John Timmer-Arends and Steve Poulton are thrilled to pick up the NZ Country Music Association songwriting award at the 2021 Entertainer of the Year competition. Photo / Nikki Carroll
John Timmer-Arends and Steve Poulton are thrilled to pick up the NZ Country Music Association songwriting award at the 2021 Entertainer of the Year competition. Photo / Nikki Carroll
Third time lucky proved very true for local man John Timmer-Arends, when he won Songwriter of the Year at the NZ Country Music Association's 2021 Entertainer of the Year awards.
Timmer-Arends has been 'dabbling' in songwriting for over 10 years, with all his songs having a definite country flavour.
Taumarunui born and growing up in the dairy industry, as well as a love for the kind of music he used to listen to in the car with his dad, has a strong influence on Timmer-Arends' lyrics.
Funnily enough, his songwriting career only came about after he decided to learn how to play the guitar in his mid-40s.
"I'm definitely not a great player and every little bit [of progress] was hard won … [eventually] I came up with some lyrics … wrote out basic chords … took them to local muso Michael Bryant [to get some feedback]."
John Timmer-Arends is a local business owner who is also a nationally recognised country music song writer. Photo / Nikki Carroll
The first full song Timmer-Arends wrote was called Country Music and the lyrics talked about how this particular genre of music is part of the fabric of life.
He was catching up for a coffee with another muso friend, Wayne Glover, when they came across an advertisement for the Silver Scroll Awards, New Zealand's most prestigious songwriting award.
"It was two days before the entries closed … Wayne used his music contacts to get us into Tsunami Sound Studios … got a local rock band to perform [Country Music] … then we sent it off," said Timmer-Arends.
No success that first time, but hearing his lyrics become an actual song inspired Timmer-Arends to round up a few of his other muso friends (including Bryant and Glover) to go back into the studio.
Calling themselves Cactus Juice, the group recorded another 16 of Timmer-Arends' songs, and released a CD in 2014.
Gordon Fletcher, runner-up in the Veteran category at the 2021 NZCMA Entertainer of the Year Awards, performing John Timmer-Arends winning song Growing Old Disgracefully. Photo / NZCMA
Through this collaboration Timmer-Arends met Steve Poulton, an internationally recognised musician and performer who has his own studio in Levin and plays a range of instruments, including guitar, keyboard and drums.
"Steve is the music man," said Timmer-Arends. "He develops [my work] from my lyrics and few basic chords into an actual song."
Poulton said it's all about the mixology - "Everyone sees and hears things in different ways [and sometimes] making changes can bring a different aspect to the lyrics."
In 2018 the men entered an annual country music competition at the Pounamu Country Music club in Levin with a song titled Truck Driving Blues.
Winning the original song award gave them automatic entry into the NZ Country Music Awards for the following year, and they did the same again in 2019 with It's Hard to Write a Country Song.
Then in 2020, for the third year running, Timmer-Arends and Poulton produced yet another song that took out the local competition, which was put forward as a contender for the 2021 Songwriter of the Year.
The songwriting competition is pre-judged as it's all about the lyrics and how they fit with the music, not about how it sounds being sung.
"Steve and I couldn't make the awards night, but I'd had a call from one of the organisers to say that the song was going to be either first or second so we needed to have someone there to perform it," Timmer-Arends said.
The national award-winning song Growing Old Disgracefully was performed at the NZCMA awards night in October by another local, Gordon Fletcher, who was runner-up in the veteran performers section at the same event.
The winning song lyrics were about making the most out of every day and the dream of living life the way you want to.
Timmer-Arends said his songwriting happens in fits and starts, due to also running his own business as a registered valuer.
"I haven't actually written a new song in about two to three months," he said, "but when I do, I'll often write two or three all at once."
Timmer-Arends isn't one to brag about his achievements, but those close to him are extremely proud of his success, even if some of them don't really get the appeal of country music.
