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The English keyboardist, producer, arranger and songwriter, Tim Cross (actually Timothy Kjell Cross), grew up in a musical family; his mother played the piano and his father sang baritone. He already received early piano lessons in early childhood. He was mainly concerned with W.A. Mozart and J.S. Bach and came into contact with popular music only after his 14th year. These were the Beatles, later Genesis, Pink Floyd, Yes and Frank Zappa. Hae studied harpsichord and composition at the Dartington College in Devon.
After his studies, Tim Cross began his musical career in the advertising industry. First as a librarian for mood music, as a lecturer and finally as a composer for jingles in a studio in London's West End. After two years he became self-employed, wrote and continued industrial music.
In the spring of 1979, Tim Cross met Mike Oldfield, with whom he went on tour over the next four years (1979-1983). Tom Newman, who had produced "Tubular Bells" and needed keyboard sounds for the second album of "Adverts Cast of Thousands", came into contact with T.V. Smith and Gaye Advert. Although Cross had no great interest in Punk musik, he joined the band as a keyboardist. He did not fit into a punk band either from his musical background or from his outward appearance, but the friendship and the sympathy with the musicians took precedence. He enjoyed working with Mike Oldfield and the completely different punk band, The Adverts at the same time. Even after The Adverts had disappeared in October 1979, Tim Cross worked frequently with T.V. Smith, played keyboard on the albums "T.V. Smith Explorers" and"Cheap", was partly a co-producer of Smith's solo projects and supported him as a keyboardist and percussionist.
In 1985, Tim Cross released the album "Classical Landscape" with classical arrangements. He continued to work for the advertising industry and produced numerous jingles for television, cinema and radio. From 2003 to 2005, he played on four albums of Indian music with Dana Gillespie and was involved in sessions with Sally Oldfield, The Skids, Doll by Doll and Red Box. On the albums "Auswärtsspiel" and "Zurück zum Glück", he had a guest name as Toten Hosen. In addition, he supported the Spanish punk band Suzy & Los Quattro on their albums "Stick with It" in 2008 and "Hank" in 2011.
Tim Cross died in 2012 of the consequences of lung cancer. |
