The Trucks
By Connie Hwong
Photo by Gunther Jose Frank

Is Bellingham the new Olympia? Perhaps best known as the birthplace of Death Cab for Cutie (and, to a lesser degree, as the hometown of The Posies and Idiot Pilot), the northern Washington city might soon give its southern sister a run for her money with its newest ingénues, The Trucks. A raunchy-fun rollick through Peaches and Bloodhound Gang territory, their self-titled debut LP, released on Clickpop Records, also features lo-fi keyboard elements of early Le Tigre and Sleater-Kinney. Not bad for a quartet hastily assembled in response to an ill conceived, male-centric music festival planned at the local Western Washington University.

“We wound up having this show before all of our songs were written,” recalls lead singer Marissa Moore from her new apartment at the top of Seattle’s Capitol Hill district. “[Western Washington University’s] women’s center noticed that for a whole weekend of shows, there were like one or two groups with girls — and 50 guys. ... We had to hurry up and gather.” The Trucks’ official D.O.B. was 2003, but the band’s members all knew each other from Bellingham’s post-college scene. “Other than the music we make, we don’t agree on a whole lot,” explains Moore. “Everyone in the band comes from a different background ... Everyone brings something totally different to the table.” While Moore herself is from a performance art and experimental background, lead vocalist/guitarist Kristin Allen-Zito hails from folk-heavy singer/songwriter origins, bassist Faith Reichel claims punk rock roots, and drummer Lindy McIntyre’s interests lie in the underground scene. Despite (or perhaps because of) these great differences, Moore says, “We’re all more creative and artistically productive together than on our own; we all just have really good artistic chemistry.”

The group’s diversity in musical predilections is heavily reflected in its music, which ricochets from the explosively dirty electro-punk “3 AM” to the sweetly doo-wop-inspired “Diddle-Bot” and back to “Messages,” which blends lo-fi answering machine samples with a pleasant pop ballad. The songwriting and creation process heavily relies on everyone’s cooperation and input. “I’d never been in a band [before], so I didn’t know how unusual it was to be a complete collaboration,” says Moore, noting the collective, improvisational nature of the band’s work. Headed by the energetic Moore, live sets often gain a spontaneous, performance-art-like quality; “We just want people to be having a good time when they see us,” Moore explains.

Three years of playing out on old Casiotone keyboards and fuzzy, low-grade amps is not easy to capture in a studio setting, and early attempts at recording tracks for The Trucks proved to be a challenge. Moore had never been in a studio before and the band struggled to figure out how to capture the energy of its live show in the studio. Though producer Paul Turpin has a background in the polished sound of laptop electronica groups, he understood the sound that Moore and her bandmates wanted, and worked to emphasize and preserve the grittiness in explosively brash songs like “Titties,” while maintaining a slightly eerie xylophone melody and marching band rhythm in “March 1.”

The question of geography reemerges when the influence of the Riot Grrrl movement is mentioned. “I think they’ve helped every girl band, because it helps build an awareness,” says Moore. “We really want to get more involved in Olympia,” she continues, recognizing the significant cultural and musical energy that continues to emanate from Washington’s capitol city. Already favorites of Seattle’s KEXP station, The Trucks also hope to create a wider regional presence, bolstered by a Western U.S. tour slated for March. So far, recent gigs in L.A. and at New York’s CMJ Music Marathon have been well received. “Some bands get sick of their songs when they go on tour, but we haven’t gotten to that point yet,” says Moore, while also mentioning that the band is already working on material for the next album. With four heads’ worth of ideas and inspirations, it seems unlikely that the band or their audience will get sick of hearing their songs anytime soon.

www.thetrucks.net