The Trews

The Trews With four albums in seven years, two of them gold; 10 Top-10 singles, two of them No.1 and one gold; multiple awards, for best single, video and live group; and close to 800 live shows under its belt, including support slots for the Rolling Stones, Robert Plant, Guns N’ Roses, Nickelback and KISS, The Trews never rests. BBM didn’t help as we caught up with the band during their visit to Sydney.

The Trews Was music the only path you ever saw yourselves taking?
Colin: Yeah I mean it is the path we hoped to take. It is like anyone else when you are young and you have a guitar and you are playing in bars and you want to be able to do it for a living, it is just that we have been fortunate enough to be able to do that.

I saw that you guys got your big break by winning a rock contest… How does that compare to say the Idol shows?
John: It is nothing like them. It is just run by the station in the town that we lived and they just look for the best local bands and they give some recording time to the band that wins. I think the Idol shows are terrible. This was more organic and gives something back to the town and local musicians. So we got a push from them, but unless you are willing to follow that push up with all your might, those pushes don’t really mean much. It takes a lot more than just winning a contest to make a career.

Who has been your biggest support through the years?
John: Our manager Larry!

What has been one of the biggest career highlights for you guys so far?
Sean: Surfing… We are all officially Australian surfers now! We took lessons at Cronulla!

Colin: It was all of us and a whole bunch of eight year-olds… and boy did we make them look bad!

John: We did a show in 2006 in a club in Pheonix, Toronto. It only holds about 1000 people and it was us and The Rolling Stones. That was probably one of the coolest gigs we have ever been a part of.

So you have opened for quite a few big acts… Was The Rolling Stones the most memorable?
John: You know that stuff is really cool but really the most gratifying thing is headlining for your own fans. You know playing for a thousand people who all know your own songs. Those are the true highlights.

What can we expect to hear from your debut Australian album?
Colin: It is two albums. One is a live acoustic album we recorded last year. It is a collection of songs we had in previous albums that we stripped down and did acoustically. The other side is a bunch of stuff we have done over the last 10 years that we put together just to start off down here. It is good rock and roll. Bare bones. No little red keyboards.

Little Red Key Boards?
Colin: Every band these days has little ironic keyboards.

Sean: No irony in this band.

Colin: Were not really an ironic bunch.