“..chock full of succinct tunes yet roomy enough to allow the trio to produce a series of expansive jams that sets them apart from many of their peers”
The 405
TRAAMS formed in summer 2011 in Chichester, West Sussex, meeting at a club night that vocalist and guitarist Stu Hopkins started as a reaction to the city’s limited nightlife. The only options previously available to him and his friends were “boring clubs and bars which only played boring club music”. Frustration is obviously a familiar and shared sentiment for the trio and, as ‘Grin’ (album released 2013 on Fat Cat Records) showcases, they pour it into their music to create something bristling and vital. Bassist Leigh Padley recently said in an interview that the three band members (completed by Adam Stock on drums) felt compelled towards music as the only means to escape the mundanity of their hometown; “We had to start a band. It was all we had.” At his club night Hopkins would mainly play records by Wire, New Order and Le Tigre, supplemented with mainstream pop and hip hop. Similarly, there is a pop immediacy coexisting with an expansive, experimental element inside the music they make themselves.
TRAAMS work completely collaboratively, each member bringing different sections and parts to the songs which are gradually worked on in the practise space. The band recorded their first set of songs in November 2011 with Rory Attwell and continued to work with the producer throughout 2012 on the bulk of ‘Grin’. In February 2013 they recorded more songs with MJ at his Suburban Home Studio in Leeds to complete the ‘Ladders’ EP, and a handful of tracks on ‘Grin’.
Having already shared stages with the likes of Parquet Courts, Dope Body and FIDLAR, TRAAMS are rapidly leaving behind the sleepiness of their humble beginnings and hurtling towards an exciting future.
