Tim Aymar

Infobox musical artist
Name = Tim Aymar

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Img_capt = Tim Aymar Performing With Triple-X (1991)
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Background = heavy_metal_singer
Birth_name =
Alias =
Born = September 4, 1963
Died =
Origin = Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Instrument = Vocals
Genre = Heavy metal Progressive metal Power metal
Occupation = Vocalist, Voice Instructor, Recording Engineer, Music Producer
Years_active = 1989-
Label = Cruz Del Sur Music, Nuclear Blast Records
Associated_acts = Pharaoh, Control Denied, Psycho Scream, Triple-X
URL = [http://www.timaymar.com] [http://www.solarflight.net] [http://www.emptywords.org]

Tim Aymar is an American heavy metal singer/songwriter who resides in Florida. He is best known for singing with the short-lived band Chuck Schuldiner-fronted Control Denied.

History

Tim Aymar was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He's childhood interests were in art, science, nature, mechanics and music. As an adult he has acquired skills in all these areas, and is certified as an environmental control technician, a broadcasting announcer, and an audio engineer. He is skilled as a chef, a carpenter, an auto mechanic, has intensive training and experience in sales, marketing, market research, and he has taught music and voice for nearly 15 years. When he is not developing and producing music for himself, his bands or his clients, he is usually either fishing, visiting and/or partying with close friends and family, building or fixing something, or studying.

Tim's education as a singer and trumpeter began at age 8. Singing and playing classical, contemporary, jazz and pop throughout his school years, by the time he was a teenager, his interest in music had turned to hard rock and especially heavy metal. On any given day, Tim's classmates could hear him singing or playing guitar or harmonica in the hallways, the cafeteria and study halls, even on the bus. Although he was admittedly once quite shy and uncomfortable with performing, he has become one of the most captivating front-men in the business. By invitation from his schoolmate Dallas Perkins, he joined his first band Aladdinsane, which went through several name changes and members, but the core of the band remained Tim and the Kendrick brothers, Don and Dave, who changed the name to Overlord, a band which still includes Don and co-founder Ray DeVito. By age 15 Tim was paying his dues, and getting noticed by the right people in the most notable clubs of western Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, Tim's interest in music and science led him to study acoustics and audio recording while in high school. By then he had already built his first transducer, a demonstration of the workings of the ear, when he was 13. In high school he chose to study environmental technology at a local vo/tech school, where he learned basic electronics, advanced mathematics as well as technical drawing and schematics, which made his later studies in audio recording much easier.

At age 18, Tim relocated to Orlando, Florida and blasted the local bars with Axis, a very well seasoned top 40 rock cover band. Tim benefited greatly from the guidance he received from his elder and more experienced band mates, who eventually referred him to Act Of God, which was a full time studio recording project. Tim spent many late nights at the studio learning all he could from the engineers there. He lived briefly with his bassist Ed Gonzales, who was also an audio engineer, and toyed with Texas Instruments computer at Ed's, learning to program musical beeps and blips in BASIC. In those days the thought of recording the amount of data for even a few spoken words was only a dream and MIDI was just in its infancy. Tim is now an expert user of many digital audio workstation programs and an excellent MIDI programmer.

As the result of a serious motorcycle accident, Tim moved back to Pittsburgh to convalesce when he was 21. He joined back up with Overlord briefly, and worked separately with former Overlord drummer Rob Deaner, writing and recording songs and developing his skills as a recording artist/engineer/producer. Bassist Dave Kendrick of Overlord invited Tim to a jam session with some friends, which resulted in a new band with great potential. 313 (pr: three-thirteen) gained much acclaim through airplay on the nationally syndicated radio show Metal Shop. Their tunes "Black and White", "Arrogance And Aggression" and "The Warrior Song" were highly requested favorites on the only metal station within 100 miles of Pittsburgh, K-Rock. They opened for several national acts including Talus and Johnny Van Zandt. Tim's bass player from Act Of God, Ed Gonzales assisted with getting the band a proposition from CBS records who were willing to sign the band to a development deal, which went belly up due to technical problems with their master tapes, among the usual internal dysfunctions of a band about to be signed to a label.

After a brief hiatus, and continuing his studies in music theory, bel canto voice, audio recording, engineering, and music production, Tim was enticed by a local promoter into forming a new band. Dr. No quickly became extremely popular in the local scene, and they were consequently discovered by Tommy Marzullo, a manager who worked in various capacities with Kiss, Ratt, Sheila E, Victory and several other world class artists. Tom brought with him song writer/producer Sam Hazo, whom convinced and coached Tim toward becoming a voice instructor. By Tommy's advice, Tim went on to join Triple-X, who immediately became the top drawing band in Pittsburgh for 5 years running.

Playing over 600 shows in less than 5 years, Triple-X packed the clubs and set attendance records nearly everywhere they went. They headlined the Pittsburgh Regatta and many other major events, received awards from the local media, and were the first local band to earn a national product endorsement. By competing against over 500 bands they won the sponsorship from Annheiser Busch/Budweiser. Soon afterward, they released BANG, the first independently produced CD by a local band in Pittsburgh. With the desire to keep moving forward toward his goal of being signed to a major label, Tim left the band to start fresh.

From Wheeling, West Virginia arose a guitarist with an unfinished project, which became Tim's next endeavor. Vocalist Chet Miller had written the parts for what was to be the sophomore album of Jim Dofka's namesake, but Chet left the band before it's completion, so Tim stepped in and sang in his stead. It was not exactly the fresh start Tim had wanted, although the band agreed to change the name to Psycho Scream. Virtual Insanity, the debut E.P. cassette made a huge impression in the underground scene, and quickly gained attention from the international media, and several recording contract proposals came in from around the globe. The critics' reviews were extremely promising, although the deals the labels were offering were no better than what they could do on their own. Over the course of 10 years, the band sustained multiple blizzards, floods, and personnel changes that would send any lesser outfit to a hasty demise, but the remaining duo, Dofka and Aymar managed to write all the material for the next album. As Tim carved out his niche as a recording engineer at Soundscape, and Jim sent out the smoke signals for musicians to fill the line-up, they recorded more songs together and waited patiently for good news. One of the tapes that Dofka sent went out to Chuck Schuldiner, the proprietor and mastermind of the band Death, who asked to borrow Tim for an experimental project he was working on. With Jim's blessings, Tim auditioned against one of his own heroes "The Metal God" himself, Rob Halford of Judas Priest and Nevermore's Warrel Dane, and emerged victorious with a 3 song demo of Control Denied in December, 1997. While Chuck shopped the demo around to several record companies searching for the right contract, Tim took a break from Psycho Scream, continued singing in the studio as a hired gun, and earned his wings as a music producer. He was hired during that period by Philadelphia based Pharaoh to record two songs, one cover and one original composition, for an Iron Maiden tribute entitled Maiden America. It took over a year to get Control Denied a recording contract, but after finishing a final Death album and subsequent tour, Chuck and the other members of Death were ready to begin the transformation. They began rehearsing and putting the final touches to the songs in February, 1999. Two weeks into the mission, Tim's youngest brother died, and he had to fly home to Pittsburgh for the funeral and take some time to deal with the family tragedy. A week later he was back in Orlando, rehearsing and tracking the final demos with Chuck. As Control Denied, they recorded their debut CD The Fragile Art of Existence , produced by Jim Morris at Morrisound in Tampa, Florida in March 1999. With only a few tracks left to finish, Chuck began to feel an odd pain in his neck, accompanied by severe headaches. It was discovered on May 13 1999 that the cause was a tumor attached to his brain stem. Chuck fought the cancer for nearly 2 years, and was in remission for long enough to complete the writing and recording of the rhythm tracks for a second Control Denied CD which is unfinished until further notice. In the meanwhile, Tim kept himself busy teaching, engineering live shows and producing projects for studio clients, and recording a full length Psycho Scream project. Mid-stream through the Psycho Scream sessions, he was approached once again by Pharaoh to sing on a full length CD. With the help of Chris Zenner of Tension, and Jim Dofka, Tim was able to record his parts for the album and ship them back to the band which hadn't even met in person until nearly 2 years after it's release. Shortly after, Chuck Schuldiner passed away, and Tim penned the lyrics to "Forever Free" as a memorial to his close friend and band leader, the final vocal tracks were laid down, pre-mixed and sent back to the Pharaoh camp to be mixed. After The Fire was the April, 2003 debut from Pharaoh, who were the first signed band on Cruz Del Sur Music, a brand new specialty label based in Rome, Italy.

As the Pharaoh disc was released and began to receive rave reviews, Tim joined up with a project he had been producing which was briefly successful. The project's name was Vicious Cycle, and they released only 3 songs initially, which were to enter a local contest at the Hard Rock Cafe. The contest made them win $20,000. The Hard Rock Cafe contest was only their second performance. They also made the songs available for free on Amazon.com. One of their songs, "Don't Fuck With Me", became the #1 metal download on Amazon, replacing Motörhead out of that position.

In 2004 Tim made the decision to become a permanent member of Pharaoh. In October that year, he finally got to meet all the members of the band at a meeting in Philadelphia, to sign the new contract with Cruz Del Sur and do a photo shoot for the promo for the second CD. Over the course of the winter, Tim and the band swapped project files back and forth over the internet, until eventually all the songs were written and perfected. This time, Tim wrote lyrics and vocal arrangements for 4 songs on the record, including the opening tune.

Tim now resides in Florida and Pharaoh's newest CD "Be Gone" is due for release in April, 2008.

Awards

His band Triple-X won the In Pittsburgh Music Awards for Best Metal Band in 1991, and was the first regional band to be awarded a national sponsorship, which was from Annheiser-Busch/Budweiser. Tim was also voted 'Vocalist Of The Year' in readers polls of many of the Pittsburgh Tri-State Area's rock and entertainment publications.

Discography

With Triple X

*Bang (full-length, 1991)

With Control Denied

*"The Fragile Art of Existence" (full-length, 1999)

With Psycho Scream

*"Spring '94 "Limited Edition" (demo, 1994)
*"Virtual Insanity" (demo, 1994)
*"Demo 1996 (demo, 1996)

With Pharaoh

*"After the Fire" (2003)
*"The Longest Night" (2005)
*"Be Gone" (2008)

With Vicious Cycle

*"Burrn" (demo, 2002)

External links

* [http://www.myspace.com/metaldad Myspace Profile]
* [http://www.myspace.com/pharaohmetal Pharaoh Website]
* [http://www.emptywords.org Death and Control Denied Website]