Q&A With Tim P.

Exclusive Interview by Karen Beishuizen
Photos courtesy of Tim. P.

Tim P. is a former TV & Film music composer for shows like “Reno 911”. After doing a bunch a hiking videos, he started a YouTube channel and it wasn’t before long he was doing videos about rock stars who lived in Laurel Canyons, finding the locations where album covers were shot and all this led to “Rock Essentials with Tim”. He currently has 101K subscribers and 65 videos on there. Check his videos out because they are great!

KB: How and when did you get the idea for your YouTube show “Rock Essentials with Tim”?

I am an avid hiker and in 2019 I got a GoPro camera to film some of the stuff I came across on my hikes. I didn’t intend on using it for anything other than the occasional Facebook post but I began watching hiking videos on YouTube and decided to start a channel and post a couple I had filmed. The channel was called “Hiking4Life” and I probably had done a dozen or so videos when I got the idea to incorporate talking about music while I hiked.

At the time I was still working, I had spent 25 years as a TV & Film music composer doing shows like “Reno 911”, “The Mind of Mencia” and a ton of music for Comedy Central. Before that I had put out a few records in a couple LA bands. I have a good friend named Randy who was born and raised in Laurel Canyon and who incidentally would later appear in a few of the videos with me, and we would get together every couple months, smoke a joint and wander around Laurel Canyon walking our dogs together.

One evening as we were walking we passed by a house and Randy mentioned that a member of The Byrds, Michael Clarke, used to live in it and BING, the light just immediately went off in head and by that weekend I had filmed the first video for what would become my channel “Rock Essentials With Tim”.

KB: You covered 6 videos about Laurel Canyon. What is so special about this canyon and who lived here or still does?

Well obviously it is the epicenter of one of the more important movements in Los Angeles music or for that matter ANY music in the 60’s and 70’s and virtually any musician who has ever lived or worked in LA has spent significant time in The Canyon.

In my younger days as a struggling musician, my day job was delivering food for Caioti Restaurant which was located on Laurel Canyon Blvd below the famous Country Store, so I know the Canyon’s geography like the back of my hand and it was easy for me to put an exact location to any story I had heard.

And I would also add that back in the day when most of these legendary musicians lived here it was not the same gentrified Laurel Canyon you see now, they lived in the mostly dilapidated houses here because it was the cheapest place to rent at the time.

KB: What is or was your job when you are not filming for your show?

Like I mentioned, I was a television music composer up until Covid hit. After sitting around for 6 months I realized I had had enough of it and retired. I still keep my head in the music game by writing and producing the backing tracks for the videos. And by the way, the overwhelming amount of comments I get on the videos are positive but the occasional few that aren’t so nice are usually from a peeved fan who wonder why I don’t use an artists music when I’m talking about them. Its really a simple matter of if you use copyrighted music you will eventually get busted and your channel will get taken down.

KB: You covered Jim Morrison last days in Paris: What did you discover that you didn’t already know?

That’s kind of a loaded question, no pun intended. I did most of the research before I went and besides all the conspiracy theories, by the way some of which I find completely plausible, I think one of the main things that dawned on me when I was actually in Paris was how much smaller Jim’s world became, mainly because he didn’t speak French and at the time. In those days I don’t think a whole lot of people spoke English there. I think Morrison’s inner circle was quite small and it contained a lot of the people that were first and foremost friends of his girlfriend Pamela Courson, they were heroin addicts and there were very few people that had his best interests at heart.

KB: What is your favorite music genre and who is in your top 5?

Oh, I don’t know. I was in LA for the birth of Punk Rock when I was 19 so no matter what you might think of the music it was a pretty exciting time. I love blues based rock, The Doors were one of my favorite all-time bands for sure, they were so original and I still don’t think anyone’s ever sounded even remotely like them.

One of the things I really love about having this channel is I get to explore artists that I might not have ever really bothered with to any great extent. Case in point is the Tom Waits video I did. I was a casual fan when I started and by the time I was done filming I had become a fanatic. The guy is a frickin’ genius!

KB: Your Searching For… videos: Who do you have on your list that you have not covered yet and what are you currently up to?

Well, I am currently working on a piece about the pioneering women of the Los Angeles Rock Scene. Some fascinating stuff. My wife and I plan on going to London this spring, we have a week and I’ll cram everything I can into it. I’m originally from Detroit and on my yearly visits I usually manage to film something and I’ve got an Iggy & The Stooges piece on the docket. They are one of my all-time favorite bands and I cannot wait to dig into it!

I’m also interested in going to New York, walking around with my camera and see what comes up. In a perfect world I’d love to do a very extended road trip and visit lots of places, Chicago, Memphis, Boston. I’m getting a little long in the tooth to do it in one fell swoop but I’ll keep chipping away for as long as I’m able.

It has been very, very gratifying to find something at this stage of my life that seems to resonate with people. You just gotta love Rock n Roll!

Check out Tim’s YouTube Channel with great videos: HERE

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