[Editor’s note: Chicago-based indie rock band Ohvaur will release their new album Intertwined on Friday, October 18. It was produced by Matt Wallace (Faith No More, The Replacements, Maroon 5). The album is now available for pre-order at Bandcamp.
For singer-songwriter Timothy Den, his path to joining Ohvaur has been a long and winding one. He grew up in distinctly different locations around the globe – Taiwan, South America and Miami. Also, he sought to overcome the challenges for 15 years of being an undocumented immigrant in the U.S and used those lessons to grow and adapt.
Music has been a revelation and driving force for Den. Ohvaur released its debut album A Memories Chase in 2013, an album that features songs detailing his experience as an immigrant and discovering his identity. Around the same time, he became a legal American, married and started a family. Some of his other credits include: Assistant Editor of Lollipop magazine, founder of his own website, Transform Online, frontman of the Boston-based Kimone (whose work was produced by former Jawbox head J. Robbins and logged time onstage opening for the likes of Spoon and The Album Leaf), and scorer of numerous short films including Bitch (which premiered at the 2007 edition of the Sundance Film Festival).
Nearly a decade after Ohvaur is back with new music and Den has a renewed love for music (aided by stability from family life). According to the album’s press release, the collection of songs “explore themes of endings and new beginnings, confronting loss, mortality, and the preciousness of life’s fleeting moments.”
Below Den pens an exclusive essay about how the music he heard after immigrating to the U.S. influenced him.]
For many immigrant families who move to the U.S. without a network of relatives, friends, or cultural community, survival often means getting into the food business. My family was no different… except that we were Spanish-speaking Asians selling Cuban food at South Florida carnivals. Yes, you read that right. And it turned me into a metalhead.
My father left our home country of Taiwan for South America when I was four, with the intention of moving the rest of the family there when he had established himself. But when the time came, my parents had already separated. As a compromise, my mom moved us to Miami, where my sister and I could grow up traveling between our parents (I was 10 and my sister was eight). But before our arrival, they agreed to first let my sister and I go to South America to spend some time with my dad, giving my mom a breather as she tried to settle in a foreign land. She eventually started a Cuban food trailer with a business partner that traveled throughout the state, working mainly fairs and carnivals.
My sister and I arrived in Miami speaking Spanish, which greatly helped at school (where most of the class were also recent Latin American arrivals) as well as with my mom’s new business. We were just little kids running around, but understanding the culture and speaking the language meant that there was a deeper connection to the food, the customers, and the overall atmosphere.
It was late ’87 / early ’88, and the air – especially at Florida fairs – was filled with the sounds of Bon Jovi, Guns N’ Roses, Def Leppard, etc. We often found ourselves parked for weeks next to rides that blared hard rock and heavy metal, the likes of which were revelatory to a pre-teen who had never heard anything like it before. I soon memorized the repeating choruses, even though I had no idea what the words meant. At our first stint with the iconic Dade County Youth Fair, we were a few stalls from a t-shirt stand where I saw images of Iron Maiden, Metallica, Anthrax, and Slayer albums for the first time. They frightened as much as excited me, these depictions of dark and eerie netherworlds that beckoned like a late-night horror movie. There was no way I could resist.
It started with the lighter fare: an Anthrax t-shirt that had their mascot, the Not Man, skateboarding. That led to the purchase of their new album at the time, State of Euphoria, the cassette of which I still own. From there, I went through all the burgeoning metalhead (and punk and hardcore) prerequisites, sinking deeper and deeper into my headphones and a world where I felt like I belonged. My tastes would broaden as I got older, but there’s no question that it was the experience of being a South Florida carny that put me on the path to being music obsessed. Throughout my life, music has been the one constant that provided me with strength in a sea of instability… and it all started under those oppressively humid skies, with the aroma of oily snacks and the sounds of pounding riffs lighting the fuse.
Timothy Den
Contributor
Timothy Den is a singer-songwriter and member of Chicago band Ohvaur
