NAMM Interview: Timo Somers
Timo Somers, metal guitarist and Aristides Instruments enthusiast, was representing his favorite brand at their booth at NAMM this year, and I had the chance to speak with him about his NAMM/Aristides experience and musical ventures both in and outside of Delain.
Here with Timo Somers at the Aristides guitar booth, want to start off by asking, what’s your connection with Aristides guitars?
Well, I’ve been playing their guitars for like seven years now, and I was one of the first artists that they got, and then the brand grew so much, and then I came to be an Artist Relations Manager…which sounds very impressive, right? It’s just that I handle all the artists and endorsement requests now, and taking care of our artists. So it really grew from being an artist to working for them, so it’s cool.
So what are you doing here today at the NAMM booth?
Aristides doesn’t have dealers, so we only sell direct, so most of the people here to check out the guitars are here to really check out the guitars, because this is the only real opportunity they have overseas to try them. So I’m here to assist with that and tell them about my experience using them, and just helping them experience the guitars.
What do you feel that somebody can get out of an Aristides guitar that they don’t get out of something else?
All right, first of all, it’s a composite material guitar, they have their own material called arium, and one of the best benefits that’s subjectively the best benefit is that they’re way more stable than wooden guitars can be. Because I tour a lot, different countries, different temperatures, these guitars stay incredibly stable while touring. They don’t change, you don’t have to set them up anytime. So that’s the biggest factor, and then the sound, for me, is also the best sound, because it’s pretty neutral sounding, but it has everything that you want out of a guitar for me. Some guitarists like having bite in their guitar sound, or warm sounds, but with Aristides, it’s really like a palette to have it all, while being the most stable guitar. So that just adds up to me to be the best guitars there are. And the finishes these days are really crazy, visually they are really impressive too now, so…you can hear I like them, but they’re just, to me, the sickest company around right now.
Now, I know you are here representing them, but if not Aristides, then what? What’s your backup gear setup?
I mean, I also use Godin guitars, they’re hollow body guitars, and they’re acoustics, so that’s a cool brand as well, they also make electrics. In the past, I’ve used all kinds of things, Gibsons, Fenders, Ibanez, I used all of it. But really, I didn’t touch other guitars for the last few years, even in the studio. Sometimes guitarists have signature guitars, but in the studio, they still play a different guitar for a different sound, right? I honestly very rarely play anything else besides Aristides.
So Timo, you’re usually referred to as “the guitarist of Delain” and all that, but you actually have so much more than that going on, you’ve got some outside projects, can you talk to me about some of those?
Yeah, so, Delain is really cool, but as a guitar player, I like to branch out a little bit more sometimes. I come from like a blues rock kind of vibe originally, so I have some solo projects that I’m working on. I have a project called Arrowhaze that I’m releasing this year, it’s like modern metal meets a little more ambient…I jokingly call it like Periphery meets Pink Floyd. So I’m working on that, I’m doing fusion shows with Barend Courbois, who is the bass player for Blind Guardian, and his dad who’s like an 80-year-old jazz drummer, it’s really cool, and we’ve been family friends for so long, it’s amazing playing with them. So I’m doing that like, really guitar-intensive fusion improvised stuff. I’m working on an EDM record – it’s like R&B EDM but also with guitars involved – I like every style of music, so long as it can bring in a little bit of guitar. So yeah, that’s mainly it, I’m working on a little more solo stuff this year as well.
Sounds like a lot more than I even realized you had going on, especially the EDM side of things, didn’t even know you dabbled in that!
Yeah, we keep it on the down-low now, because we’re writing and recording it all year last year, but it will be released this year and it’s going to be pretty cool, I like it because like, it’s so out of my comfort zone. This is the kind of music where if I listen to it, I’m more like a listener than like I actually made it, you know? Everything metal or guitar-related, I listen to it from a guitar perspective, analyzing everything. But because this style’s so different, I enjoy listening to it, so that’s really exciting.
Going back into your background a bit, I’ve heard that you were actually self-taught on the guitar, so what brought on that initial spark for you to start?
So my dad was actually a really good guitar player, Jan Somers, he was in a band called Vengeance, who were pretty big in the late 80’s. But I didn’t really have any interest in guitar until I was like 12, which is fairly late to start. It’s still young, but a lot of guys start earlier. My friend burned a CD – there was no DVD back then *laughs* – with like Linkin Park songs, Limp Bizkit songs, and Korn, and all metal stuff, and I kept playing “The End” by Linkin Park, and my dad, it drove him nuts to hear that song all day, so he says, “You want to learn to play that instead of listening to it all day?”, and I said, “Yeah, sure”. Literally the day that I started, I didn’t stop. From the day I started, I didn’t let it go. Because guitar was around me all my life, I didn’t realize…it’s weird, when someone’s around you all the time, you don’t really see it, you know what I mean? But suddenly, it struck me that I could play it, and I kept going from there.
And now you’re just flying with it, you’re doing everything you can with the guitar.
Yeah, and I’m self-taught, so my dad just…it was the raw basics he taught me, but he was self-taught as well, so I really like trained my ear for improvising more than being like, a theory geek. Everything has its up and down side, sometimes I would like to know more theory, but then, I can hang and play with guys that do know it, and I can improvise, so I like being self-taught.
Do you feel like your technique developed any differently than it might have if you took formal lessons?
I mean, the technique, not really, because I was kind of good technically pretty early, probably because I’ve seen the guitar all my life, and my dad played it, right, so I immediately knew how to play just by looking at it and hearing it for so long. But the theory thing…I mean, if I wasn’t self-taught I would know more theory, I would probably write music a little differently, but it might not be better or worse, just different.
Well, you’re doing good just as you are.
Yeah, and during the years, of course I know a little theory now, you figure it out yourself, and you hang out with so many players that you pick up on it. So I feel like I know the basics now.
Now, you do venture out of guitar sometimes, especially in the upcoming Delain album, in the song “One Second”, some amazing clean vocals from you there! And clean vocals aren’t something we really hear from you, or vocals at all for that matter, so what led to you venturing out into that?
I mean, initially when I started, I liked singing as well, but…I’m a pretty shy guy for some reason, and I felt way more comfortable with a guitar. A lot of singers feel like they need to tell something with lyrics or whatever, and I always felt that I could tell it more through my guitar. But I did sing in the background, people didn’t know, but I always kept singing a little bit. And then usually, I ended up like, when I wrote demos for a band – same with “One Second”, actually – I wrote most of the song initially, and then I sang the vocals on it as a demo. It wasn’t even my idea to actually sing on it, but just to give the idea to the guys and girl. And they were like, “Why don’t you sing it? Let’s make it a duet”, and that’s how people found out. It’s cool, I like it, I like branching out a little bit. I’ve gotten more comfortable as an artist, so I’m not shy anymore about singing too much, you know what I mean? So I like that I’m doing it a little bit more now.
You definitely shouldn’t be shy, because you sound fantastic.
*laughs* Thank you so much.
Of course, so I know you’ve got a lot of stuff going on and you’ve got to get back to your Aristides work, but just to wrap things up, what do you see on the horizon for Timo?
So Delain’s releasing an album in two weeks, like February 7th, really excited about it. If you like guitars, there’s a little more guitar on it this time around, and like I said the EDM record is coming out, it’s called “The X”. Arrowhaze is coming out this year, and I’ll be focused on a little more solo stuff under my own name as well. So just keep an eye on it, and I’m excited.
Awesome, thanks so much for your time today.
Thank you.
Keep up with Timo via social media here. For more on Delain, head to: http://www.delain.nl.