CASEY: Tell me about your early days?
TOMMY: I grew up in Odense, Denmark. Population about 175,000. I grew up with my mom and my older brother who's about three years older than me. I have three half brothers, as well. I moved to Copenhagen when I was about 26, but moved back to Odense when I started having kids. I like it here. It's not too small for nothing to ever happen but also not so big that it totally consumes you. I do miss Copenhagen though, especially when it comes to music related stuff.
CASEY: When did you start getting into music?
TOMMY: I started to listening to music seriously at a very early age. My Dad listened to stuff like Shakin' Stevens, George Thorogood, Wreckless Eric, Dave Edmunds and stuff like that, music that I still listen to to this day. My older brother brought home a lot of albums from the local music library when I was very young and that sort of paved the way into my fascination with the Ramones and AC/DC. I always find it difficult mentioning all of the bands and artists I've been inspired by since there are so many. My all time favorite is The Ramones. Rocket To Russia is my all time favorite album.
CASEY: When did you start playing music?
TOMMY: Got my first acoustic guitar at age ten or eleven and got my first electric guitar at thirteen. I had a few guitar lessons by a teacher I had in school but it was mostly just stringing a few chords together and that was that.
CASEY: Tell me about your first band.
TOMMY: It was a band at elementary school. I don't remember what we called the band, something very juvenile, I'm sure. The first "proper" band I had was also with musicians I went to school with who were a few years older than me. It's hard to remember in detail but I think I must have been fourteen or fifteen when we first started. It was hard rock influenced. I still have the demo tapes we did. Our drummer suggested the name Horticulture and that's what stuck for some reason. Horrible, horrible name!
TOMMY: I started to listening to music seriously at a very early age. My Dad listened to stuff like Shakin' Stevens, George Thorogood, Wreckless Eric, Dave Edmunds and stuff like that, music that I still listen to to this day. My older brother brought home a lot of albums from the local music library when I was very young and that sort of paved the way into my fascination with the Ramones and AC/DC. I always find it difficult mentioning all of the bands and artists I've been inspired by since there are so many. My all time favorite is The Ramones. Rocket To Russia is my all time favorite album.
CASEY: When did you start playing music?
TOMMY: Got my first acoustic guitar at age ten or eleven and got my first electric guitar at thirteen. I had a few guitar lessons by a teacher I had in school but it was mostly just stringing a few chords together and that was that.
CASEY: Tell me about your first band.
TOMMY: It was a band at elementary school. I don't remember what we called the band, something very juvenile, I'm sure. The first "proper" band I had was also with musicians I went to school with who were a few years older than me. It's hard to remember in detail but I think I must have been fourteen or fifteen when we first started. It was hard rock influenced. I still have the demo tapes we did. Our drummer suggested the name Horticulture and that's what stuck for some reason. Horrible, horrible name!
CASEY: Tell me about Tommy And The Rockets.
TOMMY: The idea to form a new band had been in my head for a while. I had been without a band for about two years and I was eager to get back into playing. I was going to call it Tommy And The Torpedoes initially. One thing led to another and I soon hooked up with Michael Chaney who's a great lyricist. We started tossing around ideas and he had a song he originally pitched to another band that I ended up having a crack at. It just took off from there. We ended up writing a whole album together, an album that initally meant to be just a single, then an EP but ended up being a full length album. We also wrote an EP together. Chaney brought in musicians to help like Brad marino from The Connection who played drums on those two releases and Kris Rodgers from The Dirty Gems who played all the keys. Chaney and I stopped working together, though. Let's just say we didn't see eye to eye. Anyway, I've kept releasing stuff under the Tommy And The Rockets moniker with me playing most of the instruments and doing the bulk of the writing. I've had guest musicians on some of the recordings but, in general, it's just me trying to do the best I can.
CASEY: What are your future plans?
TOMMY: I want to put a full length album out and then focus on putting a band together. So, if there's anyone who's reading this who wants to be in a band with an old fart like me, don't hesitate to holler.
--Casey Redmond
