Getting to Know… Truth & Tragedy | Interview 🎤

In our 278^th Q&A, we are treated to an engaging interview from the extremely raw and vulnerable lyrical rock band, Truth & Tragedy. 

“Our lyrics tend to be extremely raw and vulnerable, so we like to keep our music as unproduced as we can to complement that.” Rock on, 🎙 Truth & Tragedy 🤘! In response to our first burning question, the band expounds, asserting, “Our lyrics also deal with a lot of issues such as trauma, PTSD, alienation, and suicide… our music is distinct in a lot of its content because it’s a first-hand account of Aaron [our singer] dealing with some crazy shit.” Woo!  Like our many other Getting to Know Q&As, we get the inside scoop on Truth & Tragedy: genesis, goals, musical influences, and of course, current, and future musical endeavors. So, without further ado, let’s jump right into 🎤 Getting to Know… Truth & Tragedy: Interview No. 278!

What makes Truth & Tragedy distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

🎤 At Truth & Tragedy, our lyrics tend to be extremely raw and vulnerable, so we like to keep our music as un-produced as we can to complement that! Our lyrics also deal with a lot of issues such as trauma, PTSD, alienation, and suicide, which stem from our singer’s own experiences serving in Afghanistan in the US army, so our music is distinct in a lot of its content because it’s a first-hand account of Aaron dealing with some crazy shit. And people can feel that authenticity in our music – we get a lot of humbling feedback from listeners who tell us our music helps them in some kind of way. When it comes to rocking the audience’s socks off, we just love jumping around on stage acting stupid! And in our experience, audiences don’t need too much encouragement to act stupid with us!

Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did Truth & Tragedy form and what were some of the goals or visions you had early on?

🎤 For the first year or so of Truth & Tragedy, we were actually a duo – 🎙 Aaron (vocals) and 🎙 Freddy (guitar). We were in a band together before T&T, but then Covid hit, and we couldn’t meet up and practice anymore. Aaron kinda jokingly asked Freddy if he wanted to start a duo to get around lockdown restrictions, to which Freddy was like ‘hell yeah,’ and suddenly, we had our first EP written! So that’s how we started Truth & Tragedy – just as a side project in September 2020. But then suddenly,  things gained momentum, and we realized, this was the music we’d always wanted to write, so we decided to go for it! Then Aaron moved to the UK, so we had this long-distance set up where Freddy would write and record the music in Germany, for Aaron to write and record the lyrics in the UK. Then in 2021, when live shows were possible again, we suddenly had to get people to play the instruments! And that’s where amazing musicians 🎙 Kai (guitar), 🎙 Vitali (bass) and 🎙 Domi (drums) come in – and now they’re writing and recording for Truth & Tragedy too!

Let’s talk more about goals.  Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

🎤 Definitely! Because really, back in 2020 the only goal was to keep playing music and try not to go crazy with boredom during lockdown! Now though, we have some serious plans for Truth & Tragedy, and we feel like we’re making loads of headway! 2022 is already our best year to date.  In February, we released our single and music video, 🎵 “Kelvin’s Not A Rockstar Yet,” where we had a lot of fun being dumb and driving around in a Mustang, and this month our new EP, 💿 Blood on Blood, has just dropped, and we already have many more releases planned for this year alone. 2022 is also stacked with shows where we’ll be playing some great festivals, and in September, we will be jumping into an RV to drive around Europe for 3 weeks for our first international tour. Plus, we’ve already got 2023 in our sights, and are in the planning stages of a UK run, with lots of shows across the EU already in the pipeline, plus some big releases we can’t wait to share with our listeners!

Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Whom would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

🎤 Some of our biggest influences within the genre are To Kill Achilles, Being As An Ocean, and Casey, and you can probably hear that in some of the music we make. But we all get inspiration from a lot of different genres that we listen to. Our vocalist Aaron, for example, is a huge fan of old country and gunslinger ballads, which you can hear in our track 🎵 “Carcass” from our debut album, 💿 Innocence Abandoned. We all grew up on pop-punk, which is a genre we love recreating in our own T&T style, which you can hear in our tracks like 🎵 “Burn The Witch” and 🎵 “Neo”. And we also had a lot of fun with our single 🎵 “Kelvin’s Not A Rockstar Yet”, which is our tribute to Weezer’s “Beverley Hills” and Nickelback’s “Rockstar.” So, we get our musical influences from everywhere!

Ah, the fun stuff.  What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance?  Feel free to be creative.  

🎤 It’s pretty early days in T&T’s live shows, so we don’t have that much to tell! Our crazy tour stories are yet to come this September – so, if we survive, we will get back to you then!

Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

🎤 Definitely our track 🎵 “Carcass” – it’s fun, groovy, and is usually the last track of our live set. Aaron had a lot of fun with the lyrics too, and the song is basically a hardcore version of an old country gunslinger ballad. We always have a lot of fun playing it, and always go all-out for the last song of our set. It ends in a big brutal scream too!

Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?  

🎤 Aaron can shoot milk out of his eyeballs – does that count?

Closing out, what is Truth & Tragedy currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure. 

🎤 We have loads of releases coming up this year and are already well into next year with our release plan! Our next single is coming out in a couple of months, which will be a pop-punk number with a brand-new music video – which is currently what we’re working on filming now. Then shortly after that, we have a 4-track EP coming out, and unlike our last releases, this one’s not playing! It’s going to be a really heavy one. We won’t say anymore, but definitely watch this space!

Till then, you can find all our music (including our brand-new EP 💿 Blood on Blood!), videos, news, and merch via our website, https://truthandtragedy.com/, or directly on the links below! Thanks as always for your support!

Much love, T&T

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Getting to Know… Truth & Tragedy: Interview No. 278 [📷: Truth & Tragedy, Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype, No-longer-here, OpenClipart-Vectors]