It’s somewhat surprising to hear that Charleston singer, songwriter and guitarist Joel Timmons has never put out a solo album. [Show is Feb. 8 at The Pour House.]
He’s been one of the driving forces in the popular band Sol Driven Train, spending the last couple of decades or so blending improvisational jamming into brass-heavy soul and folk. He’s also been part of the Americana folk/country duo Sally & George (alongside his wife, upright bassist Shelby Means) since 2017.
But despite his obvious musical skills, Timmons never stepped into the spotlight with his own album. That all changes this week with the release of Psychedelic Surf Country, one of the most aptly titled albums of 2025 (though it’s admittedly early).
Going solo
Through the album’s 11 songs, Timmons and producer Maya de Vitry seem to create an individual mood for each song, soaking the title track and “End Of The Empire” in an eerie, twilit glow, but leaving rollicking rockers like “Turbo” (about a particularly persistent drug-sniffing dog) alone, letting them get as loose limbed and propulsive as possible.
It’s a surprisingly confident debut album, but perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising from a veteran musician. In fact, the only thing that kept him from making this album for so long was scheduling.
“This is something that’s been in the back of my mind for a long time that I’d like to do,” Timmons said. “But it became one of those, ‘One of these days, I’ll do this.’ But about three years ago, Shelby got a gig with (bluegrass guitarist) Molly Tuttle, and Sol Driven Train was not wanting to tour much because everybody’s really focusing on their family and home lives right now. So I was looking around for my normal community of musical collaborators and coming up short and I felt like, ‘Well, maybe this is the time for me to do this.”
Timmons has spent much of his time in Nashville over the past five years, and he had the Music City connections and the Charleston friends to make Psychedelic Surf Country happen. Means appears on the album, and Oliver Wood from The Wood Brothers sings backup, as does Cary Ann Hearst from Shovels & Rope. But perhaps the biggest “get” for Timmons was The Del McCoury Band’s fiddle player, Jason Carter, who contributed a stunning solo to the album’s opener, “Just A Man.”
“I freakin’ love Jason Carter so much,” Timmons said. “I’ve been a fan of The Del McCoury Band for a long time, and when I moved to Nashville, I got to become friends with him. He’s tremendously talented, sweet, and generous, and he wanted to be involved. He came out to the studio for a day and played that freaking crazy fiddle lead.”
As for the production, Timmons had actually worked with Maya de Vitry before, and by the time they got into the studio, the two had refined his songs into their final forms.
“Maya is a wonderful producer,” he said, “and a lot of the work that we did happened before we ever got into the studio. She came to Charleston a couple times and I made several trips to Nashville, just working through the songs and getting them into a place where we felt comfortable and confident in the arrangements, so I believed every word that I was going to sing.”
The interesting question here is, “What comes next?” Timmons is very much still a member of Sol Driven Train and Sally & George, and the only show he’s currently planning to promote Psychedelic Surf Country is a release show at the Pour House on Saturday, Feb. 8. But listen to what he said about hearing the album for the first time.
“It really was emotional,” he said. “There’s something about my Dad on there. There’s a song about my father-in-law and a song about my childhood home. Those stories still resonate with me, and I’m proud to get to tell them. So yes, hearing it was joyful and not without a couple of happy tears.”
It makes sense that Timmons would want to have that feeling again, but he’s non-committal about moving full on into a solo career.
“It’s too soon to say, especially since this is the first time I’m putting my name out there,” he said. I’m proud of this moment, but I’m not exactly sure what it means as far as the future.”
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