HISTORY
Tim Hulsman learnt from an early age how to perform for an audience. He had 18 years personal experience with which to observe how to both captivate and hold people. But he’s spent the last 23 years estranged from the man who taught him, his father.
One of six children raised in a rigidly devout Jehovah’s Witness family, Tim’s father was a respected elder in the JW community, responsible for counselling and advising ‘the flock’ and for ex-communicating members who were deemed to be straying, or worse – to be ‘unrepentant sinners’. Any music other than hymns and religious music was heavily regulated in the Hulsman home. Tim’s paternal uncle was a well-regarded Jazz musician, but with him ‘outside the flock’ it just confirmed Tim’s parents’ belief that music would lead you astray.
At the age of 18, after years of argument and with compromise out of reach, Tim was ex-communicated from his family and JW community over his desire to no longer follow religion, and instead seek a career in music.
Fast forward over 2 decades and Tim Hulsman is still whole-heartedly embraced in his relationship with music, living his passion for singing and story-telling, in the Roots Rock scene.
In 2014 – 2015 Tim toured nationally and appeared at music festivals to promote his album, Dead Man’s Garden. In July 2014 “Dead Man’s Garden” debuted at 18 on the Australian Blues and Roots Airplay Charts on the back of a full tour schedule, playing live shows and many radio interviews and live-to-air performances.
Tim is a world-class performer, awarded the Alex Legg Memorial Foundation Scholarship 2015, (a 12 month scholarship lasting until the end of 2016), for excellence in song writing, stagecraft and artistic vision.
In his latest album “GET LOVED!” (2016) Tim explores his roots and reveals more about himself than ever before, somehow bringing together all of his favourite music styles and influences into a fresh, bold new style of his own.
