PLAY MUSIC DRUMMER’S SOLO VENTURE

Collins did it, Dave Grohl did it, and there’s no reason Tim Hart can’t do it.

The Boy & Bear drummer has released his second solo album, The Narrow Corner, and is proving, just like his fellow rock percussionists Grohl and Collins, that he has the skills and talent to also be a frontman.

“There is something with drummers, definitely, if you think of Levon Helm ( the Band) Don Henley ( The Eagles) there is that thing,” Hart said. With Sydney band Boy & Bear, Hart isn’t pushed to the back to hide behind his four band members.

They have a diplomatic arrangement, sharing songwriting duties, harmonising together and positioning Hart towards the front. So the record is not about getting time in the spotlight but fulfils more of a literary desire for him.

“I guess for me I love reading and I love lyrics. I love the way the English language kind of works so I love writing lyrics, so my solo project is my outlet for that,” he said. The album is inspired by a Somerset Maugham novel. “Somerset Maugham wrote a book called The Narrow Corner and it was set in Indonesia in the ’ 20s or ’ 30s and it’s just all about expectations,” Hart said.

This album explores the expectations put on Hart by himself but also by others, in particular his peers from Yagoona, the suburb in southwest Sydney where he grew up. “Coming out of a lower socioeconomic area of Sydney, I guess to have any level of success in music was not something that a lot of people had done in the area I was from,” he said.