MI Local: Ronny Tibbs talks new album and ‘rock opera’ film series

This week on MI Local, I premiered exciting new tracks from Detroit-based artists The Doozers (danceable indie-pop), Danny VanZandt (quirky, surrealist-indie-rock), and Jackamo (harmony-heavy Americana-folk). We also checked in with the UP (Farm Block Fest) and featured artists from Kalamazoo (Lucy Lowis), Grand Rapids (Molly) and Marquette (Sea Hounds).

My guest this week was singer-songwriter and filmmaker Ronny Tibbs, who not only sings and plays guitar with a full band, but also oversees the metro Detroit-based commercial film production company known as Tibbs Inc.

Tibbs premiered a brand new song on the show titled “Too Late,” while we discussed his new album, Shorthand, blending his two creative worlds of music and film. Shorthand will be an 8-song album, humbly described by Tibbs as “an abbreviation of what a record might be.

“Each song will have an accompanying short film. They could stand alone,” Tibbs said, “but there’s a narrative web that connects them. Think The Who’s Tommy or Pink Floyd’s The Wall…sort of like a rock opera, but I don’t know if I can be talked about in that scale.”

Tibbs said that he and his closest collaborator and co-producer, Ryan Castle, “sifted through many songs over the last few years, and found that these might be the best stand-alone singles. And we were able to weave them together with films that make a larger picture in the end.”

Tibbs recorded much of Shorthand in El Paso, Texas with several Michigan-bred artists, like Pete Ballard, Aaron Jonah Lewis and producer Ben Collins, among many other talented artists and collaborators. The album took up to two years to complete, with some work done in Van Nuys, Calif. and Detroit. After releasing two tracks, each subsequent month will see another song paired with a music video.

Listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks using the media player at the top.