By Dave Bagdade
The Other Timelines are one of the most interesting surf bands on the scene today, not just for their great music but also the fact that they live halfway across the continent. Their latest album, Heathen’s Hymnal, on Double Crown Records. Reverb’s roving correspondent spoke with guitarists Jonny Browning and Jim Wilder following the band’s triumphant performance at SG 101 in August, 2025.
DB: How did you each get your musical start?
JB: I first started a band in the late Nineties, which was a surf band called Jonny & The Shamen. That's when I lived in Alabama. So we put out a couple of full-lengths and a split with Man or Astro-man?, toured around a good bit in the southeast, and then I played in a bunch of other bands and eventually joined Man or Astro-man? I was in the Man or Astro-man Clone Project previous to that but I did join the real band when they got back together in 2010. I was in a coma for a while in 2011, so I was out of commission for a bit. I started this band in August 2015, with my wife Hollis on keyboards and Sean Berry, who lived just south of me. I assumed the band would just be a studio project because it's a nightmare to have a band and play shows and tour, so I didn't really think that would be a part of the deal. I got Sean involved because he's a cool guy and played bass, and he put out that first EP of ours. I finally got Jim involved about two years ago. Jim's been my best friend for thirty years, but somehow we'd never been in a band together. I got him involved because he's been bugging me for years about doing something. If I'm just relying on myself, I'm going to be very very lazy, so he’s been really good about pushing me to actually get things done. And now we have a full-length and we're playing shows, and things are moving along just like the old days. It's wonderful and terrible, but I'm enjoying it, and we're just trying not to lose all our savings.
JW: Jonny and I met each other thirty years ago on a tour called Safari USA. I had a band called The Mystery Men. We had actually played a ton of shows together, our bands, and then later, Jonny and I ended up living not far from one another, and so we hung out and grew up together. The large majority of our relationship has not had much to do with music. We've just always kept in touch, and it's a blessing in life to have a friend that you just get on with. I just wish it could be somebody cooler [laughs].
JB: You've just got to deal with the cards you're dealt.
JW: It was a couple years ago...Jonny caught me off guard when he called and said, “do you want to work with me on doing this record?” I said, “Of course not. You're talented and I'm not, and I'll ruin whatever we do.” [laughs] I was half joking, because I've always thought Jonny was a great player and writer who thinks holistically about music. And I loved the Other Timelines stuff from before I was involved. And I had a genuinely sincere moment: “yeah, dude, I don't think you want me involved in navigation mode on that.” But he said it would be low pressure, and he sent me preliminary demos, most of which made it to the record. And then he said, “I want you to write a part right here.” So whatever you hear that sounds good, Jonny wrote that.
JB: Jim wanted to do something. It was always, “let's start a kid's band” or something stupid. So I sort of invited him into this band as a way to get back at him for bugging me for a long time. My ultimate revenge is that, if you see us live, I play all the easy stuff and Jim plays all the hard parts.
JW: Take The Saboteur, which sounded different before I got ahold of it. I think probably in a lot of bands, there come egotistical issues with “you're overplaying.” But I sent Jonny back what I was gonna do, and he said, “No, dude, you've got to play more than that. You're underplaying.” There was a review about that song that said the guitars were dancing around each other, and I thought that was really nice thoughtful feedback that validated that Jonny trusts everybody in the band.
DB: When does surf enter the picture for each of you?
JW: Being from Alabama, a lot of people might think my first exposure to surf was Man or Astro-man? But there was this punk record shop called American Beat Records in Birmingham. And I'd already been playing guitar. So Russell, the guy who owned the shop, said “there's this record you might like.” And he handed me The Great Surf Crash of ‘97 by the Phantom Surfers. To this day that remains one of my favorite records of all time. I listened to it and I said, “Oh my God, I want to play like that.” There was something very primal about it. And after that, the second band was The Trashmen. For my part, that's where it comes from, deep in my psyche.
JB: For me, it was a hundred percent Man or Astro-man? I was going to visit Auburn with a friend of mine when I was in tenth grade or so. At the time I was a punk rock kid. My friend had just got his license, and he was thinking of going to school there. I went into a record store and saw Project Infinity and thought it looked so cool. I bought it and we popped it in the CD player as we were driving around, and man, it was the coolest thing I'd ever heard. And then some drunk Auburn football player T-boned us, but that's another story. That record got me into everything on Estrus [Records] at that point. Anything I could find that that label put out, I would buy. Of course, that will really warp you. And then I got to see Man or Astro-man? a bunch of times and become friends with them, and then eventually, I wound up in the band, which is still weird to think about. My other favorite was Satan's Pilgrims. I just loved that they had a very different sound. I've never been into anything that's really traditional. That was never my playing style or my favorite kind of music. I thought Satan's Pilgrims did a great job getting that really drippy reverb but also not sounding like a band in 1963. And these days, I don't listen to a ton of surf, for two reasons. I listened to so much of it when I was younger and I feel like I heard everything there was to hear. But the main reason is that if I listen to too much of it, it changes the way I write. I want whatever comes out of me to come out naturally. So mostly I listen to other kinds of music. If you listen to the album, you'll hear stuff like, "that's a Yardbirds riff" or "that's a Zeppelin riff." A lot of people might not pick up on it, but it's definitely there.
DB: One of the things I find so exciting about surf music today is that there's so much surf music combined with so many other things. There's punk surf, metal surf, cumbia mixed with surf, and so on. What do you think the surf music landscape looks like now?
JB: It seems like there are so many surf bands now, which is great. I think surf music appeals to so many people because anybody can do it. You can be an incredible guitar player and have a surf band, or you can be a terrible guitar player and have a surf band, and either one could be equally good. So the scene is open for so many kinds of players. Is the song cool? Is the band cool? Do they get it or not get it? And I think if you get it, it doesn't matter what the style is, but people will like it. And these days, anything you want is five seconds away, which is great if you've got a band because you can get yourself out there. I don't know if there's more happening now, or if it just seems like it. But it seems like there's a lot going on.
JW: And Jonpaul [Balak] plays bass for all of them.
DB: You guys are based in different areas. How does the material originate and how does the band pull it together? What's the process?
JB: We're fairly different from a lot of bands. I'm outside Vancouver. Jim's in Birmingham, Alabama. [Drummer] Jesse [Gabriel] and [bassist] Travis [Stewart] are in Shreveport, Louisiana. So that's not conducive to getting together and hashing things out. I have my own studio setup, Jim has his, and the Shreveport guys have theirs. So the way it usually goes is I will have an idea which I'll scratch down and send to Jim, and we'll hash it out back and forth. At some point it will get to where I've got basically a full version with very basic parts for everybody else just as a reference. I want those parts really simple because I don't want to color what those guys might actually do. So I'll send Jim a Logic file. He'll spend a good solid week or two doing a thousand takes and, for some reason, sending me every one. Once Jim and I have it down, I'll send files to the Shreveport guys and they'll add drums and bass and send back the files so I can do the mixing and mastering. And we'll end up with something that hopefully doesn't sound too Photoshopped. That's always my worry, but it tends to work out pretty well.
DB: There's nothing I hear that would lead me to conclude it was cobbled together from locations across the continent.
JW: The four of us have all recorded in real state-of-the-art studios. We're all familiar and aware. One nice thing is that anyone who competently records themselves is getting a real capture of how they sound. For me, especially at our age, it's what I prefer. It is funny for us to talk about the writing process anecdotally, but I think that anyone who's honest will admit they're a little self-conscious. So we look back on it with a laugh, but it actually is true. I once legit sent Jonny 175 takes on “Unsafe at Any Speed.” If we had been in the same room, we wouldn't have been in a band together. Jonny would have been like, “I am not your best friend anymore. Never talk to me again.” It's almost like a joke, but that actually really happened. Patience can wear a little thin when you're all together, especially in a creative process. So the fact that we have a couple thousand miles between us, we don't experience that. We all get excited to hear it. There was one song, I won't say which one, which I just didn't like at all, and then the Shreveport boys got ahold of it, and now it's one of my favorite songs. And if we'd been in the same room, my bad take on it might have pissed off Jonny or the other two. They didn't have to deal with that. They just got my part and then they took it over. It's a modern way to work.
DB: So the album is out. What's ahead for you?
JB: More stuff. We want to do another EP, and that's the plan for the next year. And we'll do some sporadic shows. No giant tours, though. Remember, we're so far apart that any shows are fly-ins. It is crazy expensive. We're gonna lose money every time we play. But that's okay. We're older now and we have jobs, and this is what we want to do. Now that we have the record done, we know we can do it, so full steam ahead.