Tmdistant is a 20-year-old artist currently residing in Essex. The talented singer was raised in Boreham Wood before making the move over to Essex, Son of a pastor he spent a lot of his childhood in the church as a part of the choir “Music wasn’t really a thing back in the days, my dad was a pastor so I grew up in the church, so I was always singing in a choir from young”.
At only 20 Tms career kicked off in school with the help of his foe-turned-friend Remy Saint, “I never would have done this if it weren’t for my best friend Remy Saint .. he was like to me one day, you go church init, he was like I wanna rap and I want you to sing on it”. “One day we were in music class and we decided to make a beat and do that …. Later down the line when we were like 14, we were like we should drop some of this stuff on Soundcloud”.
Tmdistants sound is one that is very difficult to tie down to a genre or subculture in the UK, with hints of rock, hip-hop and pop, TMs sound is extremely individualistic and niche to the uk scene.”I felt like I wanted to do like hip-hop type of things then later down the line my manager was like, we should do something different and sent me different playlists of sounds, an artist called Sevdaliza and that changed my whole outlook on music”.” I like Taylor Swift, I listen to Pierce the Veil, I listen to Paramore, I listen to green day, all types of genres … Michael Jackson is one of my greatest inspirations, he’s the greatest” With influences ranging from Iranian singers to the king of pop, it is easy to see why TMs music is so different from the rest of the artists in the UK scene and why the sounds he creates are so difficult to categorise.
“I’ve always loved music and then when I started making it, I was like I need to put this out because I know people will like it”. Being only 20 years old, TM is still so new to the industry he has found himself in but has managed to build a team around him, “I‘ve got a really tight, small-knit team that I work with”. He has his manager who he works closely with on everything, his two producers, New york based Abare and British producer Song Higginson, If TM isn’t engineering himself he will call up Tom did it and for Mastering he has the uniquely named Orange Chai Sunshine. While TM has built his team and trusts them with every aspect of his music, the songwriting is something he does on his own and just the thought process alone seems to be a mission “My thought process behind my music and the music I listen to is what do I feel when listen to it, what do it think of when I listen to it, what emotion does this music evoke out of me”, The music Tmdistant creates is full of emotion not only in the lyrics he sings but within his voice the emotion and rawness is there to be heard. TM used one of his latest releases ‘Need to Get out of Here’ as an example of the way in which his music can affect you “You could be zooming down the mway listening to that, or if you really deep what I’m talking about it could be 5 am and you’re crying”
Only 20 years of age and 3 years deep into his musical career TMdistant has so much more to come, not only with his music but with life. His current focus is the impact his music has “Right now I just wanna make an impact on people, I want people especially men to feel something comfortable in the open … I want men to be able to be transparent, it’s not even just men it’s just for me being who I am and how I grew up, still to this day the only time I ever talk about my emotions is mainly when I’m singing in my songs”. There is an obvious goal for TM “I want people to feel [when they listen to my music] like they can talk”.
Tmdistant was such an interesting artist to speak to, still so young his mind seemed focused on his goals and what he hopes to achieve with his music. His youthfulness not acting as a barrier with the artists speaking beyond his years, the effect he can have with his music ultimately being his most important goal. He did leave me with these last words regarding new music “I’ve got more singles to drop, I have so much music”.
