Tommy Connors

Aside from playing guitar with my longtime band Seeking Homer, most of my life has been lived in motion. I’ve called more places home than I can count—maybe more than an Army brat—but the ones that shaped me most are Syracuse, Philadelphia, and New York City.

The music bug bit me early. My sister, who was a few years older, introduced me to The Rolling Stones, The Police, Pink Floyd, and Journey. Around the same time, MTV was born, and I was completely blown away. David Bowie. The J. Geils Band. Devo. Blue Öyster Cult. Tom Petty. Aldo Nova. Van Halen. Pat Benatar. I couldn’t get enough.

I was the only kindergartner with a record collection—second-hand, sure, but mine. My parents gave me a Fisher-Price tape recorder one Christmas, and I used to press “record” while holding it against my sister’s stereo speakers. The result was a bunch of quasi-bootlegs: Tattoo You, Escape, The Wall. I was a five-year-old with an “iPod” about the size of my Dukes of Hazzard lunchbox.

On July 13, 1985, everything shifted. MTV broadcast Live Aid from Wembley Stadium and JFK Stadium, and I got to see the world’s greatest acts perform live for the first time. Freddie Mercury turned 100,000 people into one unified voice, Bono stretched “Bad” into a transcendent nine-minute performance, and later Mick Jagger and Tina Turner lit up the stage. That day, I knew: I wanted to play guitar and make music.

That Christmas, I got my first electric guitar. At first, it wasn’t easy. Between baseball, football, newspaper routes, detention, and a healthy dose of laziness, the guitar gathered some dust. My mom signed me up for a night class at the local high school, but practicing felt like work. Around the same time, I was struggling in school, and when my parents sent me to Catholic school, I found myself way behind.

One of the nuns, Sr. Donna Marie, came up with a plan: she would tutor me every day to catch me up—if I agreed to play guitar at 6:30 a.m. Mass. At first it was a drag: up at 5 a.m. for newspapers, bike to school, play Mass, stay after for tutoring, afternoon papers, sports, homework, bed by 11. But somewhere in all of that grind, something clicked. My grades got better, and my guitar playing exploded.

I’ll never forget the day I realized I could figure out U2’s Joshua Tree songs just by ear. From there, it became a challenge to learn everything in my tape collection.

My best friend Danny and I spent whole weekends writing and playing, even when his older brother told us we “sucked.” I picked up mandolin, started to sing (through puberty’s cruel cracking), and in high school, I joined Jazz Ensemble—a class that was basically Rock Band 101. We jammed on Stevie Ray Vaughan, INXS, and Eddie Money, and eventually convinced the school to let us keep the class even without a teacher. That’s where I started singing more seriously—mostly because no one else would.

College brought lacrosse, late nights, and little time for music—until my friend Dave noticed I had some Samples CDs. We started playing parodies and open mics, then house parties. That’s how Seeking Homer was born, a hurricane that carried me through some of the best times of my life.

Homer gave me brothers, vans, motels, and years of rock and roll living. We shared stages with Maroon 5, Edwin McCainm Dispatch, Guster, Joan Jett, Living Colour, Richie Havens, and countless others. We also had close calls—like an ice storm that nearly took us off the road after a Colgate University gig. Those nights fueled not just our songs, but our sense of who we were.

I’ve always been writing. Some songs belong to Homer, others don’t. Songwriters like Robert Earl Keen, Richard Shindell, Mindy Smith, and Freedy Johnston showed me the beauty of storytelling in under four minutes. Inspiration never comes when I force it—it’s like waiting for a shooting star. But sometimes, out of nowhere, it lands.

Some of my songs have been with me for years, waiting for that missing verse. Others come together in minutes. Hopefully, you won’t be able to tell the difference.

In 2018, I joined Murmur, a nationally touring R.E.M. tribute band—a dream gig, since all I wanted as a kid was to play R.E.M. and U2. More recently, I’ve been performing with The Arcade, an 80s MTV-era tribute that feels like stepping right back into the days that inspired me in the first place.

Whether with Seeking Homer, Murmur, The Arcade, or performing solo, my goal is still the same as it was when I first saw Live Aid: to connect with people through music and performance.

Currently I am working on some new solo material that includes some of my favorite Irish tunes as well as melodies that I've been holding inside for many years.  Should be out soon.

Come see me play. Drop a line. Don’t be a stranger.