Tom Skillman

I asked AI to take out the background. It took me a bit to see it, but
"AI" gave me a different chest and arms. If you've seen me in person, check it out. The more you look at that chest and arms, and then the head... Back to the arms. The head. Yeah. It's weird eh?

About Tom Skillman

I am the kind of person who says things like "I wish I could be better at ..." and then takes that random thought as a personal challenge and commitment, flogging the idea like it owes me money, until something else distracts me.
Sometimes, that can be a fun ride. Sometimes.

I got a drum set for Christmas when I was seven, but It wasn't my idea or wish. They were really for my dad, who wanted to be a drummer when he was a kid, but wasn't allowed. My sister and I would play "rock band" and sometimes he'd play the drums for us. When I was ten, my mom put me in drum lessons, and it wasn't a toy anymore. Frankly, I was not good at it at all. Not a natural lol.

At the same time, I was in a Boy's Choir between the ages of eight and thirteen. It was a structured, regimented practice style rehearsing twice a week, and performing most weekends of the choir season. Without the training I got in the Cambridge Kiwanis Boy's Choir, I doubt I would ever had been able to learn and progress at any instrument. They taught me how to practice.

When I started high school in 1985, someone, I can't recall who, heard I had a drum set, and asked me if I wanted to join their band. I had just gotten into Judas Priest, and they played songs like that, sounded like fun, so I said "yes".
The truth is, I was not remotely good enough to play with those guys, but it sparked me. The failure to learn the songs, or be able to play with them, drove me to figure it out.

Not in a bitter way, but in a curious effort to see if I even could.

My sister Rebecca and I jamming out!

I found other people to learn how to play with, and I spent most of high school acting in school plays and dreaming of making it big with Rob Cosh, Jeff Chard, Randy Wood and Nick Bastien in our band "Back to Front".

I was not the most... present high school student. If I liked something, I'd be into it, but if I wasn't interested, nothing could get me to care about things like "grades". So when it was time to think about what comes after high school, (and mostly because I didn't have the grades to get into a University drama program), I enrolled in Humber College's Jazz Music program.

Of course, I had no experience, at all, listening to, or playing jazz. I failed my first audition. I also failed my second audition, but they did accept me into the "pre-music" course. I was able to pass the audition after the pre-music year, and spent another two years in the program for drums and percussion. Being around so many talented and frankly better musicians, seeing their practice habits, and the energy and social tension in that space, solidified my new desire to be a drummer. I was interested, so I learned things.

Nick and the band jamming at a basement party

Going back to Quadra
After three years at Humber, a friend of mine, Ian Roberts, was out in British Columbia and he asked me to drive his car out to him that summer. So, I called up Rob Cosh, and we did the road trip across Canada in 1994, and wound up on Quadra Island. Rob went back to Ontario at the end of our work season, but I stuck around.

I had been on Quadra the summer before in '93, and on the last three days, met bassist Nick Richardson. We connected musically in a way I have not experienced with anyone else. We just seemed to always know what the other guy was doing, and where they were coming from. I really left Humber, and headed back to BC, because I hoping Nick and I would start jamming and start a band. We did, and for a few years our total focus was the hopes and dreams that our band with Paul Dowler and Joe Skogan, "Bonafide", would "make it".

So... we didn't. lol. I loved being in Bonafide, but I had to be realistic.
I left the band at the end of '96, as the band moved to Vancouver, and I wasn't confident enough that I could support our family if we moved.

My daughter had just been born, we had two kids, and I needed to lock down and get serious to do my part. I've always had full support from my family, which I greatly appreciate; and I was starting to realize that there is a difference between what we dream about, versus our realities.

In my 20's and my 30's, I taught drum lessons at the Music Plant, played in cover bands in bars and legions around Vancouver Island, and tried to find a way to make music my job, while also starting to progress at my day job.
Most of the gigging was playing drums, although I did play bass in cover bands for a few years, and even did a stint playing guitar with "Big Mouth".

My busiest year trying to work in music, I had 20 students, and played around 110 gigs. With all that, I wasn't really making enough money for this to be my job. It was getting clear that I would need to focus on my day job to support my family, so I did that, although still practicing with other musicians one to three times a week, and gigging on the weekends in rock and roll bands!

Rob visiting Tom in BC in 2015.

Recording stuff
I would often make demo tapes using a four track multi-recorder I had borrowed indefinitely from Nick, but dreamed of having a proper, big studio to spend my days and nights in. By 2004, I was using a Roland 8 track recorder, and stumbled on a website called "Songfight.org". The admins at Songfight would post a title, and a time limit, and sometimes a constraint (such as... "must include hand claps" ). Musicians who were inspired by the title & challenge would write, record and post their attempt as an uploaded mp3. People would review, critique, argue, support and collaborate each week while someone would be declared that week's "winner".

Such an amazing experience at the time, as it forced you to write with a deadline and theme, but it was also a great community to learn from and improve your recording knowledge and skills.
What made it even more special was how I "bumped" into two musicians that I went to high school with, played in bands with, but had not kept in touch with for a few years.

One was Rob Cosh, the guitarist and co-singer from my very first band in high school, who I had travelled across Canada with in 1994! We would occasionally connect, but this was pre-social media. It had been a few years, so finding each other, doing like minded things online with music was an incredible moment.

Later, we also "found" Michael McKinnon, who was the singer and co-songwriter in a band I was in during my college years called "Boon Liver". We were able to write and record music, and email it to each other to create songfight entries. It was an exciting, fun time and it re-connected me with some buddies I thought I might never see, never mind get to play music with again.

We made entries as "Leaf62" (Tom), "theHipCola" (Rob), "SmalltownMike" (Micheal McKinnon), and in some larger groups like "RedCar" and "Gert".
Songfight drove me to improve my gear and equipment, as well as my writing and playing. It's what prompted the ideas for Position Rockit.

That sort brings us to now...
Just before COVID, I was talking to Rob and told him that I was going to try and make a full length, mildly thematic album. I wanted it to sound like something I would buy as a teenager, but also explore experiences from a chronological perspective. Puddles is about an experience I had when I was five, playing outside with my sister. Rocket Ship is about teaching kids to use their imagination, each song an experience at different time in a life. Each song tells a story that I hope is relatable for someone. Not a direct narrative, or autobiography. But a thematic collection of experiences from early childhood to the late 30's in some person's life.

I wanted it to sound like a full band was playing together, and feel like I was reacting to the "other" players when it is really me, tracking the parts separately. This meant rehearsing the different parts, then re-recording parts when new ideas or directions came up, cycling from drums, to bass, to singing, to guitar, until I found the versions on the album. I also wanted to include friends on different tracks, and have lots of harmony and duet singing.

Bluntly, to Rob at the time, this seemed excessively ambitious lol. He was not wrong; and I don't know if really accomplished what I originally set out to do, because these things evolve all on their own. Limitations like the size of my recording room, the mics I own, my instruments themselves, my varying skill at different instruments, and limiting my focus to just these songs until I got where I thought I was going.

Yet, I stuck at it, and now, here we are.

So... what does this all really mean lol?
No matter where the reality of my life takes me, I am the kind of person who is willing to take the risk, give it a shot, and see what happens.
I've always been more enchanted by the "making and doing" process, than I really am with a finished work. I get inspired by challenges, and that leads me to a curiosity to know as much as I can. That's the "about Tom Skillman" summary.

I don't know what Position Rockit is for anyone else, that's not my call. I do know, I loved every minute planning it, thinking about it, making it, and now sharing it. Through out my life as a musician, I met a lot of people, just like me, who would be literally dreaming of making their own album, and putting their voices out there.

This album is as much about why I made it, as it is about those people too. There are other musicians I had tried to get involved in this project, but various barriers would prevent. There is ... one person who was a flat out no lol, but I'm already starting on new songs, and thinking of new people to collaborate with.

Music to me, is the ultimate communication, and it's to be shared, where we are speaking our truths whether we intend it or not. I love it.

About Tom Skillman

Contacting...

You can reach out to Tom Skillman and the Imaginators here.