Here's an interview with Tim Commerford from the November 05 issue of Mountain Bike Magazine: The Face: Metal Head
On stage and on the trail, Audioslave's Tim Commerford goes big.
By Andrew Vontz
In five hours, Tim Commerford, 37, bass player in the rock supergroup Audioslave, will take to the stage with his band at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles to jam in front of a sold-out crowd. Between Audioslave and his old project, Rage Against the Machine, Commerford has sold more than 10 million discs, has had three number-one albums, and has become a rock icon. But when he rolls up to the Wiltern 45 minutes before sound check, he isn't thinking about music at all. Ask him why he's wheeling his Santa Cruz Bullit into the building and he'll say he's got one thought in his head: hucking off the stage into the seats before it's time to play. "We just got back from Cuba where we played for 70,000 kids who'd never been to a rock concert," says Commerford. There was a nice stage that I sized up and jumped off of right before the show," he reports, rather matter-of-factly, as if all rockers take stage dives aboard freeride rigs. Then again, Commerford doesn't have the wiry, strung-out bearing of the typical purveyor of goat-slaying riffs. In fact, he's 6-foot-2 and 180 pounds of solid, rippling muscle, and with a Maori warrior tattoo covering most of his upper body, he looks like a comic-book jib samurai incarnate. Everywhere on Earth he's gone for the past eight years for business or pleasure, Commerford's brought one of his 30 mountain bikes with him. When he's home in L.A. he hits super-technical trails with Hans Rey. "It doesn't matter if it's Pike's Peak or rolling singletrack. I like riding," Commerford says as he's readying for his stage launch. "I've had my GPS for three years and I have 8,000 miles on it--and that's mainly riding I've done on tour." Just then, as Commerford ratchets the buckles on his Shimano shoes and prepares his stage takeoff, Audioslave's tour manager, Rick Fagan, comes and pops Commerford's huck balloon. "The venue won't allow it," Fagan say. "It's too risky. And if you fall there's not going to be a show tonight. Sorry man." Commerford runs a hand through his shoulder-length brown locks, shrugs his shoulders and wheels his bike outside, to the back of the Wiltern, where he proceeds to bomb a two-story metal staircase with a precarious one-pedal-stroke run-in. That's just a warm-up: Now thoroughly amped, he cruises to the ticket-holders' line in front of the venue to give his fans a treat. He asks for two volunteers to lie on the ground and then proceeds to bunny-hop them and skid to a halt inches from traffic. s Commerford an unusual creature in the rock menagerie? Yes indeed. Whereas most pop icons spend their nights chasing the next girl, the next high and the next party, Commerford has spent the past 10 years using the unique opportunities afforded a rock star to pursue the ultimate ride. "I go to bed every night thinking about my bike or some ride I might be doing the next day or a ride I was on the day before. It's more than just something I do to stay in shape or pass time or check out for a while. It's a lifestyle, and I dream about it," he says as he relaxes backstage and stares at his newest rig, a Maverick ML-8. After the show Commerford confesses that even when he's on stage rocking his skull to the music--and Commerford is literally metal-headed; more on that later--he's visualizing his next ride.
Mountain Bike: How did mountain biking find you?
Commerford: I met my wife back in '93. Her stepfather, Jimbo Insko, was big into mountain biking. I'm thinking, okay, a guy named Jimbo. How good is this going to go? The first thing he did was take me out in the garage to show me his mountain bike, a titanium hardtail. I've always been into nuts and bolts and different kinds of metal and there was a lot for me to like about bikes. And then Jimbo, he's this unbelievable dude. He's 49 years old now, and he was Mister USA in 1983. I call him my dad even though he's my father-in-law. I love hanging out with him and riding with him. He's learning things, he's trying things, and that's why I ride. I'm so happy that I chose a sport I'll be able to do for a long time. He has a coffee shop in Orange County, Cyrano's, that's a mountain bike hub. He's got a little shop in the back where he works on his bike and everyone else's bike.
A few days after our initial meeting with Commerford, Audioslave releases its second album, "Out of Exile." Later in the week it will debut on the Billboard charts at number one. In the meantime, Commerford has a few precious days to pause at his Malibu home with his wife, Aleece, and their two boys, Xavier and Quentin, before he hits the road again. He makes time to go for a ride on the trails in the Santa Monica Mountains. Commerford has the skills to go big--he can huck 15-foot drops and easily nails an 8-footer off the trail. He wasn't always a tech master, though. On the other side of the canyon is Westridge, a trail that almost ended his life as a rider.
What was your first brush with freeriding like?
I'd been riding mountain bikes for three years really seriously. I had ridden my bike from Santa Monica over the mountain range to rehearsal into the San Fernando Valley. I was coming back flying down a fire road on Westridge where there was a jump off to the left that I decided to hit. There's no way I would come flying down a road with all the speed I could get to hit a jump now. But I was just a novice then. I remember hitting the jump and feeling really front heavy and that was it. I woke up in an emergency room. I have a metal plate right here [Commerford points next to his left eye] and I've got four nuts that you can feel. My skull is screwed together. So you're a real-life metal head?
I am a metal head, but I don't set off metal detectors. It's titanium--total mountain bike metal. It's pretty sick. I actually have an X-ray somewhere of my teeth, and you can see it. I have since crashed on it again. Once I broke it open and the metal was just out! There are some Phillips head screws in there, and the nice thing about it is they didn't recess them perfectly. Coming back from it was a psychological thing where I had to go, 'I'm going to learn how to ride a bike now and I'm not going to be an idiot novice and go flying down a hill at speed and hit a jump.'
Do you listen to music when you ride?
No. There's rhythm in the ride that inspires me. I love to hear and see animals, see how the trail changes from rain and landslides. Your wheels are hitting the ground at various angles and certain rhythms come out of all of this and some of those are really cool. I keep a tape recorder in my car and if a beat or a riff or a part sticks with me for a whole ride then I'll mouth it into the tape recorder when I get back. Those ideas always hold water. Also, riding my bike and rehearsing go hand in hand. I love to ride hard before rehearsal. I can sit there and write music and be tired and be okay. What do you think about Bon Jovi sponsoring a cycling team?
Better than not doing it. I heard he rides mountain bikes--I want a celebrity race with me and Bon Jovi. i'm calling you out, bon jovi, and i will crush you! I think it's cool that he's paying for a team. I'm going to open up my own Red Bull and pay for people to win. I can see myself paying big dollars for someone to jump off of a cliff. There are only a few guys in the world like Kyle Strait and Dave Watson who can do that kind of unbelievable riding. [Think of] Dave Watson jumping over the Tour De France peloton--with one jump he went outside of the world of mountain biking and got people who don't ride psyched on our sport. That's something I want to do.
What does mountain biking mean to you?
I grew up with a very psychologically painful life, and I used the bass guitar to forget the pain. Now the bass guitar is my job and my mountain bike is my new bass guitar. If there's anything negative in my life then the pain on my bike far outweighs it and I get to erase the chalkboard for a day and start again. I don't rock climb, but when those guys are on the side of the mountain they're not worried about their nagging wives. They're worried about surviving. I think mountain biking is the same. When you're on a hard trail you're not thinking about anything but getting down that trail. I like that.
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