Daily Inspiration: Meet Tyler Spicer

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tyler Spicer.

Hi Tyler, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
Music has always been a part of my identity since a young age. My Dad is a great, technical guitar player, and seeing, and hearing about the joy he got out of music, always led me in this direction. Great music does affect me and brings me joy in a way nothing else can. That I attribute, to a good extent, to my upbringing.

Like many “pop” musicians, I started playing in bands in my early teens (bass guitar principally!), went to study jazz and English literature at university, then moved on to touring all over the world with theatre shows, cover acts and any originals act that would take me. Throughout this time, and particularly at university, I always paid big interest to the technical and production side of music, trying to bring people’s arrangements to the fore.

As a bass player, you spend a lot of time listening to the rest of the band to try and make sure you stay out of the way, and I think that time listening in the trenches of live performance helped hone that skill when it came to working on the production. Since 2020, I’ve been all in on production, and today I’m privileged to be working with artists from all over the world, helping them create great art and build their careers at the same time.

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s not been a smooth road to get to where I am today. If I took a look at the number of fellow graduates from my course at university and looked at the number who are still working and making a career in music, it would be a tiny percentage. Then again, maybe those who quit are the sensible ones!

I believe the struggles have often come from trying to have enough skills to be able to make it work, whilst also narrowing down into a niche that encapsulates those skills. It’s a bundle that makes you a valuable person to have on the team. For instance, a modern producer is likely able to play at least one instrument well, understand a good amount about a bunch of different instruments and styles, have the technical ability to record and capture great sounds, know about arrangements, potentially have the ability to mix and produce a final master. It’s a lot of skills that I originally learned separately to keep afloat, and with inherent intrigue as a musician. But finding a way that those can fit together, spending enough time on those skills that they’re strong enough to add value, and then finding people who want to make use of them, is hard!

The modern musician isn’t simply required to be the artist, they’re also expected to be their record label, publicist, and social media expert. It’s really like doing 3 or 4 jobs at once, and that remains the same for people like me who are more behind the scenes. Being the best marketed and most present on social media has so much currency in 2023, and putting out content that showcases your work and letting people know what you’re up to can take a chunk of hours out of your week if you let it.

The amount of time that requires, plus the constant imposter syndrome inherent to artistry, and the constant work to secure projects, can take a toll mentally. Instilling the mental toughness, self-awareness, and ways to be at peace to create freely, is a daily, and weekly challenge in itself. Nothing’s easy, and if it were, I would probably not enjoy the lack of challenge! It’s not been a smooth road, it probably never will be, but that’s always been an essential building block of art!

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I was introduced at a conference down in Franklin, TN as ‘The British guy that does country music’, and that does encapsulate me. I liked it, so it’s stuck! I’m a British native who loves country music, Americana, bluegrass… I do feel like I was born on the wrong continent!

I have eclectic tastes, I’ll happily make a mean-sounding heavy rock record, or dig into some jazz funk, to which a couple of my clients can attest! However, generally, people come to me because they love what I do in the country world, or want to take a record in that direction. One current artist is from the Soul/R&B world and I thought that was where we were going be heading, but her having been bitten by the Nashville bug on a couple of trips, we’re currently building out and writing an EP sonically in the Americana world.

I’m also known for being pretty deft at my remote work and able to make things work no matter what, and quickly if it needs it. I’ve taken tracks from scratch acoustic to finished master, uploaded, in 3 days, alongside a great team of people. Whether it’s a rush job, that needs vocals recorded in a house, living room, or on a tour bus, I’m really happy to be adaptable and enjoy the process of going to a new or random space and turning it into a space in which we can record. One of my favorite things is to take a house and turn it into a recording studio. All the spaces are different and diverse and that makes it a lot of fun. I also try doing things in new ways every time I work on a record if I can, and time allows.

I like trying to give an artist their sound that digs into who they are as an artist, rather than necessarily imparting my sound on them. That will naturally always happen to some extent, but I’m always trying to live in their world and change it up, rather than bring them into my world and say “Here you go, that’s the Tyler Spicer sound, take it or leave it!”. The choices I make and my tastes are always going to leave their stamp, no matter what, so I try not to be overt with it.

I’m proud of the fact that my main focus in life is creating music, and making great art with other awesome artists. My life is truly dedicated to music, and my favorite passion and hobby is also my job. I count my blessings for that, as I know most people don’t manage to experience it. I don’t get that feeling of “going to work” like most people do!

What matters most to you?
The most important thing to me is to create great art that the artist and I love, feel connects with people in some way, and uniquely captures what they do. If I can help level up someone’s creation and help them achieve what they’ve always wanted or heard in themselves, or even take them beyond that, then I’ve succeeded. I always want to create music that feels authentic to the artist and other people.

Some tracks want a more pop aesthetic, that’s maybe more on the grid, but I always want to keep things feeling real if I can. With the rise of AI and ever-changing modern styles, keeping things real in music, to me, is going to become even more important. It’s the emotion and human connection in music that keeps me, and many others coming back. I want to uphold that essential value as much as possible!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tylerspicermusic.com
• Instagram: @tylerspicermusic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TylerSpicerMusic/
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/tylerspicer

Image Credits
Erin Fligel