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Home , Eagles (box set), Hotel California, Long Road Out of Eden, Poco

TIMOTHY B. SCHMIT

Text and photos: Chiara Meattelli

It should be clear: the come first. However a Timothy B. Schmit, so satisfied with a solo work, has never been seen. The is called Expando and Timothy - bassist and vocalist of the Eagles and - has recorded it bit by bit, year after year, in his home studio in the surroundings of . From time to time he asked some friends to lend a hand: Keb' Mo', , The Blind Boys of Alabama, Shepherd, Garth Hudson of The Band, Van Dyke Parks, Benmont Tench of the Heartbreakers to name a few.

There are 12 songs of American flavor, some with blues inflections and even soul, but it's still difficult to think that the fans of this album would be different from those of the Eagles.According to the legend they are not the world's most united band, it seems credible, but when I investigate Timothy doesn't give away too much regarding this topic. The meeting in a Mayfair hotel: he is gentle, worldly- wise and seems to not have cut his hair since 1976 when Hotel was released and he was close to joining the band. Now that he has reached 62 years he has played for nearly half a century, has filled entire stadiums with one of the best selling bands on this planet, and finally feels it's the right moment to "throw" himself into some solo concerts. "It's never too late", he confirms solemnly. "You can never say cat before you have it in the sack", he replies. [translator's note: must be an Italian saying; I'd translate it rather to "you can never tell until you have the cat in the sack"].

Eight years have passed since your last solo album: when did you write the new songs for Expando? I wrote them some years ago, I could only dedicate some time in between commitments with the Eagles. It's a different album, special, because for the first time I didn't collaborate with anybody, I did everything on my own. In the beginning I didn't even know that I accomplished an album, I didn't have rules or parameters, I only wrote the music. I took my time, recorded in my home studio together with a friend who is a sound technician, we worked hard and also had fun. When I realized I had enough songs to put together an album I simply continued to work on it, without deadlines or pressure of any kind.

Can we call it an album by chance? Let's say that I did what I wanted to do, explore my own music without having myself influenced by anything else.

Didn't you have a contract with the label? No, nothing! When I had finished it, mixed and with master tape, I presented the entire package including art work, and so I found the label. By the way I like the art work very much, it's my wife's work who is an artist.

In these past years you also wrote new material with the Eagles. How do you decide what to keep for yourself and what to suggest to the band? Well, you can do what you want in this situation. You can say you have an idea and ask the others their opinion or you can think that it's no song appropriate for the Eagles and never have them listen.

Are there any songs on Expando that you first suggested to the Eagles? A few, I don't remember well .... it seems to me one to Don and another to Glenn, but none of those two stepped up to develop the idea. But I never thought they were not any good only because they didn't want to cater to them. You know, it's not easy to understand what the guys in the band want, they have their own ideas and their own way of doing things. So I put these songs "in my pocket" and kept them for myself.

You have written and produced the album, are you a control freak in the studio? Maybe ... but I don't think too much. When you start a song you come from some good idea but you never know until you finish: which sounds and instruments to use. When I record on my own I allow myself a lot of freedom, in contrary to when I work with the Eagles. I just let things happen, I don't want to be too precise, I want people to hear that we're a group of friends that has fun playing together.

So it's live recording then? I started each piece recording my guitar parts, then I added the vocals, and then all the rest. Today there are ways to adjust every error and make the sound more precise but it's not what I want. You can even record a file, send it to the other end of the planet and ask somebody to sing on it, but I need to work face to face. Therefore everyone who collaborated on this album has walked through my studio door.

And I can see that many prestigious names are there, like Graham Nash on Parachute. When I had first heard this piece I thought of Crosby, Stills & Nash, before even reading the names in the credits ... Sure, but when I wrote it I didn't think of Graham at all, only after the chorus I thought "hmmm, sounds exactly like Crosby, Stills & Nash!" And so, instead of pretending to sound like them, I came to invite my friend Graham as a vocalist. It was clear that he had the perfect voice.

Was there anybody who told you no? Yes, a couple, I don't remember well .... One was John Mayer, I wanted him to play guitar on one of the pieces, but he didn't accept: I don't know what happened, whether he wasn't interested or had too many commitments. I also wanted Jennifer Warnes’ voice: when I had heard her live I remained stunned. But unfortunately it hasn’t been possible because she had too many commitments and when she was available it was me who was stressed. I hope we will be able to collaborate soon.

What do you tell me about Van Dyke Parks? That he’s a great friend and one of the most eccentric persons that I know!

For the first time you also work together with your son … Yes, my son Ben is really attached to music, he plays drums and guitar on White Boy From Sacramento which we had recorded already some years ago, when he only was a teenager. I didn’t know how that would work, back then he didn’t have much experience with recording studios … Today he’s 19, he’s the youngest of the family, and he frequents the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

So how did working together turn out? Fantastic but also difficult: sometimes it was a real and true battle. I wanted to treat him like any other professional musician and cut the father-son-cords, even though I then realized that it’s not possible to do so. Before we started I told him I didn’t know whether he was the best musician for this piece, I didn’t want him to stay offended in case it didn’t work. For that reason I told him about my own example when had written a song that I had sung for them and they preferred Michael McDonald’s voice because it was more fitting. These are things that happen and I know them well, having been a guest on various myself.

Will you work together again? Of course I’d enjoy it a lot, and he, too. Now that he’s more grown-up it would also be different, he’s no teenager anymore. Are you a mother?

Nope … Well, when you become one you’ll see how much the kids at this age are changing, at moments they couldn’t even be identified! In a certain sense this is really scary, you have to be prepared but I believe no parent ever will.

You have always been a musician, you have lived through the analogue age and now through the digital, don’t you think it may be more difficult to emerge nowadays compared to the past? I don’t know, many people think so, but I’m not so sure, when I was young there also was a lot of competition.

But today it’s more difficult to make a living off selling records … Sure, especially when you’re not super popular. Shortly before the invention of the digital the Eagles sold 15 million copies and also the last album brought an optimum result for these times. Today there are yet more bands in circulation. Sometimes I think back of when I was young and I learned the first songs from the radio, I had so many dreams and today I daresay I could make them come true, or better I even topped them. But I’m an exception from the rule and I don’t even know why. After all the world is full of musicians with the same talent as mine: it takes timing, persistence, the need to torture the right people and make them listen to your music. I remember when I was 19 and I was in a small band in Sacramento, we had recorded an album and for the first time I had heard my own voice on the radio … we all are still friends but only one other band member still lives on music, the other became a business man who plays on weekends as a pastime. All in all I’m a lucky man.

I read that Expando is the motor home where you lived with your family when you were little … Exactly. My father was a musician who took us on tour: we stayed in a town for one month and then moved on. When my family decided to settle down they bought a much bigger motor home until they ended up with this Expander which appeared normal, but then it had this part in the rear which was extendable by a crank. I remember that it appeared enormous to me.

So you’re on tour since you were born … Practically yes. My father never was home and therefore, to keep the family together, we decided to follow him to his commitments.

Why exactly this title? For some reasons, I happened to think of this Expander as I talked to a friend … and he found all possible motor home models from the twenties up until today on an internet site, including the one I lived in from 1959. I also put a photo on my homepage in the blog. I wanted it to be the title because this is a very autobiographic album and it’s also a word that implies growth, extension. After so many years I feel like growing, I start to understand some things better, I found new energy, I feel happy and full of motivation to create and live.

And how does this renaissance translate into music? Well, for example I never did any solo shows until now and I’m almost 63 years old! I believe I wasn’t ready and it’s good to have started because I have not much time left. I enjoy playing small venues, even if it’s a bit scary. In the big arenas with the Eagles it’s different, it’s less personal and then you are under the band’s protective wing. Playing solo means everything depends on you. Now I can do it because for the first time I feel to have an album that exactly represents my music, finally.

Do you have a few shows to promote the album in your program? The Eagles come first, they are first priority and will be on tour soon, in April and maybe in summer, we still don’t know exactly. I’d like to do some solo dates here in England before the tour. Maybe in some small locations, here the album has been well accepted and got good radio coverage.

What happened 16 years ago that brought the Eagles to get back together? Honestly we had tried already a few times without succeeding … The point is we never said “let’s give in”, we simply veered away from each other. Then in 1994 an album called Common Thread was released on which various country artists played Eagles songs. interpreted my I Can’t Tell You Why, by chance I found myself in Nashville where he recorded, so I took part as a vocalist. Then Travis Tritt wanted to have the Eagles in the video of his version of : when we met at the set we felt that it was the right moment. In summer we started the tour and it went so well that we still didn’t stop.

Do you ever go out together, beyond work? Not really, we see each other often but we’re not young anymore, we have kids and families, we don’t go places together. The others all have little kids but I already was a father at age 22 …

I saw you here in London about three years ago at the small Indigo venue inside of the O2 Arena. I expected the new CD but you preferred the old hits. Because this was a special show, shorter than usual. I believe we would’ve played some new songs at the beginning because in that way the audience would’ve stayed. When you play the hits first then the people run to the restrooms or head for the bar … you need to keep them seated instead!

With the Eagles did you expect the success of ? Let’s say it exceeded our already good expectations. It’s an album that we most of all made for ourselves because we didn’t want to continue playing only the big hits, even though we knew that those are the ones to attract the audience: the fans want to hear .

What would you still want to achieve with the Eagles and in your solo career respectively? I hope to be able to continue and grow and get better, for me Expando is not the start of this process. Regarding the band I hope that the Eagles go on for as long as possible, it’s not only good for us: I see that we are still much appreciated, it’s a win-win situation (journalist’s note: a situation in which you can’t lose).

Which type of composer are you, slow or quick? Slow and methodical. I have to go into the studio every day, sit down in front of the recorder and fix every idea. And they’re not all good, in fact some are horrible. But the important is to bring forward everything of your creativity, therefore it’s important to write alone, at times you do things that not even you can listen to. However when a good idea evolves the bad ones immediately pass on to the second level. It’s like gold-seeking: you find something in the dirt and you have to work on it to make it beautiful.

Is there any contemporary band that you particularly like? Yes, many. Before my son got his driver’s license I took him to see many concerts. For me every sort of music has something good. We saw Arcade Fire, , Muse, I’m friends with the bassist of Rage Against the Machine, and I adore Radiohead. I also like the way Keane are using but in the States they never hit it off.

Tell me an entertaining anecdote from the recording of the new album. Oh gee! There are many … I can tell you about Garth Hudson who sang on Friday Night. As a preface: I’m a big fan of The Band and I had already asked Levon Helm’s manager if he could play on my record but he had told me he didn’t want to leave New York and so nothing came out of it. One day when I was having lunch with Van Dyke his cellular went off: it was a friend who said he was in town with Garth Hudson in occasion of the Grammy Awards. And that Garth was looking for someone to jam with because he had lots of spare time. I rolled my eyes: too wonderful to be true! There was only one problem: Garth, as his wife who is his manager had already indicated, “is a nocturnal type”. Me instead I had already said I wasn’t working at night anymore and this already worried me. To make it short, he arrived at the studio at 10 pm, moving slowly, speaking slowly, going in slow motion, I thought we’d stay there forever …

As if he had smoked something? I don’t think he could afford to smoke: he suffers from narcolepsy! Close to midnight we started to record but he’s incredibly slow, and while I played the beginning of Friday Night to him he wrote the music he heard on staff paper, note by note. Then he played it five, six times in a row, always in a different way: it’s exactly what makes him a unique pianist, he never does the same thing twice. When you know The Band you understand what I’m trying to say. It has been a night to remember, sort of absurd, I never saw anything like this …