Yours
Truly By Janiss Garza
Truly's first album for Revolution/Capitol, "Fast Stories... From Kid Coma,"
is one of the year's most seductively different rock records. It creates its
own category with trippy, atmospheric moods that range from lush and dreamy
to harsh and nightmarish. Comparisons are hard to draw... Songs like "If You
Don't Let It Die" and "Hurricane Dance" recall ethereal '60s Brit-rock, "Four
Girls" has the primal crash of an ocean wave and "Leslie's Coughing Up Blood"
is like an echoing scream from murky depths.
Although they've recorded for Sub Pop and were featured on Lollapalooza's
second stage a few years back, Truly's sound has kept them from being lumped
in either with the grunge wave or the punk explosion. Hype for the guys would
be simple -- bassist Hiro Yamamoto was Soundgarden's original bassist, drummer
Mark Pickerel was in Screaming Trees, and vocalist/guitarist Robert Roth was
in late '80s buzz band the Storybook Krooks. And the band's based in Seattle
besides. But Truly goes for substance over flash, and they've spent most of
their half-decade existence quietly fine-tuning their music and ignoring all
trends. The result -- the self-produced "Fast Stories... From Kid Coma" -- makes
you with more bands would take that route. Robert Roth emerges from Truly's
hiding place to reveal its secrets, then scurries back underground when he comes
face-to-face with HITS' metal monger Janiss Garza "Y Vega."
It seems like you guys are the mystery band.
Exactly. And in many ways, we've been that way intentionally. I mean, a lot
of A&R people swarmed up here in '92. These major labels were all over the place,
and it was kind of disgusting. We'd play a show and they would be everywhere.
And you would talk to them afterwards and you could tell that not even a year
before, they were probably pursuing bands in spandex.
Yeah, the same people who were in L.A. in '89 looking for the next
Guns N' Roses.
Exactly. So these are the same people who are kind of looking for a band that
sounds like Pearl Jam or something. I mean, that seemed to be the criteria.
How did the band get together
Mark and I were playing together when he was in his last year of the Screaming
Trees. That was in '90, late '89 actually. Sub Pop heard what we were doing
and wanted to sign us, so we put out an EP with them. We got Hiro, who'd just
quit Soundgarden and wasn't doing anything, to play bass. So we were kind of
like a project -- I don't know if that's the right word -- just basically a
band that did things whenever we wanted to. We weren't trying to climb the ladder
of success or anything.
Who plays all the different instruments on the album?
That's pretty much me playing the keyboards, and some of the more orchestrated
types of sounds. I arranged them to play on a Mellotron. We usually have someone
come up for a few songs to play the Mellotron live.
Are Truly's lyrics more personal or are they couched more in visions
and concepts?
I'd have to say they're both. I don't really have a particular method of writing.
Every time I finish lyrics to a song, I'm amazed that I actually did it 'cause
every time I start, I don't know I'm going to do it, and it always comes from
somewhere different. It's definitely very personal and sometimes when it's personal,
I even disguise it. I mean, music can be therapy, but listening to music shouldn't
be like listening to somebody's therapy session.
I deal with a lot of personal shit through my music, but it's not all in the
lyrics. Sometimes, it's just in the chords... just painting feelings.
Most good music is personal in a way that you can find yourself in
there, too.
Exactly. It's about expression, but it's also about entertainment -- I don't
mean entertainment, like in the fluff sense, but I mean people can get into
it.
This is an odd time for music -- there's not much out there that's
truly exciting.
Things have gotten really conservative, even in the underground. I mean, punk
rock was supposed to be about making your own rules and breaking rules and doing
something different. And now it seems to be about conforming to a certain set
of criteria and making money. Malcolm McLaren's whole vision is really what's
going on right now, which is just turning that music into money.
Your band is really different from anything else I've heard of late
I think that's a good thing. I thought Sonic Youth and Nirvana were really
different when they came out, too. I don't know. I'm not expecting to be that
big or anything. I just want to keep doing it, you know.
You're just into it for the musical expression.
[Laughs] I pretty much have to fight for it, you know! But not necessarily.
We got to do whatever we wanted on this record, which is great. Ten years ago,
a band like ours wouldn't get to produce their own record, so that's cool.
(HITS, July 17, 1995)
Time To Cough Up Blood With TRULY's Robert Roth