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Radar Love – Tucson’s Prolific Teen Musician Christopher Tom

It’s not a stretch to say that the Arizona teen Christopher Tom isn’t exactly your average 15-year-old. He’s actually a prolific singer, songwriter and musician.

Since the age of 13, Tom has been on a mission to perfect his songwriting craft. But he didn’t want just quality. He set out on quantity as well – writing upwards of 200 songs. And in stark contrast, Tom released his debut, self-titled EP last August, featuring only six of those songs. For the EP, he not only wrote the songs, but performed and recorded all of the instruments, and then mixed and mastered every last note, resulting in 15 minutes of frenzied and exuberant indie rock and synth pop.

On one of his newest tracks, “Every Friday (Dance),” the young muthusiast pulls out the dance beats with shimmering synth arrangements, pop rock guitar chords and his signature adolescent male vocals. Borrowing from many different influences, including The Beatles, The Strokes, Weezer, Gorillaz and Beach House, Tom places a huge emphasis on melody and hooks. We urge folks to take a little time to check out some of the other tracks from his self-titled EP on his Bandcamp page.

The uptempo pop rock song, “The Ballad of Joey Domino,” is yet another example of Tom’s amazingly diverse musical palette and sensibilities in collaboration with his friend ‘Mark E’. Another song, “That’s Not How It Works,” is totally a Strokes-influenced song from top to bottom. Next, the silly pop rock track “Don’t Call On Me,” (in which his adolescent boy’s vocal range is tested successfully), is immediately reminiscent of They Might Be Giants, and “Candle Boy,” with its twinkly pop melodies and softer vocals.

The standout track from his debut EP is “The Coast,” a song that probably has a wider audience with its simplistic melodic hooks, regular rhythm changes, programmed beats, layered vocals and flowing keyboards. Tom isn’t going to take over the world – just yet (there are a lot of Kinks to work out), but for a 15-year-old, he definitely shows a tremendous musical progression and penchant for variety; he appears to deliberately make it so that each of the songs is completely individual, whereas we have all heard EPs/LPs where all of the songs sound pretty much the same.

Are you a teenager making music at this level? Tell us your story and send us some of your songs. Submit to IRC.

Don’t Call On Me – Christopher Tom from Christopher Tom EP

The CoastChristopher Tom from Christopher Tom EP

As we were putting this post together, Tom ranks #1 among Tucson musicians on Reverbnation.