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Photo – Ted Maniatakos

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Interview with
ADAM TILZER

(18th June 2025)

Interview with Dave Bruce

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Photo – Ted Maniatakos

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Have you always wanted to be an artist? When did you get the song writing bug?
I started writing songs before I even thought about being an artist. Bands like Nirvana and artists like Jimi Hendrix inspired me to want to be a rockstar, and that’s been the struggle ever since.

Briefly describe your journey to date.
I have been playing music since I joined my elementary school band, and began writing around the same age. After a few attempts at starting my own band, I formed Avon Junkies in the summer of 1999, when I was 14, with my longtime friend Mike Reinhart. This began my dream and journey to become a rockstar. After wasting some time in college, I decided to find a school in music of some form. This led me to the Institute of Audio Research, where I studied engineering and music production. My plan was to get a job at a record label and sneak my band in, but along the way, I fell in love with it.

How would you describe your sound? Why do you think fans resonate with your music?
I consider my sound to be experimental rock with shades of punk. I truly believe that it’s the anger and honesty that I convey in my music that people have related to all these years, whether it’s in a good or bad way. I rarely follow trends, and almost never try to create what I think people will want. That’s always a losing battle. Plus, the reality is, I will live with this music for the rest of my life, so I need to be proud of everything I do.

Which artist’s music and/or performance, past or present, inspires you today? 
Luckily, throughout my life, I’ve found different and new people to inspire me as an artist and as a performer. Dennis Lyxzén of Refused continues to inspire me as a frontman. David Gilmour has always been my biggest inspiration as a guitarist. Most recently, I’m constantly inspired by Amigo the Devil as a songwriter and performer.

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Your upcoming solo album ‘Cult Leader’ will be released in June! What’s it all about? Describe its origin and evolution. 
This album happened by accident when I started writing “I’m Gonna Start a Cult.” I wasn’t sure what I would do with that song, but as the writing bug continued, I realized I was writing an album. I thought it would be very cool and fitting to release my debut solo album at age 40. Up until this point, I have only released songs with my old bands, Avon Junkies and The Defectives, or a few collaborations with some of the artists that I produce. I hadn’t written any songs for myself in years, so when these songs literally just started coming out of me, I decided to focus and continue writing until I had an album’s worth of songs. I have somehow built this community of artists and musicians who support and uplift each other every day. They have affectionately named all of us “the cult”, with me as their leader. This album was an opportunity for me to bring all my friends together to help me achieve this vision.

What are the signature tracks on the album, and which are your favorites to play live?
The three singles leading up to the album, “I’m Gonna Start a Cult,” “Burn It Down,” and “The Best Fucking Plan,” as well as “My Man,” are a great representation of the album and its message as a whole. My album release party will be the first time I play these songs live since recording them, but I feel like, because of the inevitable crowd participation, “I’m Gonna Start a Cult” will be the most fun live.

What tours and events are coming up? What are you looking forward to, and what can the fans expect?
I’m having an album release show on June 13th, 2025, the day the album comes out, which I am especially excited for. It will be at The Bowery Electric, NYC, with my friends Bobby Mahoney and Sydney Dalessi kicking off the show. It will be a night of drama and unexpected surprises.

If you could perform with any music artist, Alive or Dead, who would you choose? And why? 
I feel like it would be too weird to perform with my all-time favorites like Pink Floyd, Leonard Cohen, or David Bowie. At this time, I would love to tour with Amigo the Devil. I think that would be the most energetic and entertaining lineup you’ve ever seen.

What are your long-term aspirations as a music artist and how are you progressing towards them?
I never planned on being a solo artist, so this is all very new for me. Right now, I’m taking this one project and one show at a time. Hopefully, the excitement of this new endeavor will continue into future releases and events.

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With that in mind, what piece of advice would you give to an artist starting out? 
Turn back now! But if it’s truly your dream, always start with a good song. It doesn’t matter how skilled or unskilled you are as a musician, people will always connect with the song itself.

What is the best thing about performing to a live audience? What’s been the career highlight so far?
It’s a hard thing for me to describe, but I am a psychotic, heightened version of myself when I’m on stage. The shared experience of performing with my bands over the years, as well as the connection I feel with the audience, is like nothing else in life. Hopefully, this release show will be the new highlight.

Now for some “quick-fire” questions:
What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done? Sexually? No, pursuing a career in an industry that has gotten harder and harder to succeed in every year!
What is the one topic you can talk about for hours? Anything music related, including recording gear and guitar pedals. I can also have an entire conversation for hours using only movie quotes.
What is the thing you like most about yourself? My self-loathing, because it drives me to be better every day.

FAVOURITE:
Album – “Dark Side of the Moon” by Pink Floyd
Artist – Leonard Cohen
Movie – too many to list.
Place to visit – New Orleans or Southern Italy
Venue to play – Best Buy Theater, NY (I don’t know what it’s called now)
Food – Fresh mozzarella
Drink – Bulleit Rye
Person in History – My grandfather
Tattoo – (If you don’t have one, what would you get?) It’s usually my most recent, which is a lyric from Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel #2”- “We are ugly, but we have the music.”

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Photo – Ted Maniatakos

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BIO

“I guess I’ve started a cult / I swear it’s the good kind,” experimental rock artist Adam Tilzer declares on “I’m Gonna Start a Cult,” an exaltation that became the inspiration for Cult Leader–the longtime producer’s debut solo album. The tongue-in-cheek title is an homage to the talented musicians Tilzer is surrounded by, and the enviable community they have created.

A prolific engineer and producer who has produced more than 300 songs in his two-decade career, Tilzer has released projects as a singer and guitarist with New York-based bands Avon Junkies and The Defectives, the former of which toured up and down the East Coast and opened for Less Than Jake, George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic, and Big D and the Kids’ Table, among others. Cult Leader marks the first project built solely on what is necessary for Tilzer to say in this moment, with a release that coincides with his 40th birthday.

“I didn’t set out to write a message-driven album,” Tilzer says. “It’s what I was thinking about and what was bothering me. I think a lot of people can relate to what I’m saying in some of these songs but might think it’s too extreme for them to say out loud themselves.”

“I’m not going to sugar-coat or water things down,” he continues.

Though he didn’t come from a particularly artistic family, Tilzer began playing guitar in elementary school. What his parents may have lacked in natural musical ability, they made up for with dedication to their son’s passion. Tilzer tells a particularly charming story about his dad attending a show he played with his band Avon Junkies, where the elder Tilzer stood smack dab in the middle of a mosh pit–later questioning why other audience members kept running into him. That same steadfast passion runs through Cult Leader, combining influences ranging from Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix to Less Than Jake, The Slackers, and Leonard Cohen, for a finished product full of heart.

“It can be angry and aggressive,” he says. “I’m calling out injustices and questioning everything.”

Tilzer classifies his current sound as diverse experimental rock with shades of punk. On Cult Leader, he uses a unique lens to examine what ails modern-day society and wrestles with how to exist within it. For Tilzer, that means finding slivers of light in community and connection, even when the bonding agent is a shared angst.

The album begins with an existential inspection of a common fear. Written in the middle of the night, “Choking on Vomit” is a four-line fever dream poem that grapples with the idea of an anonymous death. Elsewhere in societal woes, “My Man” is an impassioned inventory of issues attributed to “the man,” while “The Best Fucking Plan” laments healthcare in the US.

“I’ve been lucky enough to produce and work with a crew of people who constantly support and lift each other up, and because of this, people have nicknamed us ‘the cult,’” Tilzer says of the story behind “I’m Gonna Start a Cult.” “Lyrically, I saw it as an opportunity to air my grievances with the world while simultaneously boasting about what a good crew of people we have and encouraging others to join us.”

Throughout the album, Tilzer spotlights the talented crew of musicians he works with regularly, accumulating more than two dozen artists who contributed to the project. “Everyone I asked to be on the album is someone I picked specifically because I wanted their voice on it,” he says. “But I didn’t tell anyone what they should do with their parts. I knew they would understand the assignment and lay down what was best. It was a surprise every time.”

“Can’t Be Wrong” began as a collaboration with drummer Danny Bradley and later evolved to its finished form thanks to co-writer Jordan Popky. The song imagines a life without an ex, expertly capturing the push and pull of contemplating a past relationship. “Gram” finds Tilzer dueting with longtime friend and pop-noir vocalist Giselle.

“We’ve been friends and collaborators for over a decade, so it was a no-brainer that I would have a duet with her on my album,” Tilzer says. “There’s also a few lyrical Easter eggs in there that some of you may catch if you’re a big enough Giselle fan.”

“Burn It Down,” a love song about a crush, offers the most wholesome outlook on the album. “If you shove too much heaviness into a project, it’s exhausting,” he says about Cult Leader’s brighter fare. “I love social messages, but I need a reprieve —it’s a nice song to enjoy thematically, a break from overthinking reality.”

“Love You Til You Cry” breaks down relationships to their simplest form, as Tilzer says: “Men often mess up when it comes to romantic relationships with women. The only time you should be making her cry is in moments of joy and pleasure.”

“Les Lius” is the most experimental entry on Cult Leader. What started as a drunken jam in 2020 became an instrumental showcase of Tilzer and friends leaning into curiosity and creativity. “And I’ll Die,” the album’s closer, is a song that resurfaced from 2013. Initially meant for Tilzer’s band, Avon Junkies, he wrote it with Danny Bradley in mind for the drums. “I felt this was perfectly fitting to close this album.”

“It took me a little while to realize how free my choices could be for what I do and who I ask to be part of it,” Tilzer says of the album overall. “Cult Leader was an opportunity to bring all my friends together to help me achieve a vision.”

“Also: Damn the man!”

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Photo – Ted Maniatakos

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Follow ADAM TILZER
Instagram – Spotify

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Photo – Ted Maniatakos

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AMNPLIFY – DB