Arts Professional Story: Tim Kinsella

Tim Kinsella

An interview with Britton Bertran, CAR Artist Story Editor. Tim Kinsella is a musician with, most notably, Chicago-based Joan of Arc and is also a solo musician and filmmaker.

Culturally, Chicago allows people to do their thing and hone in on what they do for its own sake unlike other cities of comparable density and scope. It has the sensory input of every specialization at any moment, but none of the rat-race. And I, whatever my career is, do not by any means lack ambition, but my ambitions have little in common with what might commonly be regarded as success. I like making things. I like being awake and hanging out with my friends and solving problems that I don't know how to name. Work and play are closely woven in my life thanks to Chicago's affordable-ness.

What kind of creative endeavors do you have outside of music?

I just went back to school to get my masters degree in writing at the Art Institute. So I write. And my ex-wife and I made a movie together with some friends. I've written half a dozen other screenplays and a play but that's the only one to have been fully realized. Limitations of course being the creative tool they are, my vegetarianism and laziness regarding cooking for myself provoke some creative culinary inventions.

What kind of advice would you give another musician about becoming a successful artist in Chicago?

Oh jeez. I guess first throw away your television immediately and don't ever even think about it again. The next fundamental would have to be defining success for yourself. In every administrative and bureaucratic (a word I just spelled correctly on the first attempt!) sense of the word "success" I am a failure. But I am also among the most joyous dummies you'll ever meet because my requirements could not be more basic - I need to walk around some a couple times a day. I need a lot of quiet. I mean a ton of quiet, two tons even. And for me at least, that joyousness makes me want to sing. Its a tautological design - music makes me swell with abundance like autumn grapes which makes me want to play music which makes me swell with abundance . . . etc. And curate your brain thoughtfully. And don't get distracted by thinking about what you think people like, because that just reads as repulsive and pathetic phoniness and people feel that in their guts. You know, the clichés are true - follow your hunches, be daring, and love love love love love above all else.

How important has the internet been in developing your career and how do you take advantage if it?

I don't know. I come from the dinosaur pre-internet music scene of zines and mail-ordering records and sell-outs, etc. It was thrilling to see a band when they came to town and all you know of them maybe was some black and white photos from a show and there was mystery and sometimes implied danger. Youtube and Myspace and all have diminished that distance by offering immediately available reduced experiences. I mean, its cool to me that something happening anywhere now happens everywhere at the same time. That's interesting to me in evolutionary terms, but in terms of seeing bands it’s not for me. I preferred mystery.

Tim Kinsella is a musician, writer, student, ex-film-maker, ex-husband, bartender, older brother, and aspiring non-denominational monk from Chicago. His only response to the charge of dilettantism such lack of focus implies would be knowing which specialists to look to in each discipline when necessary and trusting they got it all covered, freeing him to float and integrate. Born in the wake of Nixon's resignation and descended from downstate Irish farmers and Humboldt Park tenement Italians, Kinsella lives alone with his deep commitment to someday overcoming his fear of his own shadow and a true love of vegetables.