Features

Here's an email interview we did with Kevin from Trophy Lungs. In case you don't know them just yet, they will be releasing their album "Day Jobs" this Friday and it's pretty frigging awesome if you ask me. Oh, and this just came in... my buddies from Bearded Punk Records will not only be releasing this bad boy in Europe, but they will be bringing the band over as well. More info soon!

PRT: Your debut full-length “Day Jobs” comes out in two days, but it was actually already recorded over a year ago. What took you guys so long?

Kevin: This record has been a long time coming and we’re crazy stoked that it’s finally coming out. We as a band are obsessed with touring and it’s all we really give our attention to so it took a long time for us to sit down and focus on a new record.  After we got out of the studio we started shopping it around and had a lot of talks with a lot of people before we we’re lucky enough to meet the dudes from Antique Records. Fast forward months later and now it’s finally seeing the light of day.
 

PRT: Antique Records is the lucky label that gets to release it. How did you end up with them?

Kevin: Our awesome friend Leanne Cushing was helping us reach out to labels and she used to work with James from Antique Records back in the day. She sent him our record and he immediately shot us an email asking if we’d be interested in working together. They’ve been super helpful and we couldn’t be happier to be part of the Antique family.

PRT: Looking at the album title, I’m guessing you all still have day jobs. Always wondered about that… when do you decide as a band that it’s the right moment to give up your job and go for music full-time?

Kevin: Obviously we’d love to just play music full time but all three of us work over forty hours a week just to stay a float. We never as a band had the unreal expectation to make a lot of money nor do we believe that’s even an option anymore. Playing songs is a kind of therapy for us, it helps us deal with the inevitable struggles that come with being a working class band. Having the chance to tour all over and meet people who’ve become our best friends is more than enough.

PRT: For the people out there that haven’t heard of you yet… if Trophy Lungs was the lovechild of two other bands, which bands would have had sex and which position were you conceived in?

Kevin: Man, that’s a weird question! I’d have to say the two bands are Banner Pilot and Dillinger Four, those are two bands that have been gigantic influences on us. I guess the position would be however you want to call Patty from D4 getting naked on stage over and over again.

PRT: I read the band name was actually your nickname first because of how fast you could smoke a cigarette. We’re gonna need a video as proof of that. Would that be possible?

Kevin: Sadly there isn’t video proof of this which is probably a good thing.

PRT: Your only release up until now was a 7” that came out in 2013. How do you feel the songs from that 7” relate to the new ones?

Kevin: I definitely think we’ve become better song writers. The songs on the seven inch are a little more straight ahead where I feel our new record does a better job of representing all three of us not only musically but as people. We really wanted to write a record that accurately depicted the problems going on in our lives at the time. Certain issues like sexism, suicide, or even being laid off didn’t come through on our seven inch so we’re really proud of Day Jobs and what it represents to us.

PRT: Suppose you could be in any reality TV show and promote your band that way, which show would you pick and why?

Kevin: I’d like to answer this question with Surviver because we just had a long debate in the van this last tour about how long each of us would last if we were dumped in the wilderness with nothing. However after the conversation we realized that we clearly would all die so fast so I don’t think that would be a smart move to promote our band…

PRT: Your Facebook page tells us you’re X-Files aficionados... so what’s your favorite X-Files episode and why?

Kevin: My favorite X-Files episodes are always the ones that David Duchovny wrote. The Unnatural is an episode about how all the greatest baseball players in history where actually aliens and it’s just genius.

PRT: And do you think Mulder and Scully ever got it on?

Kevin: Watch the end of The Unnatural episode and tell me what you think.

PRT: What’s up next for you guys? Any tours coming up? Release shows?

Kevin: Well we just got home from tour and now we’re finalizing the details on coming over to Europe so there’s a lot of exciting things coming up next year.