Photo/Nell Alk
Exclusiveness
By Nell Alk
Trouble Andrew’s been bangin’ out tunes for a few years now. We first heard them live at The Knitting Factory last February opening for hip-hop duo Group Home. We were instantly hooked. Comprised of “Trouble Gang” mastermind and lead vocalist Trevor Andrew, Ian Longwell on drums, Joao Salamao on guitar and Masaru Takaku on bass, this foursome knows what it takes to put on a killer show. Self-proclaimed “Crunk Rock,” their music is influenced by various sources, from ’80s pop to punk to rap, as well as skate and snowboard culture, videos and their soundtracks. Think synth singing, danceable beats and timely lyrics.
Thecheappop.com had the pleasure of catching up with the Trouble members backstage in New York earlier this season. We had the additional honor of listening alongside Virgin Records reps who, less than two months later, signed the talented troupe. What follows are selected excerpts from our exclusive conversations with the man behind the band, Trevor, and his second-in-command, Ian, while kicking it at The Fillmore one recent evening during Santogold’s headlining performance. Watch for Trouble’s re-release in mid-January and a brand spankin’ new record due to drop sometime next summer. In the meantime, peep their MySpace page but read on first…
You didn’t really play too many songs tonight, did you?
Yeah, we played like six songs. We kinda made ’em a little short. It was the first show with Santogold on this tour and we didn’t wanna, like, over…
Overpower?
Not at all. She fuckin’ kills it. I’m just sayin’, I didn’t want to go out there and overstay my welcome. It’s her show and a lot of people don’t know who I am, so I just wanted to keep it short and sweet.
I gotcha. So you guys have been together about two years?
As a full band we’ve been together, like, a solid two years.
And where did you all meet?
We all met here in New York. I wrote the record almost four years ago.
You wrote all the songs?
Pretty much. So, I had the record done, I didn’t have a band. [T]his production team [Shitake Monkey] played as my band for, like, the first year. After that, I needed a band of my own, so I started auditioning people. I ended up finding these guys through friends, not through auditioning. I had a lot of talented people come in, but I really wanted people that I could travel and be family with, you know? That had similar interests and [a] similar interest in music.
And you’re from Canada?
Yeah.
And you’re there, like, six months out of the year, and then you’re touring? And you snowboard, right?
Yep, snowboarding. Pretty much always moving around these days. Spending a lot of time between Europe and Canada and Japan. All over the place.
Regarding your songs, the lyrics first or the music?
I used to write little raps and me and my friends would just kick ’em on the mountain and shit, just for fun. I always thought, ‘I can’t believe I wasted so much time writing raps ’cause I know I’m not going to do anything with them.’ Then, I hurt myself snowboarding. I was at Santi’s [Santi White’s, AKA Santogold’s] house and she had the equipment around, [so] I just started writing these songs out of boredom and spit my raps over them, you know? So that’s what it is. Then it kinda came out of me and everything just happened naturally, you know?
What’s next? What I’m actually most excited about is what’s next, when you’re gonna have another CD dropping…
We’re gonna re-release the first record, remastered, add some new songs and remixes. Our deal was real low budget. I didn’t really think I was gonna do a real thing, you know? I just made these CDs, and they’re good, but I want them properly mixed and shit. We have a couple mix tapes coming out and another real record…
Ian!
Hi. My name’s Ian. Longwell.
You’re from New York. Upper West Side?
Born and raised. How’d you know? I’m getting a tattoo, actually. It’s gonna say “Upper West for Life.” Probably just “Upper West,” actually. Not “for Life.”
Badass. Do you still live with your parents?
No, not really.
Only sort of? Where’d you go to college?
I went to Fordham University in the Bronx. Dropped out when I met Trev.
I bet your parents loved that!
They don’t mind. It’s cool. Went out to Whistler in Canada to do a couple shows and was supposed to stay for 19 days, miss three days of class and come back and go to school. I went up there [and] fuckin’ snowboarded. Didn’t come back to New York for three months. Really nice scene. The last three years of my life have been the best years.
You guys don’t have regular day jobs?
Umm, some of us did, but we just gave ’em up recently.
To become full-blown rock stars!
We’re just throwin’ it all in!
I see your drumsticks are pretty beat up…
Drumsticks are more cool when they’re chewed up. I hate it when they’re chewed up. I just use ’em at rehearsal. I use the freshies for the shows.
How many pairs do you go through in one show?
I don’t even use a whole set of sticks, but, at rehearsal, I’ll break, like, two. If I’m playing other people’s drums and cymbals, I break them during shows.
Why?
This is pretty technical stuff. This is stuff you tell a drum magazine. When it’s my snare drum and my ride cymbal, I know how hard it is and how hard I hit it. When I’m hitting other people’s shit, sometimes it’s thicker, or sometimes the snare rim is sitting up a little higher, so I whack it; you hear a rim shot, where you hit the middle of your snare drum and the rim at the same time. I under-calculate how hard I’ve hit it, ’cause my snare drum’s really shallow, so I just crack [the drumstick] in half on the rim. I don’t even get a sound out of the drum. It just cracks.
That’s actually really fascinating. Seriously.
I could blow your mind with all the geeky drum stuff. For hours.
I want to hear more geeky drum stuff.
No, no. You don’t. I think it’s sexy as shit. If I meet a girl that can drum her fuckin’ heart out, I am sold. I am like, ‘You know what? I don’t even care what you look like. If you can kick-flip too?! Woo!’
All right, Ian. Before you pack up, tell me the craziest thing that’s happened at a show or on the road.
I’ll tell you the craziest story I can think of. And this is wild. We were in Vegas about a year and a half ago. We were there for the SIA Winter Sports Festival, which is the biggest thing in skiing and snowboarding. We performed during the festival at this party, in the middle of the ski department, so it was kinda in an uncool place at a winter sports show, while our fans are fucking shredders.
Anyway, we played the show and it was pretty good. Afterwards, we sat around and got drunk. We were packin’ up all our gear. We had this giant cart; it was, like, an industrial cart. It was fuckin’ huge. I had a drum set on it, a bass amp, a bass head, a guitar amp, a guitar head, half a PA system. We were pushing it through this trade show, which, if you can picture it, [is] in a massive fucking convention center, about the size of six football fields, all indoors, ceilings about seven stories high. It’s the biggest fucking place you’ve ever been in, and every square foot is auctioned off to winter sports companies.
So we’re pushing [this cart] down the halls; we’re pushing it crazy fast. I’m pushing one side, Johnny’s [he gestures to Shitake Monkey’s Johnny Rodeo] pushing the other side. Jake [Lamagno, former Trouble keyboardist], Joao and Trevor are at the front. We were pushing it as hard as we could down the aisle with all the gear on it. Nobody was here. We’re running. We’re all drunk as shit. They’re riding; they’re sitting on the cart and Johnny and I are pushing it as hard as we can. I kind of trip and fall, so I let go. Johnny, he keeps pushing, like, gung-ho, throws all his body weight in[to] it, and the whole cart, which is about a five foot by twelve foot giant iron cart with four wheels, with all the drums and everything on it, goes flying into [this] booth. It destroys this giant glass display that’s got, like, $1000 ski boots on it, the desk where they explain the ski boots or whatever the fuck they do. Everything. It fuckin’ scratches everything, like a bowling ball hitting pins.
We all scramble. Security is fucking everywhere. We gotta get all our amps, gotta get all our fuckin’ shit. Yo, so we crash. We destroy the whole fuckin’ booth. Everybody’s running in random directions. Everybody’s holding all the shit that they can. People are running with bass amps, fuckin’ Marshall [drum] sets. Everybody grabs something. Everybody hides somewhere. We all make it away from the old-ass security guards. We got fucking everything!
Nobody got caught. Nobody got arrested. It was fucking unreal! At the end of the thing, Johnny’s fuckin’ hiding out with a heavy-ass bass amp and a heavy-ass bass cabinet in the fucking bathroom of a Mexican restaurant. It was the best story ever!
I gotta pack up my drums.
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