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Strange Glue Showcase: Tripwires Interview and Music

09th September 2008 | by Gavin Riley

On paper, it's hard to see how Tripwires function as a band. Spread-eagled across the the bottom half of the country, the foursome, originally from Reading, have to cope with travelling and their fledgling university careers whilst touring in support of their music.

Indeed, the result of their respective choices of university has comically led them to describe their location on MySpace as the M4 Motorway.

But its not something that bothers frontman Rhys Edwards, as he described to Strange Glue how the band adjusts to life on the road.

"It is a bit of challenge, but i think we have done it in the best way possible as we all go to uni's within 45 minutes away from each other, it just means that we commute to Bristol to practice and to the place where all our gear is kept. It has even forced us to be more disciplined with playing the right gigs and now play London once a month as well as getting new fans in new areas."

The band are now receiving quite a bit of airplay on XFM and the various BBC stations, so much so that they were snapped up to play at the Leeds & Reading Festivals that took place last month.

It was a welcome return home for the band, and they were especially excited at the turnout for their shows and the quality lineup of their hometown festival.

"It was an amazing experience for us, being originally all from Reading, the Reading Festival has always been a special thing for us and something we have always wanted to play, Leeds was also great to do as we have never been there before - we were also really happy with how many people came to watch our performances.

"Playing at the festival also meant that we could indulge in backstage passes etc, it was really nice to watch a lot of bands side stage for the first time, Biffy Clyro impressed us, as well as White Lies it was also great to watch Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip from the side stage at their headline slot on the Festival Republic stage - they did a great job."

Tripwires sound is darkly enthralling, yet many have been quick to assign false labels. It's unfortunately a sign of the times that if you sound slightly more commercial than Deerhunter, you get lumped into the Kaiser Chiefs / Pigeon Detectives indie band category. This is something Edwards is keen to avoid.

"It's something i hope doesn't happen because the sound we have always aimed to achieve is a much darker, slightly heavier alternative to being 'another indie band', I suppose it's how other people see it though!"

Bands start young these days, with Edwards aged just 12 at the time of formation. Joined by Ben White, Joe Stone, Sam Pilsbury and George Simpson, just three years later, the Enigma Project - as they were then known - were playing live around the country. However, bassist Simpson left the band in 2005, and as the group's influences changed, they all felt that name change would help things move along.

"We came up with the name when we were twelve, in our first year of secondary school when we formed the 'band'. By the time of the name change last September we were completely different to what we started like, we were also moving to new areas of the country and wanted to change it sooner rather than later.

"In the last few months of being 'The Enigma Project' we had already found our 'style' of music, the name change seemed a good idea to reflect this change."

There are good times ahead for Tripwires, with their two most recent singles garnering adoring support. Their latest - exclusively streaming below - is a song on the edge.

'In Times Of Trouble' has a verse that initiates stuttered tremors throughout its foundations before it forces the song to avalanche into one of those magical choruses which perfectly shifts the tempo of the track and additionally, which brings the doorbell solo back into vogue.

Tripwires are releasing 'In Times Of Trouble' as a free download from their website on 20th October, but as far as an album goes Rhys is a bit more coy: “We'll have to wait and see, it does seem however that songs being written now would feature on a debut album of some sort.”

EXCLUSIVE MP3: Tripwires - 'In Times of Trouble'
 

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Tripwires: Official Site / MySpace

Tourdates:

12 Sep 2008 - Club Fandango @ The Wilmington Arms, London
13 Sep 2008 - Moles Club, Bath
18 Sep 2008 - The Light Lounge, Basingstoke
19 Sep 2008 - The Jericho Tavern, Oxford
20 Sep 2008 - Klub Kute @ The Cooler, Bristol
27 Sep 2008 - Lennons, Southampton
23 Oct 2008 - The Old Ale House, Salisbury (w/ Kill Cassidy & Sion)
24 Oct 2008 - The Louisiana, Bristol (w/ Kill Cassidy & Sion)
25 Oct 2008 - The George, Andover (w/ Kill Cassidy & Sion)
26 Oct 2008 - Horseshoe, Downend (w/ Kill Cassidy & Sion)
13 Dec 2008 - Club Velocity @ Plug N Play, Reading

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