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Tommy Walter (often known by his stage name, Abandoned Pools) (born October 30, 1970 in Pasadena, California), is an American musician and songwriter.
Abandoned Pools: Early Years
He began playing music at a young age, first with the bass guitar and then the French horn. He attended University of Southern California, followed by the Pacific University. Teaching classical music theory, Walter began working with various Los Angeles-area musicians.
Walter soon began working with a singer-songwriter who went by E and drummer Butch Norton as Eels. After their promising debut, Beautiful Freak, Walter left the band due to differences with E. He formed a short-lived band, Tely, who released a CD that was distributed on the internet. He was also in the touring band for the Ken Andrews solo project ON, though in the end the band saw little touring. Later he went on to form Abandoned Pools.
Abandoned Pools: Humanistic (2001-2004)
Tommy released his solo album, Humanistic, in 2001 under the stage name of Abandoned Pools. Humanistic actually features a couple of songs that were once performed by Tely, like "Start Over". Angie Hart of Frente! contributed vocals to "Start Over," "Ruin Your Life," "Sunny Day," and "Seed."
Although a solo project, he recruited a touring band, featuring Leah Randi and Bryan Head filling out the ranks of bassist and drummer, respectively. They had several very successful tours, going across the country and headlining with acts such as Garbage and Lenny Kravitz. They also appeared on Craig Kilborn and two videos, "Mercy Kiss", and "The Remedy", were released.
In 2002 they performed the theme song for the short-lived Teletoon (also broadcast on MTV) animated series Clone High. Many of their songs can be heard in the background during the show. After Clone High was dropped by MTV, however, and the band stopped its touring (largely due to the dissolution of their label, Extasy Records), the other members left Abandoned Pools to be Tommy's solo project again.
Abandoned Pools: Armed to the Teeth (2005-current)
For reasons left ambiguous by Tommy, his relationship with Ginny (a girlfriend who he later identified in his songs) came to a tumultuous end, as chronicled by Tommy himself on his online journal. Picking up his music again full time, he began searching hard for a label that would take him, and Universal provided the answer.
Walter teamed up with Bryan Head once more, bringing in guitarist Sean Woolstenhulme in 2004 to record Armed to the Teeth, the follow-up to Humanistic. In June 2005 they released an EP, consisting of a few songs from the new album along with b-sides and demos, called The Reverb EP. This was followed by the full album in September 2005.
In January 2006, Walter wrote in his blog that Universal Records had stopped promoting the album. He subsequently quit the label. He also noted that Abandoned Pools is once again a one-man project. Since then, he's mostly put Abandoned Pools to the wayside, having been working with Ross Golan of Ross Golan and Molehead on a side-project called Glacier Hiking. He has worked on new songs, though, and has promised a third album to his fans.
Glacier Hiking, on the other hand, has seen much success in the Los Angeles area as a live band. |
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