Flipped From Art to Music

Joshua McNichols

Promise of a man: Tennis at work.

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Day Job is a look at how musicians pay the rent. We've relaunched Day Job as a podcast.

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More About

• Neil Young
• Visual Arts

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In college, Whiting Tennis majored in painting. And while a career as a visual artist is hard enough, Tennis felt even more conflicted when his best friend introduced him to something completely new.

"He was actually trying to seduce me," says Tennis. "And I told him, 'Ronnie, I'm straight, I'm not gonna flip at this point.' Because I was a freshman in college. But he was determined to try to flip me. So we went up into his frat room one afternoon. He put the lights down low, he lit a candle. I don't know how many people would go this far, but I knew he had my best interests in mind, so I said, 'OK, we're gonna do this.' So he blindfolded me, he put something in my hand which was obviously a rose, and he dropped a needle down on Neil Young's Harvest. And then he kissed me on the lips. And then he stepped back and he took the blindfold off and he looked at me like, 'So? And?' And I went, 'Uh, who is this? Who am I listening to?' He said, 'You don't know who Neil Young is?'"

After that, painting had to compete with Tennis' newfound love, rock 'n' roll.

To this day, Tennis' living comes from making visual art. Currently, he's working on a massive painting of a derelict house with a front yard full of junk, and he has an upcoming art show in New York City. But music liberates Tennis in ways that art cannot, so he continues to perform around town with a band. Last year saw the release of a solo record, Three Leaf Clover.

"I don't know if I would ever feel the lack of 'Oh, I've got to make a painting,' I don't have that," he says. "I would feel the lack if I couldn't play music or record music. Every time I listen to the radio and 'Crimson and Clover' comes on, or something like that, I'm like 'Oh, I gotta play guitar.'"

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