Wall of Tom

She wasn’t exactly a waitress in a cocktail bar, but when Tommie Vaughn met Tony Grimes working as a receptionist at a once famous but now fallen recording studio, the musical chemistry was undeniable. It eventually led to the indie-lounge aesthetic that now defines the Wall of Tom.

But before it could be Wall of Tom, it was Tommie’s wall that kept things platonic and in the process unwittingly created a deeper bond that morphed an acoustic duo into a six-piece art/ rock throwback collaborative.

Everyone was sure they were a couple when Tommie and Tony started playing their coffeehouse sets at small venues around their adoptive Los Angeles.

“We really listened to each other and fed off each other completely in our performances,” remembers Tommie. “The energy between us was so present and intense that the audiences knew we were in love before we did.”

Well, at least one of them. Tony wanted it to be more before Tommie decided that this guy’s poetry and his voice and shared passion for music were the only things she was attracted to.

The Wall of Tom—the self-induced one around Tommie’s heart--is what kept them apart. She was coming out of a long relationship and wasn’t about to jump into another one. It was time to get to work on her craft. Tony provided that motivation by writing with her on her solo stuff, which she recorded with Henry Rollins’ band Mother Superior aided by guitar tech Walter Rice III who created the unique guitar sounds on System of a Down’s “Toxicity” (one of the benefits of being the cool girl with a cooler voice that musicians saw first thing every day when they stepped into their sonic office).
But that was the beginning. As they spent more and more time together, Tony’s singer/songwriter and 90’s alt rock influence seeped into Tommie’s blues and jazz palette. And each day that he literally showed up on her doorstep to pen another melody to fit her words, bigger pieces of the wall began to crumble until finally the feelings were mutually strong, the attraction wasn’t one-sided, and Tommie’s words were now about someone new.

“We got happy,” Tommie admits. “And our songs reflected how we felt.”

In a blog-driven rock world, that would normally be the sappy kiss of death for an indie band except for, well, the jangly guitars, the retro sound, and stylish dress…and the music—hooks that burrow into your brain and melodies that you want to hum the whole week after hearing them.