WISE RIVER — He cradled his first guitar when he was 6 years old. It was a cheap pawn shop acoustic with nylon strings. It would be his saving grace.
His family lived off the grid then near Kila, and his mother and stepfather thought a guitar would keep him occupied.
“They’re like, ‘Alright, TV’s going off. Here’s a lantern. Here’s a guitar,’” recalled Tim Montana, a singer-songwriter who has ties to Elk Park, Butte and Nashville.
“I remember bringing it to a guitar store, and the guy’s advice was to take it out back and smash it,” he said. “He broke my heart.”
Instead, Montana taught himself to play the guitar, finding it a source of solace and retreat from his stepfather, a militia member and tyrant both inside and outside the off-the-grid double wide the family shared in Elk Park.
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“I played that guitar for years. I always had the ear. I had a little CD player with D-size batteries,” Montana said.
He routinely beseeched his mother for more batteries. He listened to a lot of ZZ Top, a reality that now seems fated.
Until recently, Montana, 38, his wife, Danielle, and their four kids had been living in Nashville, where his music career has been building momentum.
Now, they live in Wise River.
In August, Montana, along with ZZ Top guitarist/vocalist Billy F Gibbons and a few other partners, bought the Wise River Club from owner Lynda Davis.
During the weeks that followed, Montana’s song “Devil You Know” climbed the Billboard rock chart. When he learned about the song’s performance, he pulled over near Rocker and wept.
The song’s lyrics and video, which was shot in Butte, portray a boy coping with a threatening adult male who wrests away the youth’s guitar and violently storms about the boy’s room.
“Challenged with exploring his formative musical roots, Tim delved into the influences of his youth and wrote ‘Devil You Know,’” said Darren Hagen, Montana’s manager. “The song immediately resonated with rock radio, with iHeart Radio naming him their ‘On the Verge’ rock artist, a special accolade not frequently given.”
Hagen said Wednesday that “Devil You Know” was sitting at No. 19 on the rock charts.
Gibbons visited the Wise River Club during the weekend of Oct. 7 and even played a rendition of “La Grange,” a signature hit for ZZ Top, an internationally renowned band with Texas roots. Gibbons happily handed out ZZ Top swag to customers, including a couple who clearly had no idea who the guy with the long beard was.
During a recent interview at the club, Montana was gregarious and open about, but not fixated on, the rocky course of his early life, enthusiastic about the future of the Wise River Club and borderline overwhelmed.
“There’s a ton going on,” he said. “I’m kind of taking what I learned in Nashville and going to plug it in here, keeping it Montana. The songwriting thing is so big in Nashville, and I love the storytelling. And the stage here is small, and the room is small.”
Montana envisions singer-songwriters he knows from the music business stopping in to play from time to time — people like Doug Johnson, who wrote “Love Like Crazy,” performed by Lee Brice, and “Three Wooden Crosses,” sung by Randy Travis.
Montana’s climb up the music businesses ladder had a slippery start. He graduated from Butte High School in 2003 and then twice flunked out of the Musicians Institute in Hollywood. He hit a wall with music theory and reading music.
So in 2006, he packed up his guitar and his dreams, like so many do, and headed to Nashville. The dues paying continued.
“I got a job frying chickens at a grocery store. I didn’t have a car, so I had to walk to work,” Montana said. “I had to wear a beard net and a hair net. Everyone just called me ‘Montana’ back in those days.”
He played hard after work.
“I’d go down to the honky-tonks, and I was your typical Butte guy,” Montana said. “Loved to fight and raise hell. I got in a fight one night, and they hired me as a bouncer at the biggest honky-tonk in Nashville.”
That was Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, where people like Willie Nelson, Roger Miller, Kris Kristofferson and other singer-songwriters were early customers.
Montana worked as a barback and a bouncer.
“I just worked my way up because I knew I wanted to get on the stage,” he said. “Then, finally, they’re like, ‘Alright Montana, you got the Thursday night shift. Don’t mess up.’”
He kept plugging. He snagged a deal with Spirit Music Nashville as a songwriter. He met Gibbons and the two began co-writing songs. Actor Charlie Sheen directed one of Montana’s music videos.
Through the years on trips home, Montana occasionally played the Wise River Club. Lynda Davis decided to sell the club after the death in 2020 of her husband, Tom Davis, himself a singer-songwriter. She pitched the idea of club ownership to Montana.
The process closed around the time the song “Devil You Know” began to move.
“Man, I bought this place thinking I was going to slow down and just tour and make, you know, a record once a year,” he said.
And then “Devil You Know” reached the top 20. A tour is planned for 2024.
Montana does not readily disclose his birth name because he said he doesn’t want the slightest association with either his biological father, whom he last saw at age 5, or his stepfather.
A feature story about Montana in Free Range American, affiliated with Black Rifle Coffee Co., noted, “He’s constantly performing and has an insatiable need to infect others with his seemingly boundless energy and positivity.”
His family is settling in at a rental house not far from the Wise River Club.
Montana said he knew the move from Nashville would be an adjustment for his children.
“But I was just very concerned about my kids being city kids,” he said. “And it was happening pretty fast.”
Montana said family and music business friends and fellow musicians have lined up to help staff the Wise River Club. He said Rudy Ketchum and Brandi Bartscher, who own and operate the nearby H Bar J Saloon, have been remarkably supportive.
“They’ve been such a help,” Montana said. “I’ll call them panicking, ‘What the hell am I doing? Come over here.’ We’re not trying to be competitive.”
Theoretically, the two small and rural businesses are chasing the same dollars — those of hunters, anglers, snowmobilers, distance bicyclists, locals and tourists.
Montana said he believes the Wise River Club will establish a niche.
“I don’t think there’s anywhere in southwest Montana that’s going to be doing what we’re doing here with the music program,” he said.
For now, Wise River Club is open Thursdays through Sundays. The club has a presence on Facebook and Instagram and is building a website. The social media handle is @wiseriverclub.