For Timothy Dooley, the lead singer of the band Timisarocker, being a rock star has always been the endgame.

“I truly have an affinity for rock stars as a fan of Prince, David Bowie, Billie Joe Armstrong [of Green Day], and Freddie Mercury [of Queen],” Dooley says. “ There's something about having to do it all yourself, having to make you be the show, to grab a microphone, and strut across stage, and really show an audience that you know you got it. I always idolized that type of just glamor and showmanship of being that kind of rock star.”

There’s a lot in Tim that makes you see the rock star he was always born to be. Growing up in Georgia, being a rock star always fascinated Tim. “As kids in the 2000s every single cartoon and TV show was all about the main characters forming a rock band, and then somebody walks into the talent show who's a record exec exclaiming ‘you guys have talent,’ like they fed us this dream.”

Dooley started out by singing in church choirs and talent shows, and it was in high school, where he was part of a band called Caution Notice. “If you look on some old social media, it was showing as ‘Cation Notice,’ because I forgot to put the U in caution. So that link is still up there, and I'm pretty sure they replaced all of the songs because I got kicked out of the band — because I couldn't sing. I was going through puberty at the time and my voice was changing, but they kicked me out, even though I wrote all the lyrics to the songs.”

That experience led him to go solo as Timisarocker, and he would go out and busk for Atlanta’s residents. “I would just hop on the MARTA, and I would head to downtown Atlanta to different locations like Little Five Points to busk,” he remembers. “From busking, I would get small gigs, like performing at farmer's markets and everything as Timisarocker. I wrote an album in high school for my senior project that my best friend has the one and last copy. Nobody else will see that to the light of day. But it was called Benefits of a Heartbreak, and I was trying to prove a thesis about how music can affect mood, and I was just dipping my toes into songwriting.”

Shortly after high school, his parents pressed him to go to college, which led him to attend school at the now-defunct McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul. “Around that time, I was like, ‘Oh s**t, okay, my mom is making me go to college, there's no choice,’ so I found my way in Minnesota after being rejected from UCLA and Berklee College of Music. To be honest, I didn't really have a plan, but I came to Minnesota to be a songwriter, and to get my degree in songwriting and composition. I had no idea what the hell a music degree was going to do for me, but I didn’t really want to do anything other than music.”

Being outside of Georgia meant that Tim had to survive, acclimate, and adapt to his new surroundings at McNally Smith. During his first semester, his parents told him not to get a job and just to be a college student. “I joined every single club I could, and I went to every single meeting,” he says. “I should have been dead and gone with the way I lived it up on my own.”

That goodwill and involvement would pay off during his second semester at McNally, which was much more productive, intensive, and focused. “That's when I was known, and if anybody needed an emcee for an open mic at the school or at the bar down the street, somebody to host an open mic or karaoke, they would call me. I was the guy,” He says. “I wrote a ton of songs that people just recorded as demos, because I really wanted to just be a songwriter.”

During that time, he found a mentor in Joe Horton of No Bird Sing, FIX, and Mixed Blood Majority, who became his private songwriting coach, and songwriting teacher. “Joe saw something in me,” Dooley says. “I'm very in tune with verbiage, grammar, and pronunciation, and the way Joe would write the word just on the board and then be like, ‘Okay, so why do we need this word in our songs?’ I said, ‘Oh my God, this is exactly how I like writing music.’ One day, Joe pulls me aside and says, ‘I've seen what you can do, and I know what you've been taught to do, but what do you want to do? I want to challenge you to write something in a genre that you've never written before.’”

That challenge from Horton spawned Timisarocker’s first album, Polished Punk, which was released in 2015. “I wrote a bunch of exact punk rock tunes. I threw some soul tunes in there with elements of punk and everything, and a few demos later came Polished Punk.” However, the experience of recording that debut left Dooley pondering what was coming next. “I liked performing with the band, and I wanted to continue this rock and roll, pop/punk thing, I was just cool giving up the dream. Because I didn't think a Black boy like me could be a rock star. So I was ready to be a pop star, and repeat the same four chords. What I really wanted to do was maybe play with that a little bit. So I wanted to brand myself as the rock star, post-Polished Punk.”

With a switch up in band members, Timisarocker released Natural Disaster in 2017. A more straightforward pop-punk and alternative attempt, where Dooley really comes into his own with his songwriting. “Around the time that Natural Disaster dropped, that's when I was like, ‘I know one of these songs is gonna take off because this is my destiny,’ and I thought it was gonna be ‘Apollo’ or ‘Irresponsible Kids,’ but at the time, I didn't realize the amount of work it takes to like, get people to notice you, and to make an impact.”

Additionally, the release of Natural Disaster was fraught with some obstacles. “I had a guitar player that I wasn't thrilled about,” he says. “He was kind of a robot player. The guitarist I'm referring to stole all of our merch, because we kicked him out of the band. It was very tumultuous by the time we released Natural Disaster, so we had to do a bunch of shifts in the cover of the album.”

Timisarocker has since gotten a more steady lineup with bandmates Zach Eyl on drums, Matt Lentz on guitar, and Dylan Dykstra on bass. They’ve spent five years writing, recording, mixing, mastering, building camaraderie, and trust together, and nitpicking everything in between. The third Timisarocker album, Up Next, sees its official release party on July 15 at the Bryant-Lake Bowl. “For this record, I want people to really start to see Timisarocker as the rock star that I am, especially people here in Minnesota, where I've put so much work into building a career here,” says Dooley. “With this Up Next album, it took a lot of honesty with myself, and I had to ask myself, ‘Do I really want fame? Do I really want success? What is success? How do I even define success?’”

As Timisarocker sees 10 years of being a figure in Minnesota’s music scene, the series of singles that have teased the forthcoming Up Next album seeks to answer a lot of the doubts and fears that Tim has dealt with during his time in the scene. “27 Club,” which was written before Tim turned 28, is seen as a conversation with the Timisarocker that had the ambition to release Polished Punk and Natural Disaster. “I'm looking at that young kid just being like ‘You have such high hopes. You had your head in the clouds,’ but then you put it into perspective. Even if I don't have a million bajillion followers, I'm still up next regardless, as long as I'm happy. That's all that matters at the end of the day.”

Another song from the album, “What Does He Got That I Don’t Got?” can be seen as more of a tug-of-war between ego and person, and considering Timisarocker’s namesake, it was a conversation he had with himself after Natural Disaster. “I thought the last album was going to do what it did,” he says. “Because I just you know, that's my self-centeredness. That's my cockiness still talking. I'm like ‘Oh, these songs are it, honey,’ and I listen to them now, and I cringe to be honest with you, a few where I'm like, ‘Okay, that's fair.’”

The most important thing that is showcased within Up Next is not only the growth in songwriting between Tim and his bandmates, but his growth and maturity in his mental health, and the life he has been fortunate to have. “The songs before were more like parodies. They were more like tongue in cheek. I was trying to tell a joke more than I was trying to be serious,” he reflects. “Now that I truly feel like an adult, I really am taking care of myself, my lens and my perspective has shifted a lot. I now understand what it means to really have a project that you put so much effort into, and I don't bank on the idea of overnight success anymore. I'm banking on what's going to be something that is fun and clever for me.”

Timisarocker’s Up Next Release Party is Friday, July 15 at the Bryant-Lake Bowl in Minneapolis. FenixDion will be opening. Tickets