Tim Fagan

Present Day: Tim Fagan finishes his self-titled album recorded at The Hive in LA with close friend and producer, Dylan Charbaneau.
Years before Tim carves his name in The Hive’s studio walls, he’s in Woodshop 101. Mr. Simonelli thumps his dead thumb against a wood lathe, and the machine lets out a chime.
Mr. Simonelli says, “Hear that? That’s a B flat.”
Keep quiet.
Work Hard.
Hear the hammers drop.
Tim Fagan has decided to get back in the woodshop.
2003: Fagan is hustling and crooning in dive bars of Michigan for a modestly meager living. He doesn’t yet know he’s going to write a Grammy-winning song, or record on a platinum-selling album, or tour the world.
Put on your best headphones.
Crank the volume.
Hear the hammers drop.
2005: Tim’s ready to take some chances. He’s since packed his things and rolled westward to the hot, vast grid of Los Angeles. Not long after arriving, he reads in Esquire that John Mayer is sponsoring a songwriting competition. Mayer lays out the task to his audience simply - write music to salvage his “orphaned” set of lyrics.
Tim chews his pencil, works out the angles, and finishes “Deeper.”
He sends the song off to Esquire. Enough time passes and he accepts that he didn’t win, maybe someone else won, maybe no one won. Until one day Tim Fagan answers his phone, after 3 times dodging an unfamiliar incoming number. Now he’s singing the first verse of “Deeper” along with Mayer himself. John is calling Tim to congratulate him on winning the contest, and asks what color of Fender Strat he’d like sent his way.
2007: The momentum from Mayer’s stamp of approval boosts Fagan into the LA songwriter scene, where he becomes friends with Colbie Caillat. He joins her touring band as guitarist, riding the success of the hit single “Bubbly”. Fagan plays Red Rocks, Madison Square Garden, even meets the president. Along the way Jason Mraz introduces himself to Colbie by way of email, sending her a sketch of a new song idea. Colbie shares the mp3 with Tim, and the collaboration is formed. Grabbing any chance he can, Fagan sings his ideas for the song into his laptop while sitting in the dressing room of the Today show, moments before Colbie and the boys are set to go on air. The song he finishes with Colbie and Jason is the charming duet “Lucky”; released as Mraz’s follow-up single to “I’m Yours”. It becomes a worldwide hit, going on to win a 2010 Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
1990: Flashback to before he’s making a living as songwriter, across the Pacific to his hometown Honolulu, where Tim’s a 6th grader at Punahou School. He’s in Woodshop 101, trying to smooth out his ill-fated spice rack. Tim also learns that building a good salt shaker can be as difficult as separating salt from the ocean. But not for Sara; she’s the teacher’s pet who nails everything the first time:
sand the edges of my spice rack
but halfway through I have a heart attack
I glued it together all wrong
so I stole the one that Sara made
and brought it home to my mom

from the woodshop
from the woodshop
in the woodshop
you can hear the hammers drop

2011: Tim writes the last lyric to “In the Woodshop,” and reaches down into a cardboard box that his Mom sent from Hawaii. It’s full of memories shipped over an ocean from The Pearl of the Pacific to The City of Angels. He opens it up to find high school yearbooks, Polaroids worn down from surf spray that blows in the Hawaiian tradewinds, and little league baseball trophies.
Things you remember, but forgot you had.
Of all things, sitting at the top of his box full of nostalgia is Sara’s work of art - the same one Tim snatched while it was drying overnight in the Woodshop basement. All those years his Mom believed Tim was a master craftsman. But as the song goes on to describe, karma has a way of working out the kinks. It’s a good thing Tim followed his true calling; making music with his own two hands.
Press Play.
Lean Back.
Hear the hammers drop. - Sun Times

With a little John Mayer and a little Jack Johnson, Tim Fagan has honed in on a gorgeous sound, mixing folk rock and lush pop, drawing from 80's qualities to today's radio hits. There's a hint of an adult contemporary approach but not at the expense of accessible, widely-appealing and catchy songs that have a way of being both relevant to audiences in their 20s to 50s. The album's subversive beauty captivates the ear so that with every rotation, you need to listen more and more every time. With simplicty but warmth and depth, Fagan's "Whirlpool" release is a definite must for the male folk pop/college rock junkies. - From The Editors at CDBaby

"Tim Fagan is a first-rate performer." - Peter Mulvey

January 2006, Volume 145, Issue 1

Tim Fagan Is A Winner
By John Mayer

When I offered up some lyrics in this magazine a few months ago, I knew that for every submission
Esquire would receive, there would be a story. Sure enough, when the entries started flowing in, they all
sounded unique, yet they all shared a common inspiration. Every single person decided upon reading or
hearing about the contest that this was something he or she was capable of doing. And 2,213 people
proved themselves right.

For those of you who don't sleep next to songwriters, music is an all-consuming project, I promise you.
The heart I heard in these songs made me feel instantly silly for having thought to place myself as any
authority on songwriting. Then it occurred to me that I could help the winner of this contest get a leg up
in his or her music career. And so I didn't feel so ashamed.

When I heard Tim Fagan's song, I yelled out loud at the speakers, pleading with him not to drop the ball
on his way to a touchdown. He didn't. His song has a spare piano intro that's amazing in its economy.
Tim's vocal performance is delivered with heart but not hurt. His composition is a string of events laid out so that there's always something else to look forward to, namely a nice blues-guitar solo at the end. It's
a tight little number that took him two weeks to finish.

So Tim Fagan's my pick as the winner. He's just recently moved out to Los Angeles and rented a room,
and he plays the area clubs when he's not working his part-time job. But there are 2,212 other winners as
well, each of whom felt called to contribute in a personal way. They all hit that same "record" button and
sang that same first lyric. And each of them conquered one of the most daunting places a songwriter can
visit—the long line at the post office. Thank you all.

Q+A: Tim Fagan, Winner

ESQ: When John Mayer called you, you told him you were going to soil yourself.
TF: My head is still kind of spinning. I was sitting in my car on a lunch break eating Chinese takeout.
I answered with a mouthful of rice and it's John Mayer on the phone. He started singing my song. It was
bizarre. I sang along with my best moo-goo-gai-pan voice.
ESQ: On paper, those lyrics look tough to work into a song, don't they?
TF: Masochistically isn't a word that gets a lot of credit in songwriting. But its time is now.
ESQ: You have to choose one: "Daughters" or "Your Body Is a Wonderland"?
TF: I play a mean version of "Your Body Is a Wonderland." The funky part in the middle gets going nice
and low.
ESQ: How long before we see the Fender guitar you won on eBay?
TF: EBay isn't in the picture on this one. This guitar's getting played the minute I get it.
ESQ: Unfortunately, winning the contest doesn't lift you out of poverty.
TF: One day it's Chinese and John Mayer. Today it's tacos and Esquire. If I stick to my fast-food regimen,
I can stay afloat. I'm getting closer every day to an actual meal.
—Andy Langer

- by John Mayer, Esquire Magazine

Tim Fagan fills Whirlpool with clever turns of both lyric and arrangement. He accentuates his ever-present acoustic strum with tasteful lead guitar licks and robust percussion in the rousing opener, "Already Fading," references the earnestness and atmosphere of David Gray with "Stay Awake," and settles back under the bubbles for the fun, mandolin-flecked title track. "The hurting in my back/And the meter maid attack/Dissolve like that in the Whirlpool," he sings, and that extra beer sounds like a good idea to both of us. That mandolin returns for "The Touch," where it emulates the drum of rain on a car's roof as Fagan himself leans toward a nice Bono impersonation. The cut's multiple changes are certainly ambitious, but they're not really necessary since Fagan has already proven he can do much more with considerably less. He nails that notion home with the incredible "A Pillow, an Hour & Me," which builds a four-poster bed with just a voice, a guitar, and witty lyrics. "Well I could be in the middle of a seminar/All about fireworks, cookies, and girls/But if I had my way/I'd hit the hay/While the world still swirls" — if the world's nappers had a theme song, this would be it. The late-album entry "I Date a Songwriter" is pretty hilarious with its skewering of coffeehouse stool rockers, clichéd music criticism, and the inevitabilities of a one-note relationship, but its whizzy synths and alt-rock guitars again are no match for Fagan's gentler side. Granted, the entire song's an inside joke. But it only makes the flirting smiles of quiet closer "Secrets" all the more satisfying. The number ends Whirlpool tidily, drifting lightly between blues and his normal folk-pop amiability. - All Music Guide