Interview with Contrarian's Tim Boney, June 2008

Myself // I have listened to your CD about 4 times me being a big Kansas fan and Proto KawI see some similarities with your material and theirs. In all honesty regarding the Contrarian its a frustrating listen because at times shines progressive brilliance and at other times it kinda goes hard southern rock which funny enough is what Kansas were doing back in the 70's.

Tim // As far as musical influences Kansas was, by far, my greatest musical (rock) influence, as much for their lyrics as their compositions. I also enjoy Dream Theater as a more contemporary band. Additionally, I like (at least something from) most of the classic rock bands, both in both the progressive and hard rock realm. From those influences we tried to create our own sound rather than simple being a clone. 

In writing the music of Minor Complexities I refused to utilize any "formula" or litmus test as far as how the songs came out musically. In other words, the fact that, for example, "Just Doing Time" did not "come out" as a "prog song" did not cause me to hesitate to include it on the CD.

 I fully understand and appreciate that many people want all the songs on a CD to generally match the overall genre "style" of all other songs but on this initial (debut) effort I wanted to avoid too much similarity in ALL the songs. Also, as a result of so many influences some songs I write come out sounding like different genres.

I guess that is the songwriter aspect in my writing.  As you so aptly pointed out, this (for the lack of a better word)  "phenomena" occurred on the earlier Kansas albums.               

Myself // I feel Contrarian need to focus on the style of the first song on the CD "Operation Overlord" as this truly depicts the type of sound that to me reflects an honest synergy of the band.

Tim // You are not the only reviewer who has said this! (see Jerry Lucky's review on our website---he's the author of The Progressive Rock Files.) 

This task could be much more easily accomplished if I could play the violin better. Unfortunately, I don't! (it sounds like a cat having its tail stepped on!) But I have some tunes in the hopper that will be on the next CD that are very intense and I am going to focus more on the progressive style and release the "non-prog" songs as mp3s (for now).

As a live band we are working on getting a violinist (Lance was a fellow I hired and worked with on the violin parts and to play in the studio---but he lives in too far away to join the band)

In fact, this past week Joey and I jammed with a violinist at my house. It went very well. (It's difficult to get violinists who are used to playing in orchestras to want to join up with a rock band and perform in the world of bars, pubs and small clubs---which is what we do---for now.)

But unlike a lot of lesser known prog bands we are out there every week at a gig--somewhere, pounding it out---rather than rehearsing over and over in anonymity getting ready for the "BIG" annual/bi-annual "showcase gig".  [Yet again, another historical similarity to the group Kansas---they played a lot of bars etc. . .before getting "discovered"] [A greater number of lesser known prog bands ought to get out there and mix it up and perform in front of PEOPLE in bars and pubs instead of trying to reach "perfection" just to play a showcase gig once every eclipse! That would help prog!]               

Myself // I would give the CD a 75/100 for a debut that's a really good score I`m looking forward to the next CD I love the musicality and the whole package you guys do sound like Proto Kaw you know that ?

Tim // I have 2 Proto Kaw Cds but honestly, I haven't listened to them that often. I like the heavier sound of early Kansas. Kerry Livgren has made it clear that Proto Kaw is NOT Kansas, and he is right. I prefer Kansas.     

Myself // has Kerry Livgren heard you yet ? I bet he will smile !

Tim // Believe it or not I wrote to him through our myspace page and asked him for permission to send him a copy of "Minor Complexities". He wrote back and said "OK send it". So I sent it to him (about 6 months ago) with a nice little hand-written letter explaining how Kansas was a huge influence on me and Joey (the vocalist) etc. . . and how many reviewers have written that our stuff sounds like a new sounding cross between Kansas and Dream Theater, Kansas and_____,  and so forth.

I received no response.

So I wrote to him again at myspace asking if he received the CD. Again, no response.

Accordingly, I'm somewhat surprised and disappointed. I would have truly enjoyed to know his thoughts, constructive criticisms and opinion.  Oh well, maybe after the next CD.    

Myself // I`m a fan of Contrarian now and I`m pleased I found out through prog archives about you

Tim // Please do for me a great favor (favour)---please drop THEM a line or two about that----THEY like feedback too---and they are really great folks who truly support the prog scene! They would love to hear that from you.

 Myself // .. if you ever come to Australia to play can you give me an email ? thanks

Tim // Most definitely! But I think Contrarian needs to sell some more CDs before we could do that. But you never know!  

Myself // So to sum it up the progressive seen is getting pretty popular these days and fortunately for you guys its mostly retro prog and prog metal that people seem to talk about if I was in your shoes I'd explore this retro prog sound to its fullest .. put it this way I'd sooner listen to Contrarian to say many other new bands I've tried lately .. Just remember the Operation Overlord style song is where I think its at ... but I`m a Livgren Kansas fan so maybe my tastes are just that way ... anyway a very promising release overall ...  nice to hear from you 

Tim // Thanks Andrew. I'll keep those thoughts in mind as we finish our next CD. We are honing the band's live performance and working diligently on securing a violinist for a full time slot in the band. Once we do then we'll do one of those "showcase" gigs where all we have to concentrate on is performing contrarian songs instead of just mixing them in with all of the cover songs we do. We play on doing a very good DVD of it so everyone can see our big fat arse(s) for themselves!!!!

In closing, if you are so inclined, please spread the word about Contrarian to your friends, the ProgArchives forum posts (or any other website, if you so choose). And thanks you once again for taking a chance on Contrarian's music by buying it at CD Baby.

Best regards and please stay in touch, 

Tim Boney      

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As you can read Tim is a very nice guy and also a very talent musician and his band is definitely worthy of checking out, I am not an interviewer this was just some ongoing conversations we had that I really wanted to share with the prog community and reading between the lines it would appear Tim would be happy I did so  ....   thanks.    Yorkie X  (Andrew)