What inspired the name of the band? What are your influences and are they the same as when you started out?
Our initial idea for the band name was ‘Triumph & Tragedy’, inspired by lyrics in
‘Aftermath’ by The Ghost Inside. But after a discussion over a few beers, we settled on
Truth & Tragedy! Some big influences within the (post)hardcore genre are To Kill
Achilles, Being As An Ocean and Casey – but we also take a lot of influence from other
alternative genres, including metalcore, pop-punk and hardrock, which you will hear in
some of our tracks!
How do you approach songwriting?
When it comes to our lyrics, that’s all down to Aaron (vocals). His lyrics generally deal
with some pretty serious issues, like trauma, substance abuse and PTSD, stemming
from his time serving with the US Army in Afghanistan – both the war, and readjusting to
civilian life afterwards. You’ll hear this in some of our songs like ‘Helmand’, ‘The Depths’
and ‘Cope’. So often our music tackles issues which are close to our hearts. When it
comes to our music, Freddy (guitar) generally writes our tracks, and he’s a big fan of
incorporating different movements and moods in a single track, so you’ll hear different
progressions, tempos and breakdowns throughout our music (for example ‘Cope’,
‘Carcass’ and ‘My Brother’s Keeper’). Our other guitarist Kai has also written some
tracks for us, and brings in a lot of metalcore influences. He wrote our instrumental
‘Artery’ on our latest EP ‘Blood on Blood’, and has a pure metalcore banger in store for
you on our next EP!
Why do you write the sort of music that you do?
We’ve always been huge fans of punk and metal growing up, and although we have
different backgrounds in music (for example, our bassist Vitali has a jazz background,
and our drummer Domi is more alt-rock), when creating Truth & Tragedy, we all naturally
fell into this genre. Post-hardcore is a great vessel for exploring emotion while still having
the excuse to jump around and act stupid on stage – and it also has a hint of nostalgia to
it, especially when we write our pop-punk-inspired tracks! So our music is a perfect
storm of raw emotion, nostalgia and fun, which we never have to force.
How do you decide what songs to perform live?
It’s one of those things where when we write a track, we kinda already know whether it’s
going to be one we perform live – usually because we can’t stop playing it at practice!
Our favourite tracks tend to be inline with our fans’ favourite tracks, so we usually make
sure these songs are at the forefront of our live shows. We also add in the odd slower
song, such as ‘Helmand’ or ‘Neo’, to make sure our shows have variety, and to give our
fans (as well as ourselves!) a couple of minutes to catch our breath. Because we like to
keep our music as raw and unproduced as possible, our recorded music translates quite
easily into our live performances – with the exception of our track ‘Dear Irony’! We wrote
this track right at the beginning of Truth & Tragedy forming, right in the middle of Covid
lockdowns. At that time, we weren’t even thinking about how the track would translate
live, so we went to town recording layered vocals and a bunch of instruments (there are
like 4 voices, as well as an extra guitar!). So that song, even though it’s one of our
favourites, is a bit of a nightmare to perform – and we’ve had to make some serious
alterations to make it work at our shows!
What plans do you have for the future?
Well we’ve just released our latest EP ‘Blood on Blood’, and have another pop-punk
single and a brutal EP set for release over the next few months! When it comes to live
shows, our calendar is packed – and we couldn’t be happier! Amongst a tonne of shows,
we’ll be headlining the Friday night of Wacken Foundation’s Rock Das Ding in July, and
in September and October will be setting off on our first international tour, with shows
spanning across Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Croatia! We
also already have a UK Tour planned for February 2023, with shows in the pipeline for
Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium – plus plenty more to announce! So make sure to
check our socials (@truth_and_tragedy) to see if we’ll be in a city near you – we’d love to
see you there!
Till then, you can find our music in all the usual spots, or head to truthandtragedy.com for
all our latest music, videos, live dates and merch! And thanks, as always, for the support!
Much love,
T&T
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth_and_tragedy/
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/TruthandTragedy/?tsid=0.3186018207367527&source=result
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0WEUmP3DPtJIexlk4JoVmP?si=-wbduduLR1mjINrl4nn9Zw
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-UQk6I2YapgoFKsUzvbjOg
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/truth-tragedy-hc
Website: https://truthandtragedy.com