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TRAINWRECK RIDERS |
Performing at Noise Pop - Sunday, April 2
Bottom of the Hill
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The Trainwreck Riders' headlong, punk- flavored country songs have started to turn heads beyond the Bay -- including at Burbank's Alive Records, which will release the S.F. trio's second album in August. (The Riders self-released their debut, Where the Neon Turns to Wood, last year.) On the eve of signing, singer/guitarist Pete Frauenfelder, guitarist/singer Andrew Kerwin, and drummer Steve Kerwin sat down to talk in Frauenfelder's old-fashioned kitchen.
You were all born and raised in San Francisco, so where does the country come from?
Andrew Kerwin: (Our dad) plays old-time fiddle music. Before we even really knew what music probably even was, we were hearing it. And that kind of music is not super challenging, as in you hear it you can automatically tap your foot. It's pretty natural music. With me it was like, I just got obsessed with it, old country and blues records.
Steve Kerwin: But he still buys the new Rancid. laughs)
Well, that was my next question: Where does the punk come from?
Pete Frauenfelder: I think with us, punk comes in, well, if I can be so bold, in two ways. One is just the do-it-yourself, doing it a certain way just because you don't know another way to do it. And the second is when we started playing as a band, at least I started to get into the Mission scene. That was people who were a little older -- I'm sure they'd say that it was dying by that point -- but that was also what influenced us to play heavier.
SK: Well, if I can be bold, I would say a lot of it has to do with the way I play the drums, because these songs, I would speed 'em up about ten times quicker than they were originally written.
You guys caught up finally. (laughs) So, what's changed since you guys have gotten to the point where you don't have to play all house shows any more?
SK: We never played to strangers before. If there was a crowd of 40 people, we probably knew about 30 of them.
PF: But I think the type of music that we're playing, it's like it's danceable, it's drinking music, it's social music. All those things are conducive with what we play, and with bringing people together. I don't want people standing still ñ you can tell if it's a good show, if we're playing well, (then) people will be moving. -Kjersti Egerdahl |
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