Conversations with Tim Hutchins

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tim Hutchins.

Tim, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Sydewynder formed officially in the fall of 2018 when Cody and I moved from Penacook, New Hampshire to Nashville, Tennessee. We met in high school but became best friends later on through our mutual love of music. We would perform at open mics around town and talk about going to Nashville to really do something with our music.

He moved down in January of that year and I moved in August with my girlfriend, Jessica Sullivan of the now Synnfox Photography. I posted an ad on Craigslist looking for other musicians to play with and that’s how we found Calvin, who moved here from Indiana earlier that year. The three of us instantly had great chemistry together and started writing and recording our self-titled EP which came out in August of 2019. In June of that year, we started playing shows and had played 10-12 shows by the time the pandemic happened.

Once we realized we wouldn’t be able to play shows for a while, we decided to make the best use of our time by writing and recording an album with the help of our friend, Thomas V. Rodriguez, of the band Divisive. The album is called Autonomous and comes out Friday, May 20th, 2022. Everyone in the band is really fired up about these new songs and feeling full of gratitude to be able to play live again.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road.

There have been many different challenges and I’m sure there will be many more. The pandemic obviously was horrible for many people and made a lot of things like playing live impossible. The only thing you can really do in order to not waste time is the pivot.

Since playing live wasn’t feasible at the moment, we decided to make an album and put out music videos to make the best use of our time.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I play lead guitar in the band. We have Cody Scott Thurston on vocals, Calvin Park on bass, John Slade on rhythm guitar, and Tommy Cantin on drums. John is from Mississippi and Tommy is from Indiana. Our self-titled EP came out in 2019 with a music video for the lead single called “State of War”.

We’re gearing up for the release of our debut album, Autonomous on Friday, May 20th, and celebrating by playing a show at The End in Nashville on Saturday, May 21st with While She Sleeps. To promote the album, we’ve put out a music video for “In Your Sleep” and a lyric video for “The Reunited”. We have another lyric video for a song called “Stubborn” on the way. We were fortunate to get “The Reunited” and “Stubborn” on 102.9 The Buzz which is Nashville’s premiere rock station. There will be more music videos and video playthroughs of different songs in the near future as well.

I would say the thing I’m the proudest of is definitely the album we have coming out, Autonomous. We were all able to come together and create something that we feel is really special.

Something that sets us apart from other bands is all of us in the band write songs. A lot of bands have one or two main guys that write. Everyone in Sydewynder is a songwriter. We all come in with different ideas and conform to each other in subtle ways. It’s not a complete free-for-all but everyone has a say. It’s a democratic process from start to finish. If somebody doesn’t like something, we work on it until everyone is on board and believes in the song they’re playing/performing.

This is a process that requires you to truly respect everyone’s opinion and that you be completely open and transparent. It’s not necessarily an easy thing and can be brutal at times, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. The songs and our friendships would not be the same without this process. It’s all about our love for the music and mutual admiration of what each other brings to the table.

Stylistically, something that sets us apart from other metal bands today is that we’re very influenced by a lot of thrash, the 90s, and early 00s metal, but also bands that ride that line into more hard rock and progressive territory. I think it makes for an interesting combination and I feel that we combined all of those elements in a really cool way on our new album.

Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
I don’t feel like I can offer any advice in terms of finding a mentor, but I will say it’s always good to surround yourself with other people that are more proficient at their craft than you are.

It will make you elevate your game versus staying stagnate. Doing that has really pushed me as a musician and a songwriter.

In terms of networking, it’s important to just get out there and go to shows and just meet people. You can learn something from anyone and everyone.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sydewynderband/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SydewynderBand
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdLPtoXVKiRROpck-RUVqfA
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/sydewynderofficial
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2xaFcAJhUMYOdGC6yMThR1?si=kQ959hjMTEGjxvGwFp13VQ

Image Credits
Jessica Sullivan of Synnfox Photography