Tim Hoover to be attending Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts

The band BluRock is looking for a new lead guitarist. Seems its current lead guitar player, Tim Hoover, will be leaving soon to go to the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts in London, the school co-founded by one of his idols and former Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney.

Tim said he had been planning to go to Nashville following graduation, since one of his three siblings lives there. Then Amy Garrett Guymon told him about LIPA, as Tim already refers to his future alma mater. He went online and looked it up, then said to his parents, John and Amy Hoover, who are also BluRock band members, “Let’s apply.” It took some doing to get the paper work, including the international application, together with a live recording demo. “They have to accept you to audition before you get accepted to the school,” Tim said. “They accepted me to go to Los Angeles for audition.”

The audition process in Los Angeles took six hours and consisted of such activities as a writing workshop where he collaborated for an hour with six other applicants to write a song, a music literacy test, and live performance pieces. “But I had a great time, I didn’t feel pressured, I just felt great.” That was unusual, he said in retrospect. He spent the return trip processing what happened, he also was wondering if he would be among the 55 accepted from around the world — 55 out of 4,500 applicants.

Even though he was told it would take about six weeks before he received a letter of denial or acceptance, that letter came a week later, stating he was in. Since then, it’s been a process of getting the money together, getting his passport and student visas, making living arrangements, and fading out not only from BluRock, but also from the band he and his high-school friends started a couple of years ago, Red Hot n Blue.

“I’ve met a few of my new roommates. There are no dorms, but it is student house, and I’ll be one-half mile from school, sharing a house with seven others,” Tim explained.

There, Tim will be studying for a Bachelors of Arts degree in the school’s honors music program. “There’s no courses like math, science, history — you go straight into the major.” Thus, it is a 3-year course of study, rather than the usual four years at most schools of higher learning. His studies will not only be for guitar, which includes one-on-one tutoring and private lessons, but also about music business, producing, writing, recording, and composition.

He laughed when he said he learned about other people’s image of Texas and Texans. “I was talking with a guy from Norway who is going there for bass guitar. He asked, ‘Does everybody carry rifles in Texas? Over here, we just use bow and arrows.’ They think we all ride horses and shoot guns.”

Another thing Tim is anticipating about his next three years is learning the culture and playing music in the United Kingdom. He’s currently studying and learning such things as the money exchange rates, banking practices, public transit, and even the little things like electrical plug-ins. “I’m not trying to over-think this stuff, but to find easy ways to make it work. The first few weeks will be tough.” He knows he’ll be walking almost everywhere, when he isn’t taking public transit. “I’m going to like it, too, it will be fun. I’m looking forward to all this.” He added that back-packing trips and golfing will also be part of his spare-time excursions.

The local Denison community has pitched in and therefore, Tim’s first year is not a financial problem.”We couldn’t do it without the help we’ve been given,” Mom Amy said. “Denison is, and always has been, very supportive.”

John Hoover got his son Tim into music when he was 13. “He threw a guitar in my hands and taught me chords. I didn’t take an interest at first. I don’t really know to this day what really got me into it, what made me want to pick up a guitar,” Tim said. He started watching DVDs with Cream, Eric Clapton, and others, and he said he noticed the chemistry, the bond between musicians, and when he heard the notes that came out of Clapton’s guitar, “from that moment on it (guitar) was the coolest thing. It was something deep down in my soul and after that it came natural.”

Amy talked about a time when Tim performed, as part of Camp Jam in Dallas. They knew he was going to perform a Cream song, “Go figure,” she said, adding that she and John had no idea he was going to sing too. She said Tim is usually a shy guy, “but when he walked up to the mic and started singing, I and Natalie (Tim’s sister) looked at each other and said together, ‘Who is this and what did he do with Timothy?’”

Tim explained that performance is a comfort zone for him, that he has never experienced stage fright.

The young man is Beatles fan, true blue, and said he’s anticipating the time already when McCartney shakes every graduate’s hand, which is a tradition at LIPA. Until then, he will get to play in the Cavern Club, where the Beatles got their start, and to listen to McCartney when he lectures some of the classes.

“Their (the Beatles’) music is timeless, it’s genius. It’s the most amazing thing, four men from Liverpool made the most timeless music in history. Two hundred years from now, the world will still know the Beatles’ music. Imagine it, even NASA sent a Beatles song out across the universe. It will take 300 years to reach its destination (the North Star),” Tim said with admiration.

BluRock

BluRock is playing tonight at Music on Main in downtown Denison. In addition to Tim Hoover on lead guitar, Amy Hoover on bass and John Hoover on rhythm guitar and vocals, there is Bobby Connell on keyboards, Ronnie Cole on percussion, and Robert Crawley on drums. The concert is in Heritage Park on Main Street, free to the public, and begins at 7:30 p.m.

It may not be the last time Tim will be with the band he’s grown up with, but it’s nearing the end of this portion of life as he knows it. He’s filled with excitement, energy, anticipation, and positivity about life as it will become known to him.