Tim Chandler

Bass Player Special

CCM Magazine January 1991

by Lucas Hendrickson


Tim Chandler's schedule is as it should be for talented studio musicians: busy. Fellow Da/Swirling Eddies bandmate Terry Scott Taylor once referred to him as the bass player for 'every other band in the universe.'

Chandler's licks have been heard on both Eddies albums, and every Daniel Amos/DA/Da project over the last decade, as well as efforts by The Choir, Randy Stonehill and Tonio K.

Chandler admits that his start with the instrument "is a very boring story." He bagan guitar lessons at age 10, but didn't really enjoy it. "I wanted to go out and play football with everybody else."

Lessons led to playing in jazz bands in junior high and high school, which eventually led to garage bands and club gigs around the Los Angeles area.

It wasn't until the summer of 1980, playing backup band for televangelist Dwight Thompson (with Derri Daugherty of The Choir on guitar) that Chandler met up with Taylor and ended up in DA.

His hectic schedule of playing live and studio work with other musicians "really came out of financial necessity," Chandler says. He concedes to having slowed down over the years, but still finds time to play on "oddball things like demo sessions for people you've never even heard of."

Chandler keeps things simple, using an Aria Pro II bass on stage and in the studio. He also owns a Hamer 12-strings, but doesn't play it much. "I've never found an amp that could really power the thing," he says.

Right now, Chandler faces a dilemma in the amp department. "I used to have an Ampeg SVT cabinet that I've had since the mid-'70's, but it finally blew up on me. I've alwasy liked a lot of rattle and growl in my sound, and that amp always sounded like it was going to blow up, and it did."