Interview: Trust Punks

Last time UnderTheRadar spoke with Auckland post-punk outfit Trust Punks was back in July last year, not long after they had formed and released their second of four pre-album singles. Fast forward almost 18 months and Trust Punks are a different beast. They have toured New Zealand and Australia, opened for Wire and have been working hard on their debut album Discipline, which was released this month. The hard work has paid off for the band. They are signed to Australian label Spunk Records and Discipline was premiered and streamed on long-standing British-based music news outlet NME prior to it's official release. We caught up with band before they head back on tour to have a quick chat about the impressive new record and some of the stories behind it...

UTR: You guys have been working on Discipline for a long time, What were the reasons for it taking so long?

I'm not sure if it actually took a long time or if it just took longer than we expected because we had unreasonable expectations for how quickly we could turn it around. It was lots of little things that all added up. We made some mistakes during tracking and the mixing took longer than we thought. The label then wanted to delay the release a little bit so they would have more time to market it.

You released four singles prior to the album but the only one to make it on to Discipline was 'Prone Hold'. How come you didn't put the others on?

The singles had nothing to do with the album and they function as releases in their own right. We were in a different frame of mind when we made the album than to when the singles were written. 'Prone Hold' is on Discipline because Spunk thought it was a good idea, and because we thought that it fit snugly with the other album tracks.

How did your relationship with Spunk Records come about?

Aaron who runs the label was into the singles and he had heard that the shows we played in Australia last year went well so he got in touch. Spunk has been very good to us.

NME premiered and streamed your album and called 'Gordian Knot' one of their 20 songs you must hear. It must be nice to be recognised by such a big publication. Has there been any noticeable traction and do you think it has made more people aware of you and garnered you new fans?

Yes to all of the above.

The album is called Discipline and there are some strong themes and political undertones throughout the record which you talked about in your NME interview, what do you want/ would you like people to take away from Discipline when listening?

Naturally those political undertones are filtered through our own particular sets of thoughts and experiences. The lyrical content of the album takes on a political dimension by virtue of the fact that it deals with the way we relate to each other as people and social actors on an individual and societal level. We wouldn't feel comfortable presenting some sort of take-home message or didactic meaning that has to be interpreted from the album. It's mostly an expression of deep-seated confusion and/or general malaise that can come out of asking difficult questions of yourself and the way you relate to others and also the significance that those relations have on an infinitely more diffuse and complex web of social relations that we are all tied up in, whether we know it or not.

The album cover is pretty interesting, what is the story behind the image?

We had a bunch of other covers lined up with various artists and about a week out from the deadline we thought none of them quite suited (we are very neurotic). So we threw something together ourselves last minute. The image comes from the Wikipedia entry on immurement and we didn't think a whole lot harder about it than...

A. It looks almost benign at first and gets steadily more fucked the more you look at it/think about it.
B. It's tangentially relevant to what's on the album.
I guess time will tell whether we should have thought harder about it or not.

You have some NZ and Oz album release shows lined up...any plans for more shows/ tours after that?

Yup we are playing a festival or two over the summer and we have some shows with Tonstartssbandht coming up in January and maybe a couple other things, will just have to wait and see!

 
You can catch Trust Punks at the inaugural AGEOLD all ages show, where they will be playing alongside Die! Die! Die!, PHF, The Keepaways, Miss June, Heroes For Sale, Desperate Models and Charlie Freak on Saturday 13th December at Ellen Melville Hall in Auckland. Head over here for more details and to buy tickets.