It may seem contradictory, but with a conception of love as big as Timothy Bailey’s, you’re likely to notice the small stuff.
The Richmond-based songwriter took to Substack in January to herald the May release of “New Love Stories,” his second album leading the Newlin Music Prize-nominated rock group Timothy Bailey and the Humans. In the post, he called the album’s title “aspirational” and “audacious,” going so far as to say the songs use love as a “metonym for human connection in all its forms.” That’s one sizable box of chocolates.
But the way he records, releases and consumes music places value on the little things that reveal themselves only upon intentional observation and sustained introspection. The flickering bravery required to shepherd something you created into the public eye. The invisible latticework that carries a friend’s musical recommendation into your life.
In a recent conversation over lunch at the Daily in Carytown, he put it this way: “My position is about human values that are easy to miss, connection and whatever the mystery of art-making is.” That position extends beyond the themes he and his bandmates drew on when making “New Love Stories” to include the decision — one that inspired intra-band debate — to forego uploading the album to streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. “I’ve had a hard enough time keeping the flame lit that I have to cup my hands around the flame a little bit,” he says. “Not participating in this scourge is a part of protecting that flame.”
Engaging with the streaming music model is a choice many of us make on a daily basis without even noticing it. But Bailey notices, and his feelings about algorithmically driven, payout-averse modes of listening are a matter of record. On Valentine’s Day 2023, Style Weekly published a Bailey-penned piece about emerging from two decades of creative hibernation and being shocked by the lack of financial viability for artists in the streaming era. He revisited the topic in a February Substack post titled “Against Spotify: A Manifesto,” calling streaming services the “parasitic wasps” of the music industry, and elaborated on his stance at the Daily while also detailing how his expansive view of love was made manifest through “New Love Stories.”
Style Weekly: When were the songs on the new album written?
Timothy Bailey: It’s occurred to me that the title “New Love Stories” has some irony built into it, because they’re not all new songs. They’ll be new to most listeners, they’re about love and they’re stories, but [lead single “The House on Laurel Street”] goes back to the mid-’90s. I was never happy with it. We recorded it for the first album — a completely separate version — and it just didn’t send me, and so we did it again. I’ve been trying to get that song right for 30 years.
What made you want to give Substack readers an early glimpse of “Bottomless Deep”?
I’m completely mystified as to which songs you release when. I’m also not sure of the logic of releasing singles anymore. That’s part of the thing about the manifesto and the thing I wrote in Style last year: It’s such a free-for-all that you might as well do it exactly how you like it … I guess the day that I wrote that [Substack post] I was like, “What song should be on there?” I just thought it was maybe one of the better exemplars on the record that really hit the themes I was trying to write about, namely about the extension of yourself on behalf of another person’s spiritual well-being.
What inspired you to record at Minimum Wage this time around?
Making the first record, not only was it a first — to make a record like that, for me — I kind of thought it would be the only time. I needed to do it in a way that the albums that I love were made … We had that studio where we recorded for two weeks, long days, lots of outside players coming in and out. It was like a little slice of heaven. It was also really intense and very expensive, and recording there with an engineer like Curtis [Fye] and producers like Bob [Massey] and Chad [Clark] was like a masterclass in making the record the way I wanted to.
For a variety of reasons, it was impossible to repeat that, not least of all just schedules. So looking at where we wanted to go, I just always wanted to go to Minimum Wage. I always thought it seemed cool. It’s that little building. So many great records. I think the driving thing was that Yeni Nostalji record that they did there that [Minimum Wage owner] Lance [Koehler] ran the production side of. It’s such an impressive achievement … That place is special. Some places radiate some sort of magical spirit. I think it’s one of them …
I knew that we were going to be doing overdubs at home. We recorded the basic tracks at Minimum Wage, Lance would upload them, and I have just enough equipment now — one good Neumann mic, some decent universal audio gear — just enough to record all the vocals, violin, guitar overdubs, [and] stuff like that at home. Then I went back over to Minimum Wage for one more day where Lance and I collated everything, edited to a limited extent, got all the tracks ready for mixing. That was all last spring and summer.
What has the time between the two albums been like for the band?
I find it difficult to know what to do with a band. I know for a lot of people it’s this unmitigated joy of being with their friends, hanging out, maybe driving to another town and playing. A caricature of me might be that I’m always brooding about stuff. It’s not really true; it’s just that I’ve done all that, and making this music is literally the most important feature of my life. I don’t really have any other career, I don’t really have a primary relationship. This is it for me. I guess it ties into the Spotify thing, too. If that’s true, if you love it and you’re bound by your sense of love to treating it well, maybe at a certain point you don’t want to play every show …
I needed, for some health reasons, a hiatus for the last several months, even from practice, while I had my hands full making the record as well. It’s hard to know what to do with a band. Nobody is going to make it; there is no “it” to make anymore. You don’t want to play just any show. I just kinda want to make records. That’s all I really want to do, is always be making records. But it’s hard to know how to steer the ship at times, especially in a landscape like the one we’re in, where it feels like, culturally, the role of music is so wildly in flux … We did have some good shows. We were befriended by this guy Franz Nicolay who is in the band The Hold Steady. We played with him in D.C. That was cool. We played an absolutely lovely outdoor event in D.C. where a lot of people from D.C. music culture were there. It was cool to meet them.
Was the band unified about staying off of streaming services?
Absolutely not unified … I had said quite a while ago that we would not be streaming this album, and that was met with flummoxed disbelief and some irritation. That conversation sort of went away, and then it came back fairly recently, and I wound up — me and one other person in the band who feels very similarly — we ended up having a principled discussion on the text thread where it was like, “Let’s talk about data. Let’s talk about the facts on the ground. Who is it that you are worried will not have access to our music? Can they afford the music?” The answer was yes. “Could you give them a copy?” Yes. Also, “How many people do you think listen to Timothy Bailey and the Humans?” We do better on Bandcamp than we do on Spotify and Apple Music …
I think there was an idea that I was being obstinately and peevishly secretive about the music, or I had a chip on my shoulder. And I was like, “I want as many people to hear this album as is possible, and I’m working hard to increase the number of ears that land on this music and eyeballs that land on the posts. I actually think our best bet is to refuse this bullshit that everybody else is constantly doing — that we’ve done — because we think we have to.” And we’re in a unique position to be able to do this. I have friends who are much more successful musicians, in terms of selling records. They couldn’t take this position. They’d have significant financial consequences. So we’re doing this because we believe it’s right, and because we can.
Other Richmond-based artists are taking a variety of approaches when it comes to streaming, from posting their stats publicly to spacing out singles with the algorithm in mind. What’s your reaction to tactics like those?
Do I think they’re wrong or bad for doing that? Absolutely not. And if it works, I’ll celebrate it … I’m well aware that I could start to sound like the old guy shaking his fist at the kids on the lawn. Like, “I want to do it the old way.” I really don’t. But if you live in the United States in 2024, you’re an adult, you have somehow passed through all the filters of the things you’re supposed to do and you wound up an artist, then you must believe it has meaning. And if it has meaning, how do you best love that? How do you best share those gifts? How do you honor the place of your own art and the art that inspires you?
To hear “The House on Laurel Street” and preorder “New Love Stories,” visit timothybaileyandthehumans.bandcamp.com. To subscribe to Timothy Bailey’s Substack, Greater Humanity, visit greaterhumanity.substack.com. Timothy Bailey & the Humans will perform an album release show at the Basement on Saturday, May 4. Doors open at 7 p.m. and music starts at 8 p.m. For more information, visit timothybaileyandthehumans.com.
