Meet Truth & Tragedy, a 5-piece post-hardcore band from Bamberg, Germany. Their music is raw, heavy and emotional. The band love experimenting with other alternative genres like pop-punk, hardrock and metalcore.
We chat to the band about what makes them tick!
Tell us a little bit about your new album or single.
We’ve just released our EP ‘Blood on Blood’ - it’s a return to our roots, where we explore
the duality of family love, and explore both the happiest and the most tragic experiences
in our family lives.
What inspired the album or single?
We love taking a theme and exploring both the light and the dark within our music, which
is what we’ve done in our EP ‘Blood on Blood’. Our first track, ‘Artery’, is a moody
instrumental which sets the tone of the EP. Our second track, ‘My Brother’s Keeper’, is a
raw, hard-hitting message to a brother after his attempted suicide, and looks at the
hardships families can endure. Our last song, ‘Neo’, is a total contrast, and is a loving
tribute celebrating guitarist Freddy’s new-born son, who actually had his first birthday on
our EP release day!
Can you sum up the album in a few words?
‘Blood on Blood’ explores the darkest and happiest aspects of family love.
What record changed your life and how?
That’s a tough one, because it’s different for all of us! One record we can all agree on
though is Nickelback’s ‘Rockstar’. It’s a perfect song by a perfect band and anyone who
disagrees is lying to themselves.
Do you have a favourite music video filmed by you?
When it comes to our music videos, we definitely love our latest video for ‘My Brother’s
Keeper’! We filmed it at this awesome old mausoleum lost in the woods, using a drone
and some smoke-bombs. Actually those smoke-bombs were pretty brutal, you should
see some of the outtakes! Domi could barely breathe at the back on drums, and Aaron
was so blinded at one point he nearly stacked it down the steps. If you watch closely,
we’re pretty sure you can see us all crying ‘cause of the smoke. We also had some
09.06.2022 Truth & Tragedy Press flares we were going to try out, but they were even more savage - we lit one and it practically took Aaron’s hand off! We finally put it out in the nearby pond and didn’t touch
the rest of the box. We keep them in our practice room now waiting for a revolution.
What would we find you doing when you’re not making music?
When we’re not making music we’re painfully boring people - Freddy is changing
diapers, Kai is finishing his BA thesis, Vitali is learning mandarin for when he takes over
the world, Domi is welding, and Aaron is drinking whisky on his porch like the retired
veteran he is.
Do you get nervous performing live, if so how do you deal with it?
It’s good to get a little nervous before a show! And we all definitely do. Domi gets
probably the most nervous, so we asked him. He says he doesn’t deal with it, but by the
time he’s backstage it’s too late to run.
How did you form the band?
Aaron and Freddy actually started Truth & Tragedy as a side project at the start of Covid
lockdowns back in September 2020. The two of us were in a previous band together, but
lockdown meant we couldn’t meet up to practice anymore, so we started T&T as a duo
to get around restrictions! But suddenly it started gaining momentum, and after releasing
an EP, a single and a debut album, the world started opening up again for live shows! So
in 2021 we were joined by Kai, Vitai and Domi, and that makes us the 5-piece we are
today!
How do you write?
For most of our tracks, Freddy writes the music, the band records the instruments, and
then we send the soundtrack to Aaron to write and record his lyrics. We have a bit of an
unusual set-up, because Aaron actually lives in the UK at the moment, so we have a bit
of a long-distance band between UK and Germany when it comes to writing and
recording! Kai has also written some great tracks for Truth & Tragedy, including ‘Artery’
on our latest EP, as well as another track which will be featured on our next EP! But we
are always chatting about ideas as a whole band, and have a very open creative
process when it comes to writing our music. Basically if one of us has an idea, the band
makes it work!
What inspires you?
As cheesy as it sounds, we write from the heart - so our lyrics usually deal with personal
experiences or other issues we feel really strongly about. A lot of our songs deal with
09.06.2022 Truth & Tragedy Press themes like trauma, substance abuse and PTSD, stemming from our singer Aaron’s experiences serving in the US Army in Afghanistan, so we tackle some pretty serious
issues sometimes! We are also pretty experimental in our musicality and love taking
other alternative genres as inspiration for our music and putting our own T&T spin on
them. For example, our track ‘Burn The Witch’ was our first go at pop-punk, and we had
so much fun doing it that we’re currently writing another pop-punk number, which will be
set to release in a few months!
What is next?
2022 is a pretty packed year for us actually! We have another single and an EP planned
for release over the next few months, plus more releases and music videos in the
pipeline. We also have a whole host of live shows planned, including headlining Wacken
Foundation’s Rock Das Ding festival in July, as well as our first international tour in
September and October, where we’ll be playing shows across Germany, Austria, Czech
Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Croatia. We’re already looking ahead to 2023, where
we’ll have shows in Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as our first UK Tour! Keep an
eye on our socials for more show announcements, and come join us in a city near you!
We’d love to hang out!
Please tell us any social media links.
You can find our music in all the usual spots, or you can head directly to
truthandtragedy.com for all our music, videos, live dates and merch! Reach out to us on
social media on the links below - we’d love to hear from you! And as always, thanks for
the support.
Much love,
T&T
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth_and_tragedy/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/truth-tragedy-hc
Website: https://truthandtragedy.com
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