Meet Theron Wall in Downtown

Today we’d like to introduce you to Theron Wall.

Theron, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was born in Aspen, Colorado. I was bitten by the music bug early, at a John Denver concert in Aspen when I was five. I started playing music in grade school and my first instrument was cello. We moved to the valley as I entered my teen years and I graduated from Marcos de Niza High School in Tempe. I continued playing cello into my first two years at ASU, initially enrolling as a musical performance major. Eventually, the allure of rock & roll and other educators interested won out. I switched my major to Humanities, put the cello in the closet, bought a bass guitar, and joined a band.

I played in a couple of bands before graduating, one of which, 10th & Ash, enjoyed some local success in the Tempe Mill Ave scene, winning an online unsigned band & songwriting contest and opening for major label artists and local kings of the hill, The Refreshments & Dead Hot Workshop. After graduating from ASU in the mid-’90s, I moved to Seattle with one of the songwriters and guitar players from 10th & Ash, David Wolfmeyer, and we started a band based around his songs, calling ourselves Truckers On Speed.

Truckers On Speed tag line at the time was “Pill poppin’, chew spittin’, noise makin’, white trash.” That gives you an idea of what aesthetic we were going for. I worked at a legendary bar on Ballard Ave called Hattie’s Hat, the epicenter of the Alt-Country/No Depression scene, just a couple doors down from the Tractor Tavern. We never really found our musical peeps in Seattle. We did most of our shows at a duo with Dave playing guitar and singing and me playing cello and singing harmonies. I know it sounds weird to have an acoustic duo with cello called Truckers On Speed, but it worked. It still does, on the rare occasion, Dave and I are in the same room with a guitar and cello in hand.

Eventually, we made our way back to Tempe where, as Dave said, “I can throw a rock and hit a good drummer”. We quickly found the rest of our rock band and built a strong local reputation for uncompromising rock & roll and good songwriting in the Tempe scene during the late ’90s and early ’00s, including a weekly residency at Long Wong’s on Mill. I played in TOS for a couple more years and played on the first two albums.

Eventually, my budding young family and job responsibilities pulled me away from Truckers, music, and Arizona. After a few years, I found my way back, moving to Prescott, AZ, where a began figuring out guitar and started writing songs. Eventually, I reconnected with friends and bandmates in the valley and formed my own band, The Torn Speakers, based around my songs.

I’m currently involved in a number of local music projects, including The Torn Speakers, Heartless Bartons, my own solo performances, and I’m back playing bass and singing harmonies with my ol’ buddies, Trucker On Speed, among others. In addition to guitar, bass, and cello, I’ve picked up a couple of other oddball instruments along the way, including the mandocello and mandola, so I guess that makes me a full-fledged multi-instrumentalist? That seems a bit pretentious, but I’ll take it. I produced, along with Curtis Grippe at STEM Recording, an album of my own songs that I released in 2017. I also recently produced a record for an amazing Prescott based singer-songwriter, Stephy Leigh Griffin, I can’t wait for people to hear.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Oh, it’s been a very smooth road. Everyone knows you can’t make good music if you’ve suffered too much hardship. Hang on… I’m not sure, but I might have that backwards…

There have definitely been struggles – heartbreak, love & loss, breakups, betrayal, bad decisions, pain & suffering… your usual Country & Western and Blues musical inspiration.

Please tell us more about what you do, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
I love music. All of it. I love listening to it, playing it, singing it, writing it, making it, recording it, talking about it, reading about it, even promoting it. Hopefully, with my own music, what people hear and see is honestly, vulnerability, and creativity. I do my best to be open and take risks when I write and perform, that’s what I like best in my favorite artists. I’m most proud of the other artists and musicians I’ve had the opportunity to play with. With more than twenty years playing in bands I can honestly say I’ve never been to a bad band or played with people I don’t like and respect. One of the reasons I started writing songs was so I could invite some of my favorite people and musicians to play on them, to give them a platform to be creative and bring their own magic to the table. I’ve been extremely fortunate in that regard and I think the fun and musicianship that comes from the people I collaborate with is one of the main things that sets us apart. There are really only two hard and fast rules I have in my bands – have fun and don’t be an asshole.

Tell us about your favorite and least favorites things about our city.
I love how welcoming, inclusive, unassuming, unique, and collaborative the creative community is in Phoenix. There are bigger creative communities with more notoriety in other cities, but this is the place for me. What we have in Phoenix and Arizona, in general, is something special. It’s always been that way, but you have to dig a bit, be willing to get off the beaten path, and not worry too much about what other people might think to find it.

My least favorite thing about Phoenix is being served unfiltered tap water after walking two blocks on a balmy late July afternoon.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.theronwallmusic.com
• Email: theronwallmusic@gmail.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/theronwallmusic
• Facebook: facebook.com/theronwallmusic

Image Credit:
Photos by Bill Goodman & Christopher Marchetti

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