The Connor Tomlinson interview
Biography
I started playing the piano, violin, and guitar as a child. Eventually, I picked up singing, and in college, I became more interested in songwriting, production, audio engineering, and conceptual multimedia artwork. Taking influence from philosophy, social theory, and horror literature and film, I started The Chaos Theory in 2018 as a collaborative project to explore storytelling across a variety of mediums.
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When did you start making music?
I’ve been writing short melodies and poems for as long as I can remember, but it wasn’t until I started playing piano around age 10 that I started actually composing. At the time I was into classical, but a few years later I picked up the guitar as well and started delving more into punk and heavy metal. Around 2017 I finally settled into my own style and started publishing material with my band.
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What inspires your music?
I tend to identify strongly with the ethos of surrealism, trying to tap into and manifest my unconscious. I take musical and lyrical inspiration from dreams, paranoiac episodes, and altered states, as well as from philosophy and theories/concepts of the subject (especially the writings of Foucault, Deleuze, and Nietzsche). For lyrics specifically, I read a lot. Machen, Lovecraft, Poe, and the like, generally more prose than poetry.
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How is it balancing school, work, and your music career?
I’m a workaholic, so it’s healthy that I have other responsibilities to prevent me from burning out on music. That said, I try to ensure that my academic and professional work help facilitate my career in the Arts in some way. I get inspiration from philosophical concepts, I study rhetoric to make my work more powerful, I have an internship practicing live sound and lighting, etc.
Do you have a favorite song of yours that you like to perform live?
It might be due to the novelty, but I would say our most recent release, “Ghosts.” The song has gotten a lot of positive feedback and it’s a fairly experimental piece that gives me a chance to push my hardware and my voice to new extremes.
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What advice would you give to aspiring young songwriters like yourself who want to get their music out into the world?
For most, songwriting is a skill that takes study, practice, and failure, just like anything else. Almost like learning a language, it’s going to take a lot of time and a lot of botched conversations before you can express yourself clearly and creatively. Write something every day, explore different genres and styles to practice, and don’t be afraid to write something bad and move on.
Do you have any new music you are working on? If so when will we all be able to hear it?
I’m always working on new music, but I’m excited to announce that on June 7th our first EP "Eponymous" became all streaming services and Bandcamp, featuring remixed and remastered versions of three of our most popular songs.
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You can listen to The Chaos Theory's new EP "Emponymous" right now in the links Bellow!
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Regards,
—Conner
