Musician Spotlight - Tyrone Carreker

©2012 By Bronson Herrmuth

You can listen to this interview:

Interview with Tyrone Carreker (4.1 MB) mp3

Bronson: How old were you when you first started playing music?
Tyrone Carreker: Oh man, I was young man. I started off playing the bass, the upright bass in 4th grade, so that probably puts me at 8 or 9.

Bronson: Were people in your family musical?
Tyrone Carreker: Yeah my mom, she got a scholarship to Michigan State on music which she ended up switching it to teaching after a while but yeah, she was very musical and my whole mom's side of the family is musical, they all sang in church. Actually my aunt still sings. My aunt did a commercial not to long ago for a company up in Michigan. They were supposed to post it during the Super Bowl but it didn't go through this past year but yeah, my family on my mom's side has always been musical.

Bronson: So you're from Michigan?
Tyrone Carreker: Yeah, I'm from Detroit originally.

Bronson: So what brought you to Nashville, the music thing?
Tyrone Carreker: My guitar, yeah.

Bronson: When'd you move down?
Tyrone Carreker: 3 years ago, 3 years and some change actually so it'll be 4 years in September to be honest. It's been a nice ride man. You know Nashville is building a web, so you get out and you play, people meet you, you meet people, a lot more people hear you. If you don't do that you'll just be a citizen in Nashville, so it's a lot of learning, a lot of fun. A lot of competition which keeps you on top of your game. You know there's not a lot of that everywhere.

Bronson: Did you have music in school?
Tyrone Carreker: Yeah, all the way up from 4th to 11th grade I played bass. I simply played that but in 11th grade I heard a guitar solo. You ever heard, "Feels So Good" by Chuck Mangione? Man I heard that guitar solo and I wanted to play guitar ever since then. That solo just blew me away man, but I didn't get around to picking it up until a couple of years later when I was 22 in college but yeah, so the music has always been the forefront of me at least.

Bronson: So you're also a songwriter?
Tyrone Carreker: Yes.

Bronson: Do you remember the first song you ever wrote?
Tyrone Carreker: Yeah, but I don't want to talk about it (laughing).

Bronson: How old were you?
Tyrone Carreker: 22, well yeah. I was 22 for the first official song I ever wrote. I remember when I was in high school, I didn't have a tape recorder that you could do your melodies into, so I would, this is strange (laughing) but I would write down what the melody sounded like and I would go back and I would remember it from that. I remember doing that when I was in high school and middle school. Not to often but every now and then when I thought I had something cool in my head, I'd do that. But the first song I wrote I was 22.

Bronson: And now you're getting ready to do an album?
Tyrone Carreker: I'm actually doing an album right now.

Bronson: You're in the process?
Tyrone Carreker: I'm in the process, actually we're in the last couple of stages. Tomorrow I have to overdubs, guitar solos and then I do vocals on the 28th. After that it's out of my hands, mixing and mastering.

Bronson: So how many tracks?
Tyrone Carreker: 4, we did 5, but the 5th one just didn't come out the way I wanted it to and I'd rather just not put it on there, then just say "well I spent money on it and just put it out there", that's not what you wanna do 'cause in the long run, you wanna have your best stuff out there regardless if it's 2 tracks or 1, but I have 4 that I think are really good.

Bronson: Now they're all original?
Tyrone Carreker: Yeah, all original.

Bronson: You had mentioned with your songwriting how you write so basically, you write the music then the lyrics? What comes first, the music or the lyrics when you write one?
Tyrone Carreker: Wow, neither. Honestly, I write songs, and this is going to sound weird, but people always say "Do you write the lyrics or the music first?" I have to say neither. I get a feeling first that I have something to say, like something's bothering me.

Bronson: So you get the idea?
Tyrone Carreker: Yeah. You know I'll be sitting there, I'll be sitting in my house. I'll just be in a mood so I'll come back and start playing on my guitar, so what comes first to me is just the feeling of what I want to write. A lot of times, after that it comes out the way it's supposed to. If I'm angry then I'll have a angry lyric, I mean I'll have an angry melody on my guitar. As a matter of fact there's a song on my album right now called "Liars". That came from me feeling really just a little bit in the moment, of just being not quite angry, but just really confused on the inside. Really confused but feeling really strongly in that just angst, a lot of angst you know. Just don't what do do, don't want to move but I gotta move. In the song, the way the music came out especially recording wise, that angst is so prevalent and it's just good 'cause that lets me know that feeling was accomplished in the song. But just a lot of angst, a lot of, you can feel the pressure on my shoulders when I'm playing and singing. I can feel it come back to me and that's good.

Bronson: When you perform live you perform with a band right? You have your own unit?
Tyrone Carreker: I have my own band.

Bronson: What's that comprised of?
Tyrone Carreker: Right now it is a bass player and a drummer. Jarvis Mosby and Jason Bolejack. Two great players that I've found actually playing in church with me but they're both out in Murfreesboro. Occasionally we'll have another guitar player sit in with us, we're kind of looking for a permanent guitar player but right now the trio works fine.

Bronson: Do you plan on touring the record?
Tyrone Carreker: Yes.

Bronson: You have some places up home, you going to back up to Michigan?
Tyrone Carreker: For sure, we're definitely going back home, I'm also looking at Chicago. See the good thing about going to college first is you have a lot of friends that are scattered across, so obviously the good thing to do in terms of touring is to play in those cities and they tell the people that they know. Obviously you get a good group of people to come out and see your show, so we're going to do Detroit obviously. We're going to do Chicago, definitely wanna do New York but we're gonna do it around here too, Clarksville. We're gonna go down to Alabama, so it's gonna to be a good time.

Bronson: And you play the blues?
Tyrone Carreker: Yeah I play the blues, I play rock and blues. Everything you'll hear me play is blues influenced you know, so that's where it always starts, but the progression of the song might turn it to something different. It may sound a bit more rock. Kinda like he did with a couple of his songs, "Purple Haze" or "Mannish Boy".

Bronson: You're pointing to a picture of Jimi Hendrix.
Tyrone Carreker: Yeah, he would let loose on people you know, rock it. He'd be like, that's a blues solo. "Purple Haze", that's the bluesiest solo but he'd rock it out. It wasn't a blues progression but when you heard everything in there you thought, okay, he's a bluesy guy. He knows what he's doing. So that's where we come from. We do have some songs that are straight hit you over the head blues, but some of our stuff is blues influenced too.

Bronson: Do you have any events coming up in Nashville? Do you have any shows booked at all to promote, any upcoming or are you still just gonna get this record done and then start booking it?
Tyrone Carreker: We're so intertwined in the record man, that we don't really want to plan anything around that 'cause that will, I mean it's very hard to just jump back and forth between focusing on our album and then let's focus on what we're gonna do different for the show and then let's go back to the album you know?

Bronson: So when is the record scheduled for release? Have you got a release date yet?
Tyrone Carreker: We're looking at May, we're looking at mid May. Like I said, the vocals are done next Saturday on the 28th. So therefore, after that it's just mixing and mastering. Obviously he's doing the mixing while we're going along so that's going to be easy. The mastering after that's what's going to be the timing and I'm not really sure how long it takes to master. I don't know what that process is like but whenever that's done. We're looking at mid May.

Bronson: Are you planning on releasing it as a CD or just digitally online?
Tyrone Carreker: I want to do it both ways so obviously it'll be digitally first because it takes a little longer to print them, so we'll have the digital cards and say hey, you can pay us and we'll give you this, or actually I plan on giving a lot of mine out for free, just to get the music out there.

Bronson: To promote yourself?
Tyrone Carreker: Yeah, I mean it's not, to get noticed I have no problems just giving people my music. Just put it in your ears man you know, listen to it on your way to work. You want to burn it, burn it for your friends. I'm fine with that.

Bronson: This is your first record? This will be your debut?
Tyrone Carreker: This is my second record but this is the first one that I'm going to give out to people (laughing), and this one fits me more as a singer, as an artist, and what's coming out of me.

Bronson: So you obviously have a web site?
Tyrone Carreker: Yes, website, Facebook, twitter, Myspace, all that type of stuff.

Bronson: And just your name? What's your web address?
Tyrone Carreker: www.tyronecarreker.com

Bronson: Man I appreciate you doing this with me, I love your music man.
Tyrone Carreker: Thanks man.

Bronson: I've only saw a little bit of it, I haven't experienced you live yet but what I've seen I really, really enjoyed.
Tyrone Carreker: Thanks, I really appreciate it.

Visit Tyrone's website at www.tyronecarreker.com

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