Today we’d like to introduce you to Tim FORTNER.
Hi Tim, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I played metal for most of my adult life, but whenever I was playing by myself or doing acoustic stuff, I always ended up playing ska, reggae, and punk.
I moved to Alabama in 2018 and took a break from music for a while. After a couple years I realized I was pretty unhappy not playing, so I started doing some acoustic gigs again. That brought the bug back almost immediately, and I started looking pretty hard for people to actually build a band with.
Eventually I found some people around Anniston who were into ska, reggae, punk, and heavier music, and that became Analog Daydream.
From the beginning, the vision was always bigger than just playing around town. We wanted to play shows, make records, travel the country, meet other bands, and see how far we could actually take it.
Our sound has grown pretty naturally out of everything we all like. There’s ska and reggae at the center of it, but there’s also punk, rock, metal, and whatever else makes sense for the song. We’ve never really wanted to box ourselves into one thing.
We’re also very DIY, mostly because I’ve never been very good at waiting around for somebody to help us. If we want a tour, we start booking one. If we need merch, we figure it out. If we want to release something, we find a way to release it. That attitude has kind of become part of who we are as a band.
Since then we’ve toured all over the country, played festivals, released music, added horns and keys to the live show, and kept building the band one step at a time.
That same mentality eventually grew into Skank Bank Records too. We started using what we were learning to help other bands with shows, tours, releases, compilations, and just trying to make the scene around us stronger.
We’re still figuring it out as we go, but that was always the goal anyway. Play music we love, travel, meet people, build something real, and keep pushing it as far as we can.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Definitely not. I don’t think anything about trying to build a band from the ground up is smooth.
One of the biggest struggles has just been balancing real life with what we’re trying to do. We all have jobs, families, bills, and responsibilities, but at the same time we’re trying to tour, record, rehearse, release music, and keep moving forward. A lot of the time that means long drives, very little sleep, and figuring things out as we go.
Money is always part of it too. Touring is expensive, recording is expensive, merch is expensive, and sometimes you play a show that barely covers gas. We’ve had vehicle problems, shows fall through, lineup changes, bad routing, and plenty of nights where most people would wonder why they even do it.
We’re also playing ska and reggae in Alabama, which isn’t exactly the easiest place to start in. There wasn’t some huge built in scene waiting for us, so we had to go find our people. That pushed us to travel more, connect with bands in other cities, and build relationships outside of our immediate area.
We’ve had people come and go, plans change, and plenty of setbacks, but we’ve always just kept moving. That’s probably the biggest thing about us. We don’t really sit around waiting for the perfect opportunity or for somebody to come save us. If something doesn’t work, we figure out another way.
A lot of the things that were struggles early on are honestly what made us better at what we do now. We learned how to book tours, promote shows, make merch, release music, solve problems on the road, and build something ourselves.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Analog Daydream is basically where ska, reggae, punk, rock, and metal all run into each other.
We’ve started calling what we do Skankcore because it’s easier than trying to explain it every time. We can go from something laid back and reggae heavy into something fast, loud, and pretty aggressive without it feeling out of place. That mix is probably one of the biggest things that sets us apart.
Live is really where we put most of our focus. We want the show to feel big, energetic, and like people are part of it instead of just standing there watching us play songs. We’ve added horns and keys, we move between different styles, and we try to make every show feel like something actually happened.
We’re also very hands on with everything we do. We book a lot of our own shows and tours, handle our releases, merch, promotion, and pretty much whatever else needs to get done. If we want to do something, we normally just start figuring out how to make it happen instead of waiting for somebody to give us permission.
That mentality is also what led to Skank Bank. It started as a way to release and support our own music, but it has grown into something that helps other bands too through compilations, booking, promotion, touring connections, and just putting people together who can help each other.
I think what I’m most proud of is how far we’ve been able to take this just by being persistent. We came out of Anniston, Alabama playing a style of music that doesn’t exactly have a massive local scene, and we’ve still been able to tour the country, play festivals, meet bands from everywhere, and keep building something bigger every year.
We’re not trying to be the most polished band in the world or fit perfectly into one genre. We just want to make music that feels like us, put on a great show, and keep pushing on.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I was always pretty independent and probably a little stubborn. If I got interested in something, I usually went all in on it, and music was definitely the biggest thing for me.
I actually played ska in high school and listened to a ton of third wave ska, so that part of what we do now goes way back for me. As I got older I moved more into metal and spent most of my adult life playing heavier music, but ska, reggae, and punk never really went away. Even when I was playing metal bands, that was still the stuff I would play when I was sitting around with an acoustic guitar.
I have always had a really wide taste in music, and I think that shows up a lot in Analog Daydream now. I never really understood why everything had to fit perfectly into one genre. If something sounds good and feels right, I want to use it.
Personality wise, I have always been the type to just do things instead of waiting around for somebody else to make them happen. Sometimes that probably gets me in over my head, but it is also a huge part of why we have been able to do what we have done with the band.
I also always loved to travel, play shows, meet people, and have experiences instead of just doing the same thing every day. Looking back, I guess a lot of what we are doing now is just a grown up version of what I was doing when I was younger.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/analogdaydream
