I am not what you'd call a god fearing man, but I do believe in powers we cannot see shaping our lives. Call it fate or God or the boogeyman if you want but I've seen enough to know that some things are going to eventuate even if you fight against them.
The Temper Trap is one of those things I tried to stop. I tried hard. I palmed it off but it came back, tapping at my window, whispering in my ear, so eventually I caved in and hung my hat on the winds of fortune.
One night in a bar in Melbourne I found Dougy, born of Indonesian decent and bearing the trans-atlantic accent of a kid who grew up all over he world, but this isnt some fairytale connection story. He was looking to start a band and thought I looked like a muso. But I wasnt interested in joining another band, so I palmed him off to a friend and thought I was done with it. But you cant fight fate, and I kept running into Dougy around the city, he continued to ask me "Hey, do you want to start a band?". I guess I ran out of excuses and eventually found myself behind a borrowed set of drums, listening wide eyed, mesmorised by the sound coming from Dougy's stereo, the sound of Dougy's voice blowing like the QE2 on full steam heading into port. I was struck immediately by the power hidden in those songs and knew that I had to be a part of it.
Jonny enters stage left about now. A jovial young idealistic kid with more dyslexic dreams than Marvin Gaye. He'd been friends with Dougy for years and was drafted in when someone didn't show. He'd never played the bass before and tried to strangle himself with the strap pulled tight, but he made up for any lack of practice with a raw energy that filled the room. From here we chewed through a couple of guitarists, before finding ourselves with Lorenzo, an old friend of mine who'd played in half the shitty garage bands I ever started, and in keeping with the theme of our story, the very person I'd palmed Dougie off to in the first place.
It's been years of smiles and tears that's left The Temper Trap on the brink of something...
A band whose connection with forces out of our control shimmers through every wall of melody, burns through every feedback loop and seeps out of every aching pore in the intense and provocative body of sound we create. I guess we're pushing for something beautiful, something we've felt in the music of Leonard Cohen or The Mars Volta or Echo And The Bunnymen. And so we stand, feet on the edge, head in the clouds, ready to take the leap of faith into the unknown...
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We’ve come some of the way though the journey, and there have been some special moments along the way, hearing our first single ‘My Sun’ for the first time on the radio, releasing our EP, playing our first headline show. Lately we’ve been writing like crazy and working on ideas for an album. Our sound’s grown a bit wider and this last year feels like it’s been building to something important.We’re really excited about the new songs. ‘Science of Fear’ has an intensity hidden among the beeps and bleeps. ‘Downriver’ is weird in a way that will get stuck in your head. And a track we’ve been calling ‘The Clapping Song’ fills the room every time Dougy breaks into the vocals. We hope you’re excited too. Thanks for all your support, coming to our shows, buying the EP, requesting us on the radio, it means the world to us. So here we are, October 07 and we all find ourselves one more step along the path to something special. Something we’ve dreamed about all our lives.
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In our short lives, The Temper Trap have shared stages with internationals, Modest Mouse, Kasabian, Cold War Kids, Damo Suzuki, Omar Rodriguez (Mars Volta), The Dears and Spank Rock as well as performing at the inaugural V Festival, The Great Escape Festival and the 2007 Laneway Festival.MY SUN
SIRENS