May 31, 2002 By Cindy Ekas-Brown 9 min read

Almost-famous drummer Timm Biery, who has played with rock legends Nils Lofgren, Mahogany Rush and the late Danny Gatton, has spent the past three decades on a rock ‘n’ roll odyssey that has led him half way around the world. But his journey has brought him back to Fayette County – a place that holds special meaning in his heart because of family ties. His uncle, Jim Pepe, a saxophone player, and other relatives on his mother’s side live in the Uniontown area.

Because of those strong family ties and a lifelong love of Fayette County that dates back to his childhood, Biery and his fiancee, Tam Singer of Reading, England, decided to move to Uniontown about two months ago.

Biery, a 44-year-old man who looks like a typical rock drummer with long curly light brown hair, talked about the ups and downs of his music career during a recent interview at Nini’s Restaurant in Uniontown.

“I have been very blessed to keep working this long because the music industry is definitely youth oriented, and I’m really not that young any more,” Biery said. “It isn’t too difficult to stay in the music industry as you get older, but it’s harder to begin a career in music as you age.”

Biery credits his lengthy music career to the fact that he established a reputation as a talented rock ‘n’ roll drummer. Because of his reputation, Biery said well-known rock bands keep offering him jobs.

“Sting recently called me to play with the band, and right now I’m touring with Nils Lofgren, a well-known guitarist who also plays with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band,” he said.

Biery talked about what it’s like playing with Nils Lofgren.

“The guys in the band joke around and say that it’s a benevolent monarchy,” he said. “Nils is in charge. We do a lot of jamming. This may sound a little bit strange, but there is a very high degree of sobriety involved in our concerts. We don’t want alcohol or drugs to interfere with the music. Every night after the show is over, Nils always puts his arms around us and tells us that it was a good show. Nils is the greatest boss. He is a great singer, songwriter and guitarist, and I don’t think people realize that about him.”

When he rehearses with Lofgren and other band members, Biery said it is very low key.

“We’re all so dedicated to the music,” he said. “It’s all so professional. No one makes big mistakes. When you get to a certain level, you have to play up to that level.”

Biery recounted one night when the Nils Lofgren Band walked into a club in Germany. Band members immediately realized that the sound system was terrible, and only 15 tickets had been sold in advance for the show.

“It looked like it was going to be one of the worst shows that we ever had,” Biery said. “But 350 to 400 people came to the show, and it ended up being one of the best shows of the tour. We just said, ‘There is nothing else that can go wrong.’ And when we did that, I think we relaxed.”

Biery explained that the crowd is the intangible factor that affects rock concerts and shows.

“The crowd was really into the show, and you can never predict how the crowd is going to react,” he said. “The German crowd was good because the people were standing up near the band, and those shows are usually good because the audience starts dancing and really getting into the music.”

As Biery talked about his music career, his 26-year-old fiancee, an attractive woman with dark hair, sat close to him in the restaurant booth. The couple exchanged heartfelt glances as they recounted the details of how they met, their love story and their plans to marry.

The couple met during the Nils Lofgren Tour 2001 when the band was playing in Reading, England, which is Singer’s hometown.

“It was kind of funny because I can never see past the end of the stage when I’m doing a show,” Biery said. “But when the lights came on that night, I saw her (Tam) sitting there all by herself. As soon as I saw her, I knew I wanted to get to know her. But it wasn’t that usual rock ‘n’ roll thing. It was something much more than that.”

After the concert ended, Biery saw the girl of his dreams, Singer, talking to the band’s keyboard player. Biery introduced himself, spent some time talking to Singer and then invited her to another show the following week.

“When I first met Tam, I told her ‘You’re going to think that I’m weird, but I’m going to know you for the rest of my life,'” Biery said. “She just kind of gave me this strange look. I love Tam because she allows me to be myself. She is only 26 years old, but she seems like an old soul. She’s into some of the older music, and she’s a huge Bruce Springsteen fan.”

After their initial meeting, Singer agreed to come to Biery’s next performance.

“It was kind of funny because she paid to get into the show,” Biery said. “She didn’t realize that she was on the guest list, and she didn’t have to pay to get in. But that’s one of the things that I love about Tam. After the show was over, we just talked all night long. That was last November, and we’ve been together ever since.”

The couple is living in a Main Street apartment in Uniontown as they make marriage plans. They are considering the possibility of settling down and raising a family in Fayette County. Making their marriage work is something that is very important to the couple because Biery has already been married three times in the past.

“We ask everyone that we meet how long they have been married, and how they have stayed together so long,” Singer said. “We’re trying to find out what the secret is to making marriages work because we love each other and we want to stay together.”

The couple doesn’t seem to understand why everyone in Fayette County asks them the same question. They want to know why Biery and Singer decided to move to Uniontown. To Biery, the answer is obvious.

“I love the Uniontown area because it’s beautiful and quiet here,” Biery said. “I think the quality of life in Uniontown is so much better than it is in big cities like Washington D.C. where I grew up. I was born in the D.C. area, but my mother’s family came from the Uniontown area.”

The Uniontown area made its first and lasting impression on Biery when he was a child and would travel with his parents, George and Belle Biery, from their Maryland home just outside of Washington D.C. to Uniontown.

“Even though Uniontown has never been my home, when I get to the top of the Summit Mountain, it’s one of the coolest places on the planet,” he said. “I just get chills when I see the city of Uniontown from the Summit Mountain, and all of the lights at night. People just rush through their lives in Washington D.C. But it’s not like that in Uniontown. I think people actually enjoy their lives here.”

Even though he is living in Uniontown, Biery continues to tour with Nils Lofgren. The band will be touring in New York and will even play an August concert at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, N.J., which is Bruce Springsteen’s hometown.

When Biery has a break from his touring schedule, he keeps busy teaching drum lessons to children at Micarelli’s Music Store on Morgantown Street or plays with well-known local musicians like Mickey Sharp at the Shadyside Inn or the new band he has formed called Timm Biery & Friends. Biery’s band, which includes local musicians Gerry Onesi, Paulette Schulze and Eric Schulze, has been playing at bars throughout Fayette County.

“The music industry isn’t an easy career,” he said. “When you’re really young, you don’t realize how hard it is. When I went into the music industry, my dad kept telling me that ‘You need a job to fall back on.’ I didn’t understand what my dad was talking about then because he didn’t seem to know very much when I was a teen-ager. It’s amazing how my dad has really gotten a lot smarter over the years.”

Now that Biery is older and willing to listen to his father’s advice, he is hoping to begin producing music, which he could continue to do as he enters his 50s and 60s.

If he decides to stay in Uniontown, he plans to either build a recording studio or buy an older house and convert it into a recording studio.

“Everyone talks about how difficult the music industry is when you’re traveling on tour, but actually all you really have to do is wake up and play the show,” he said. “It’s really not that bad. But as you get older, the traveling begins to take a toll on your body because you don’t have as much energy as you did when you were younger.”

Music has been part of Biery’s life since he was 6 years old and first started playing the drums. He accepted his first paying job when he was only 12 years old. He dropped out of high school in his sophomore year, and he has been drumming on a full-time basis since he was 15 years old.

“My band director in high school worked at the University of Maryland, and I spent a lot of time at the university when I was in high school,” he said. “I realized that high school wasn’t giving me what I wanted. My parents weren’t happy when I quit school. But when they saw that I was making money as a musician, they began to accept the decision that I made. It wasn’t bad to be 15 years old in the 1970s and making $350 a week.

“I never drank when I was playing in the bands when I was young, but I did my fair share of substance abuse in the old days, which is pretty typical for the music industry,” he said. “But I’m really glad that I did it when I was younger and got it out of my system. Now, I can enjoy living a quiet and peaceful life in Uniontown with my fiancee and touring with Nils Lofgren. I have the best of both worlds.”