Familiarize Yourself

These boys may still look like they couldn’t pick up a pack of cigarettes at the local 7-11, but trust me, they can surely rock. Named after Jim Carey’s “The Truman Show,” Truman & His Trophy are combining math-rock and punk rock together to create a sound perfect for any house party. Check them out at one of their upcoming shows over Winter Break!

Enjoy this week’s installment of “Band of the Week”

How is it that Truman & His Trophy began and what brought all of you
together? Where did you get that name? It’s really interesting!
Truman & His Trophy began as a collaborative basement recording
project between Frank and myself in the summer of 2007. We were in a
band together that had just disbanded. I had written two songs that I
really liked and wanted to record them for fun at his house and at
this point I had no intention of starting another band. After we had
recorded them, we felt extremely good about it and wanted to properly
start a new band. We immediately found a house show to play without
any sort of band. We then asked our friends Jake and Ryan to help us
out, who are still in the band now. I had made up the name Truman &
His Trophy out of nowhere in particular. I really liked the movie The
Truman Show at the time, which I suppose is where the name Truman came
from. I’m also really attracted to phrases with alliteration, so I
guess the “trophy” came from that. Long story short, I wish there was
an awesome story behind our name but there sadly is not.

Describe your songwriting process, is it collaborative or more
individual pieces being brought to the group?
For the most part it’s a collaborative effort between the four of us.
It really depends on the song, though. Sometimes I’ll bring a skeleton
of a song in which the guys will fill in the blanks and add their own
parts. At other times Jake or Frank will bring a certain part or riff
to practice and we’ll work through it and create something that we all
like and agree on. Ryan usually comes up with a drum part that exceeds
anything that we could ever dream of and makes everything ten times
better.

What bands have influenced your sound that you’d like our readers to
be familiar with?
We were originally influenced by the bands Troubled Hubble and Of
Montreal. While we all listen to different kinds of music, I think we
can all agree that bands like the Pixies, Les Savy Fav, The Hives and
Neutral Milk Hotel are all bands that have influenced our music in
some way or another. Also, Menudo.

Do you have any upcoming shows you’d like to promote?
We’re playing with our friends in the band Dr. Manhattan for their
second annual holiday show. It’s on December 18th at the Subterranean
in Chicago. Shortly after we’re going to be playing an amazing
festival called Ian’s Party in Elgin which takes place New Year’s
weekend.