Interview With Trank

Interview With Trank

Tell us about your latest release

TRANK’s latest release is “The Maze” – the band’s second album and follow-up to 2020’s critically-acclaimed “The Ropes” (which in its 2012 “Deluxe” edition had been named album of the month by Powerplay UK, Powerplay Italy and Rock Hard France).

“The Maze” was released in digital form in October 2024, and, like its predecessor, is getting unanimously rave reviews – which we hope and expect will continue after the release of its vinyl version, on May 1 st , 2025. Two songs have been extracted as singles, “Twenty First Century Slave” and “Queen of the Broken” – both available on YouTube with videos shot by the band’s visual director, Alban Verneret.

What was the recording process like? Was it in a studio or do you do it all

yourselves?

Well – we love the studio, almost as much as we love the stage. But we

approach it differently from most of the bands we know, in the sense that we do

spend a lot of time finetuning the songs into a fully final state before we start

recording them : so there’s no faffing about or “experimenting”’ once you get to

the studio, which in most cases is French for “wasting time”. The sessions tend to

be very focused as a result of that – but the vibe is really good. It’s never a case

of “each of us does slaves away at his thing until it’s all done and no one else

cares,” in fact we love to be there when one of us does his thing, so the

atmosphere is as friendly and supportive as it needs to be for each of us to be on

top of their game. Also, Yvan (Barone), our recording engineer, is a long time

friend and he knows how to make us feel comfortable while we’re at it.

As to whether we did in professional studios or ourselves – it was actually both.

We’re old school in the sense that we like the grain of analogue gear, so even the

home studio tracks (the guitars, bass, synths and loops) were re-amped at Yvan’s

studio and put through his vintage recording console; and we also use live drums,

which have to be tracked in a dedicated place – but it’s worth the effort, because

that’s how you get the best out of your drummer if you have a really good one,

which we do. For the first album we went to Studio des Forces Motrices, in Geneva

next door – where bands like Young Gods or Treponem Pal have made some of

their best stuff; for “The Maze” we went to Ella Recording Studios, on the French

side of the Geneva area – the console there is the biggest and newest 64-track

SSL you’ve ever dreamt of, it’s a museum piece. Yvan piloted the sessions with the

help of Serge, the owner, who also happens to be a big bear of a man and gave us

the best welcome.

How do you guys write the songs?

Painfully. But what’s a little unique about our process is we try to balance the

sort of strength in ideas that can only happen if ONE person comes up with the

core idea – with a collaborative process of how to develop it into a full song.

Usually Julien (who has parted ways with us since before the album was finished,

but we’re still very good friends and four of the songs on the album started with

him) or David will come up with a melodic backbone played on guitar (typically a

main riff and two or three variations or chord progressions). I’ll take that and

structure it with Johann, our drummer – he helps a lot with finding the dynamics of a song, because he can create drum patterns that are either really textured and

low key OR very powerful, depending on what each section wants; and I might

add this or that element of melody, typically a bridge or a key change, to give the

songs more light and shade; we love the notion of each song and each album

being a self-contained trip, rather than a simple monolith with a flat ECG. We’ll

record our parts at home and share files as the thing builds up, then put it in the

practice room until we have a bass / drums / guitars skeleton that works. I’ll then

take it away, let it simmer and add the electronics for added color and

atmosphere. More practice, more simmering, and then one day the song’s melody

and atmosphere will dictate the general theme and the first line of the lyrics and

vocals – and the rest of the vocal writes itself around that first line. The music

guides everything.

What were your main influences while writing?

The huge fail between how we think the world should be and feel and make you

feel, and how it really is. Also, the music of artists who are an inspiration to us.

We’ve all got extremely eclectic tastes and our musical centres of gravity are wildly

different from one another, but our tastes meet around bands and artists that do

the best job of sounding like we aspire to : epic AND intimate, intense AND

contagious, powerful AND layered, authentic AND cinematic. In music as in life, it’s

always the contrasts that feel the most interesting. We find that in the sounds of

Depeche Mode, Radiohead, Massive Attack, SoundGarden, Queens of the Stone

Age, Nine Inch Nails, Porcupine Tree, there’s too many to name. But they all take

fairly dark subject matters and transcend them into songs that feel truly cathartic.

Pretty much also what we try to achieve.

What is your favourite song on the new release and why?

You’re really going to ask us to choose between our kids, are you. I can’t say we

have a “favorite” – I can tell you that “Queen of the Broken” is the closest we’ve

come to a pop song within our world, so we have a special affection for it; and

“Miracle Cure” is probably the most sonically ambitious thing we’ve done – it

stretches out from electro-pro to a rap segment of sorts, with very intimate-

sounding verses, a towering solo and a big rousing chorus. All that in the same

song. It’s also my favorite one to sing on stage, because of the range of emotions

and intentions in it.

How did you come up with the name of the release?

We realized, about four or five songs into the writing, that there was a common

theme to them. The same thing happened on “The Ropes”, and then the theme

was “the ties that bind us whether we know it, want it, love it, or not.” The theme

for “The Maze” is how difficult it is to find and preserve your own sense of identity

in today’s world. Which is strange, because “identity” is the most ubiquitous word

in contemporary politics, but I actually think it poisons everything. You get

constant injunctions to define or assert yourself on the basis of who and what you

ARE, not what you DO, what you MAKE, what you THINK, what you accomplish or

create. I find that dangerous on all sorts of levels, but also I find that, paradoxically, the constant quest for identity has so many people lose themselves.

“The Maze” is that place – whether it’s the complexities of life, relationships or

your own brain, it’s where you seek, and hopefully find, yourself. (That was so

deep, wasn’t it – I think I might need air.)

How did the band get together?

TRANK is a passion project, which started with myself (Michel) and Julien getting

together because he needed a vocalist and lyricist for the music he was

composing in his spare time – and I was in a local cover band that did really well,

but didn’t really want to get into own songwriting, which I aspired to. From the

first session together it was obvious something special was happening, so I called

Johann (drums) who had been a friend for a while and I knew was an exceptional

drummer looking for a serious project to get involved in. About a year later and

after a few bass players came and went, David showed up and something really

clicked, in the music and the spirit of the group. That’s when TRANK really came

into existence.

We remained a four-piece until last year, when all sorts of changes happened.

Julien had too much going on in his private life to go on with the band, David

wanted to go back from the bass to the guitar which was his first love; the songs

we were working on called not only for a bass player with tons of groove, but also

another guitar player to do them justice on stage. So we ended up recruiting, not

on ly a new bass player, but also a second guitarist. Arnaud has played the bass in

a million bands and he’s a very technical musician – but he gets exactly what

we’re after and he’s blended in seamlessly. Nico on the guitar is a long time friend,

and he's so good that David and him swap rhythm and lead depending on the

song, in a very fluid manner. Last but not least, our manager, Emma, plays the live

keyboards and sequences and does backing vocals as well. So there’s 6 of us ono

stage now – the logistics are complicated but it’s worth it for the huge sound and

the friendship . We pretty much made “The Maze” as a three-piece of David,

Johann and myself – it’ll be interesting to go back to the studio as a six-headed

gang and see what happens.

How did you come up with the name for the band?

I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you to save ourselves from the

embarrassment of reading the story out there.

Have you got any gigs or a tour coming up where people can hear the songs

live?

Yes – you can find out about those either on the band’s website or FB / Instagram; you can also pester your favorite venue

until they book us.

What are your plans for the next few months?

Play the brains off the audiences of our next gigs, add new songs from the studio

catalogue to the live set, start to work on the third album, have fun. Whenever we

get more ambitious, bad things happen. So we’ll just take it one song at a time.