Today, we sat down with Trank to discuss their inspiration to write music, heroes, and much more! Be sure to check out the music of Trank below on Spotify after the interview.
Interview:
What is your inspiration to write your music? Is it your
surroundings?
Musically, our inspiration is one another. We all have very different, eclectic tastes and different musical personalities – one of us will bring an idea to the rest of the band that pretty much reflects that personality, and everyone will contribute arrangements and ideas and develop the core idea into a finished song.
Among all those influences though, the ones that we gravitate towards as a band are those that are defined by the same sort of contrasts that we want in TRANK’s music : darkness and light, power and subtlety, authenticity and sophistication. From Soundgarden to Depeche Mode via Porcupine Tree or Massive Attack – all of that goes into the music. It has a heavy, hard-rocking backbone but it’s fleshed out in a very cinematic, high-tech, widescreen sort of way, and we like that.
Lyrically, because there is that cathartic tension in the music – the songs literally want to talk about the complexities and curveballs of life, but in a way that’s less about wallowing in misery, and more about finding ways to deal; whether it’s love, a quest, or the occasional touch of cynical detachment. Inspiration for THAT comes from the gigantic fail between what the world is and what we feel it should be. Not unlike what a band of twenty-somethings would tap into to fuel their anger. We’re A LITTLE past that age, but it doesn’t mean we’re less angry : if you live in 2025 and you’re not angry or frustrated at the world, you’re in a cryogenic chamber. It’s just that we deal with anger, musically, in a way that is very different, and hopefully more inviting and satisfying, than how we would have done it in our twenties.
What type of music did you listen to growing up?
You’d get a very different answer to that one depending on which TRANK member you ask. But what the answers would have in common would be LOADS of names and a real obsession.
Speaking for myself – The first five records I heard on repeat in my life were AC DC’s Highway to Hell, which started my love of classic hard rock and later metal; The Police’s Regatta de Blanc, which taught me everything about how critical the bass is in music; and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon / Wish you were here / The Wall, which not only remain among my favorites but later opened up the doors to prog rock. Oh, and Queen. Lots of Queen as my cousin was a big fan. Also used to love whatever I knew had synths in it – especially Jean Michel Jarre’s early albums. He did a few horrible things after 1986/7 but his output until then is classic, up there with Vangelis and Tangerine Dream. There was a coldness and an alien quality to the music which spoke to my own sense of alienation.
I did struggle with much of whatever was played on the radio or TV as a kid, because all those people were singing happy songs in shiny outfits with big smiles on, and as much as I was smiling on the outside, inside I was a mess of discomfort and angst about being the odd one. Then I became a huge Depeche Mode fan in my early teens – still am – and life changed, for the MUCH better. All of a sudden, it was good to be the odd one, because you had access to the joys of the music made by other odd ones. Then I gradually found out about the rest of the music world by means of listening either to acts I was told had something in common with DM (the Cure, Joy Division, New Order, or more mainstream things like Tears for Fears, a-Ha, Propaganda, Frankie and the whole ZTT bunch), or artists they claimed as major influences – Bowie, Kraftwerk, and then the blues, Martin Gore being a huge fan. From the blues I went into soul (in particular females singers like Aretha or the just-deceased Roberta Flack, but I’m also a huge Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder fan), then all the way back to the funk I was allergic to as a pre teen because it was too happy (especially 70’s and early 80’s stuff – my older brother was massively into Earth, Wind & Fire or Kool & the Gang), then jazz (Miles, Coltrane, and the all time great singers – Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald). Only got into classical and contemporary when I was in my 30’s but have amassed quite the collection there as well. And LOADS of house, techno and trance in my 20’s – still have an obsession for Leftfield, Orbital, Underworld or LFO. The list goes on.
Is there someone you looked up as a hero?
David Bowie. The world’s turned to shit since he died.
If you weren’t a musician, would you be doing today?
Am I one, though ? I think you start to take yourself very seriously if you think of yourself as a musician. I am, we are, entertainers who organize sound to trigger big emotions – and take audiences with us on self-contained little trips we hope they’ll remember. So I guess that makes us something between manipulators, travel agents, actors and directors ? If I wasn’t any of those things – I don’t know. I’d probably sell hi-fi equipment and vinyl records, and go under in minutes because I’d buy my own stock.
What advice do you have for our fans out there that want to create
music?
Ask me again when we’re rich and famous, will you ?
Music:
