Interviewer's note: This interview is long overdue and I’m extremely sorry for the wait. We wanted to put the video of the interview up on the site but there were many technical difficulties so we were not able to do that. The interview was done after Tyler’s show in Boston, MA at the Roxy. This interview was conducted in Tyler Hilton’s traveling van. Tyler comments, “I run a real luxurious outfit here. I like to travel around in a Plymouth Voyager Minivan, also known as the mini-v.” Enjoy the interview!

-Kim Kaminske

MT: “First I would like to thank you for joining us.”

TH: “Well you got it, you’re welcome.”

MT: “Was music something you always planned on doing, did you know that this was going to be your career?”

TH: “Yeah, for sure because my family all played music and I got into playing music when I was in middle school it just seemed like something I was always going to do. I don’t know, it just felt like o yeah it just it came easy enough to me it seemed like something I could get better at easier and I was interested in it for long periods of time so much so I thought, ’Wow I could do this forever’ you know what I mean? I wouldn’t get tired after playing for a half hour or an hour, like I just loved it, ya know? It wasn’t really a thought process it was more like I’m just going to do this all the time. Like if you could eat candy for a living you’d be eating candy and be like, ’I’m just going to do this my whole life and get paid for it’.”

MT: “Do you remember where and when your first official performance was?”

TH: “Yup it was Pangia Coffee House in Palm Desert, March 6th 1999. Or was it March 9th?” Tyler asks his father, Bob Hilton.

BH: “What?”

TH: “ Pangia.”

BH: “March 5h.”

TH: “5th?”

BH: “No, 6th”

TH: “Yeah it was March 6th. Wow that’s crazy that’s a long time ago. I didn’t think it was that long.”

MT: “What was it again, 99?”

TH: “Yeah, that’s a good little over 7 years.”

MT: “How old were you then?”

TH: “15.”

MT: “15? Wow.”

TH: “Crazy!”

MT: “Ok, who are the influences in your music?”

TH: “I like a lot of blue grass music and I like Robert Johnson, I like a lot of Elvis stuff. I like frank Sinatra a lot, those are probably my influences. Hank Williams I think is great too I really like him.”

MT: “What is your opinion on the music industry today?”

TH: “I think there’s a lot of bad stuff and a lot of good stuff. I think there are a lot of corners being cut because of technology. I don’t know if you have to be as talented to become a singer but you still have to be smart because you have to figure out, if you want to be a musician, how you’re going to do that if you can’t actually do it. I think it’s become more technology driven but I think it’s going to come back around, because music is place for people to connect. Always from the soul even if it’s like really popular music like Hilary Duff or Britney Spears. You still get goose bumps, if you like that music, as soon as she plays Toxic and it hits you right here. Eventually people will get tired of hearing all of one thing and it will eventually bring you back to this…”

Tyler turns up the blue grass music we had playing in the car during the interview.

MT: “Why is music so important to you?”

TH: “It’s just important to me because it’s part of my chemical make up I thin like everyone has something that they have to do and I just have to sing and play music and it’s something I just have to do and if I try not to one day I’ll stop thinking about it and I’ll start singing and it’s like, “Oh, wait, what?” and it’s like a habit. It’s like trying to break a habit.”

MT: “What are your goals both short term and long term?”

TH: “Short term is to put out another CD. Long term would be to be in this business for the rest of my life,

MT: “Can you talk more about your CD you’ve been working on?”

TH: “A whole bunch of new songs I’ve had since The Tracks Of…and it should be better. Well I’m not going to put it out unless it’s better.”

MT: “Many people know you from the hit show One Tree Hill playing the devious Chris Keller. Can you explain to us how that has impacted your life, if it has impacted it at all?”

TH: “It was a lot of fun I had a great time doing it that’s why I kept on doing it. It impacted my life in little ways like people wouldn’t come to my shows at first because they didn’t like Chris Keller. It didn’t affect my life in a huge way, not a lot in changed after One Tree Hill. I would meet a couple people and they would be like, ‘Oh I thought you were a jerk’ and then every once in a while I would be in a mall and there would be girls who were really big one tree hill fans.”

MT: “You’re also known as Elvis Presley on Walk the Line tell us how you landed your role?”

TH: “They were looking for musicians to be in the movie in the background so I went in and played a Johnny Cash song and they said I looked like Elvis so they asked me if I played any Elvis songs and I did and so I got the part and I was like, ‘Wow’.”

MT: “I heard you were doing another movie so could you tell us a little about that.

TH: “It’s called Charlie Bartlett and it’s starting this kid named Anton Yelchin who’s really great and it’s this really cool movie about this kid who is new to the school and is really rich and wants to make friends so he gets a bunch of pills from his psychiatrist and sells them to everyone on campus. I play this metal head bully drug dealer at the school named Murphey Bivens and he beats the shit out of Charlie when he first sees him because he is really dorky looking. Then they become friends and Charlie needs stuff and Murphey’s a drug dealer so umm….I don’t know how I get these roles!”

MT: “I know you are the nicest guy and you’re getting all these nasty roles.”

TH: “I go into the audition and I’m like, ‘RRAAWWRR!’ and they’re like, ‘Oh, Ok!’ I’m excited though it’s going to be fun.”

MT: “When do you start filming?”

TH: “Umm June.”

MT: “Exciting. Well thank you for having us.”

Kim is one of the many jack-of-all trades in the news division at Musiqtone. You can contact her at kimkaminske@musiqtone.com.

(C) 2006 Musiqtone. All Rights Reserved. Any part of this interview cannot be used without written express consent from both the representatives of Tyler Hilton and Musiqtone.