545 tracks, with Timmy only receiving help during the song’s mixing stage when he enlisted YouTube guitar personality Nick Jennison to assist with the overwhelming workload.
‘But a rap-rock song can’t possibly have this many tracks, what else is there?’ I hear you ask.
With a scream of ‘SING IT!’ the second chorus expands into a full stage musical ensemble, ‘I’ve been an easy target since the age of three, yous have long stop surprising me, developed borderline personality, hearsay I’m pissing my life away.’ Timmy builds up a fifty-piece children’s choir backed with anxious xylophone to explain the destructive and recurring nature of suffering with debilitating mental illness, ‘Reminiscing on things I can’t change, a vicious cycle of dwelling with no sway, which any second now is gonna give way, I never know if ima see the next day.’
To add to his cache of vocal personalities, Timmy crosses the English Channel to inhabit the voice of a Frenchman for the song’s middle eight, ‘All of the pressure I put on myself is counter-productive and bad for my health.’ Timmy continues to vocalise the nature of suffering with mental health issues in the UK, and how easily patients are pushed away; “Prescribed anti-depressants didn’t help, five years ago I said ‘I just wanted help’, and now ima bout another spilt coffee away from self-prescribing Ketamine, oh my days!”
As if the listener has leant on the fast-forward button, Timmy goes into overdrive for his following rap which further describes the increasingly inward thoughts of a person in this situation. He describes himself as ‘Anxious, aggressive, angry, ambitious, imaginative, impulsive, impatient,’ as thoughts pass through the brain too rapidly to process. Timmy attempts to negotiate with his brain on the position of normality, to which a pitched demonic voice replies, ‘No! Now never ever, ever ask ever again! You exhausting, embarrassing, egotistical, easily enraged, emotionally drained dickhead!’
Though Timmy resolves to get ‘mortal drunk’ in response to the voice, his outlook remains optimistic as he hopes to one day be producing with a beach view as vocalist Oli Sykes of Bring Me The Horizon has. He reiterates this by saying, ‘the riverside view student accommodation obviously ain’t the final destination,’ and that he’s forcing a positive resolution, eliminating his writer’s block, vanquishing the voice in his head and ‘putting the nails in the coffin.’
In what appears to be a big finish, the intro’s breakbeat kicks back in for another round of the chorus. Timmy throws everything at ‘Spoiled Brat Syndrome’ for a grand finale featuring the children’s choir and a bursting brass section accompanied by the self-contained metal band. If this was a stage production, there would be pyrotechnics, an explosive set collapse and a celebratory encore with characters past and present. A chaotic riot crashing down and culminating with the ensemble leading a chant of ‘We’re all sniffing coke with Jenni, YAY!’
Timmy’s ‘Spoiled Brat Syndrome’ is like an entire musical wrapped up in just over five minutes, extracted from a world without musical boundaries, free from constraint of sonic ideals and off-limit to no abstract lyrical thought. This is Timmy’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, a complete odyssey from the brain of its creator and surely the beginning of an exciting and outstanding musical career.
Continue reading for our Q&A with Timmy. We ask him about the lyrical origins of ‘Spoiled Brat Syndrome’, just how he managed to mix such a monumental production, and his self-taught vocal journey. All this and more below!
1. Your debut single 'Spoiled Brat Syndrome' is a real exclamation mark after 'debut single'. Did the track or the lyrics come first? My gut feeling is that not much of this lyric is fictional?
Both the music and the lyrics came around the same time, and just kept growing alongside each other.
Musically it started as a standard rock song, with the riff, chorus, bridge etc.. I thought it was kinda meh, but liked the riff and rough melody idea I had for the chorus & harmonies. The potential was there, and it’s just one of those things that kept growing and growing until it became the wack version it is today. Every stupid idea I had, I thought fuck it, and just added it in (which now is pretty much my entire approach to song writing & producing) That’s why it ended up having swung bebop jazz verses in the final version with schizophrenic transitions. It’s funny, I feel like this specific song is just the result of 2 years worth of manifestation. Before I even knew how to “properly” produce music, I knew I wanted a rock song with the Eminem Godzilla flow in it, a song with kid choirs, a song with 50s style squealing brass etc. Everything that ended up being in the final version of brat syndrome, from even the key that I’m singing in and the notes I’m hitting, are pure manifestation. Just turns out instead of being spread out among different songs, it all ended up in the same one.
Lyrically it’s a vent song. It’s a bunch of situations I’ve been in, all linked together in one song, which will make more sense as to why in the context of my album. The original lyric idea I had for the original brat syndrome instrumental was completely different. What actually triggered the lyric concept change was the Amber Heard & Johnny Depp trial last year. When that was going on, it made me remember these other lyrics I had, so I restarted and went from there. That trial made me finish those lyrics. That’s why in the chorus I’m saying “hearsay I’m pissing my life away” after talking about my Borderline Personality Disorder. It came out that she also had BPD in court, and there was the constant hearsay interruptions during that trial, so I played into that. I’m glad that I did decide to change the lyric concept because I feel these lyrics fit the instrumental perfectly, along with my vocal choices and delivery, the whole thing of me just venting with the instrumental going mad really clicks for me.
2. This song is recorded across 545 tracks. I didn't even realise a computer could have enough processing power to handle that amount of music. How long did it take to produce this song?
Yeah my computer couldn’t handle it. Even when I kept bouncing things down, Logic kept crashing. In the final stages of mixing I couldn’t even listen back to the track in the project, I had to bounce it, listen to the bounce, write down the rough changes, load the project back up, make those changes without even being able to hear what I was changing. Then repeat. It was insanely stressful and difficult.
3. Barry Hyde added piano to 'Spoiled Brat Syndrome', how did you get him involved in making the track?
Barry’s one of my university lecturers. In the stages of the song developing, I had the idea of getting him to lay down some soloing pianos on the verses. I dropped him a message and he was game to do it. In the studio as he was playing stuff I just kept pushing for more and more notes, to the point where the parts got so out there I decided to embrace it by changing the song to straight up jazz. That recording session was a lot of fun, certain licks he played were from ideas I’d sing him on the spot that he’d then replicate on the piano. And then other licks, like the fast ascending run at the end of the phone call section, I knew exactly where it was going to go in the track as soon as he played it.
4. Although you produced this work alone, Nick Jennison helped you mix it. How did he contribute to the process?
Yeah I wasn’t a mixer at all until this track. I wasn’t even meant to be mixing it, I had sent the track off to be mixed back in June last year, and the person who was supposed to be doing it never got back to me with it, without saying anything or giving any updates. So after waiting around for months, I then had to learn how to mix myself so that I wouldn’t be utterly fucked around again in the future, and have another single release be massively delayed. I had tried mixing before in the past and failed miserably, and also had no passion for it whatsoever. Mixing is extremely hard, you have to really know what you’re doing to do it to a pro standard. Nick basically taught me to mix from scratch. It was funny because it was one of those situations where “if you can mix this, you can mix anything”. You don’t normally mix a 545 track project as your first. I basically threw myself in the deep end, which has became a normal thing in my life. Though I do feel after this song I can officially call myself a mixer.
5. With such an immense production, how do you go about writing or demoing such a huge piece of music like this? Did you decide you wanted to explore all these genres early on?
I appreciate the production compliment! Like I said earlier on, the original demo was just a basic rock song. I just kept adding to it until it became what it is. In regards to all the different styles, I just like everything. Even with bands and projects I had been part of in the past, I was always the “let’s make every song a different genre” person. It’s what I always loved about Queen. You listen to an album like Sheer Heart Attack or A Day At The Races, the range of styles they cover is insane. I always wanted my stuff to be like that. So many bands and artists love to label themselves to one genre, and I just never saw the point of putting yourself in a box like that. The more stuff you can take from and being inspired by, the better imo. There’s great artists in every genre, that all do cool shit. Be open minded.
6. Your vocal range is incredible. Have you had training to get to that level, or is this something you figured out on your own?
Cheers again. Yeah vocals took a while. I had no natural singing ability whatsoever, but always knew that if I was going to sing I wanted a crazy vocal range, be able to go both really high and low, be able to do every style etc, which is quite the task for someone who had no real baseline. I had to seriously work on it, and had nothing but criticism my entire vocal journey by all the people I no longer have any contact with. I decided that I was going to become a vocalist in lockdown 2020, so I’ve only been singing around 3 years. I want people to look at me, and understand that anyone can do anything. All you have to do is work hard. Talent isn’t real and is a concept that was made up by lazy people, it’s all just passion and hard work. Though I did actually end up getting vocal lessons off Nick Jennison last year which was a real game changer for me. A lot of it was just getting through all the bullshit that’s taught in the singing world, and believe me there’s a lot…. Before that, I was fully self taught. I feel spoiled brat syndrome alone proves that voice types are bullshit terms, probably made up by the same people that came up with talent. Anyone can train their voice to do anything. It’s just like going to the gym. Training to hit a bench press PR is the same thing as training to sing Back In Black.
7. I know you love playing live, is there a way this music could be performed live?
I can’t wait to do brat syndrome live. A lot of the song in the early stages of my career is going to be on click. The live setup, which I’m working on as we speak, is me, a drummer and a guitarist/bass player switching on songs accordingly. Eventually I want a crazy touring band, with soul singers as backups and a brass band, but all that extra shit I can’t do till my budget gets bigger.
8. You're a big fan of Guns N' Roses, is there an absolute pinnacle GnR song for you?
Coma is my all time favourite GnR song, and I’m actually doing that in my live set. It’s extremely hard vocally, especially when it gets to the end as you need so much stamina, which makes me want to do it even more for the competitive challenge aspect of it. Me doing a song like Coma live rather than Sweet Child O’ Mine like everyone else is to make a statement. I want Axl & Slash to know I’m ready to tour at anytime if they ever need me.
9. The artwork for 'Spoiled Brat Syndrome' calls this 'Chapter I', what comes next?
Spoiled brat syndrome is chapter 1 from my debut album, that is coming out in January 2024. It’s one of those things that people are going to have to wait for, to understand the full concept.
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Timmy’s ‘Spoiled Brat Syndrome’ is available to download and stream in all the usual places.
Follow the adventures of Timmy on Instagram @timmy0452.
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Down here we would usually suggest three other artists we’d written about if you enjoyed the music presented in this article. But the truth is, we don’t actually have a compass for Timmy’s ‘Spoiled Brat Syndrome’. Our advice is to be kind and listen to all the music in the world that makes you happy instead!
