Crowds tripping and falling over TT rock band

THE local rock landscape consists of many talented hard-rock bands with a heavy male, post- teen following. Recently there has arisen a band which has brought a new flavour and consequent fan base to the local rock mix with . The band is “Tripped and Falling.” The band hails from West Trinidad and consists of four young like-minded, “self-taught musicians with no formal training.” Regarding the coming together of the band, 20-year-old lead vocalist Chad Affonso explained, “Myself and Barry (Bibby, guitarist) met at primary school but didn’t really lime with each other until we were about ten. Since then we’re inseparable. We started off officially in 2000, we knew Chad (Mouttet, bassist) from his days with Incert Coin and ‘Otto’ (Jonathon Otway, drummer) was a friend of a friend who fitted well into the band.”

In June 2002, the band entered the studio to record their first self-titled five-track demo EP, but they surpassed the bounds of their original rock fan base with the release of their first acoustic track entitled “In Tears and Bad Endings,” in November last year. According to 29-year-old Mouttet, “We get e-mails from places like Australia and Canada telling us that they downloaded the song from thebandfield.com and really like it.” “In Tears and Bad Endings” was at the number one position on Radio 95.1’s “Top Five at Five” countdown for over a month and also the number one position on Hott 93’s top three in the mornings for three weeks. The Circle of Rock VII concert, held earlier this year, was the site of an almost incomprehensible phenomenon. The band began playing a heavy punk-rock version of “In Tears and Bad Endings” to which the crowd began ferociously jumping into each other and “banging” their heads in “mosh-pit” fashion. The band then switched to the acoustic version. The crowd that was just seconds before consumed by their own chaos began to peacefully sing along verbatim while slowly waving their lighters in the air.

“I’m just amazed when that happens. I freak out every time. It’s so amazing to have the crowd singing back to you. That song opened a lot of doors for us. We try our best to be accessible to our, well they aren’t even fans but friends to me, we join with the crowd, we call everyone to sing even up on stage with us, it’s nice to see everyone unite like that,” said the zealous Bibby. Affonso says, “I question it every time, it doesn’t happen all the time but when it does I’m blown away. We tend to get people to come out. I think that when the audience sees that you’re giving 100 percent they give the same back to you, it’s like one of the best feelings in the world though.” The customarily pensive and businesslike Mouttet added, “We are high-energy with driving riffs, when in a band it’s not just about playing but you have to live the music, it’s about the love, the passion. The music reflects who we are. The relatively large fan base is also a testament to the impact of radio and we have to thank the radio stations who play our music.”

“The band is extremely young and as a result has a nice young female following. The good thing is that we aren’t pigeonholed into one genre, the guys are open-minded and talented enough to play different types of music within the rock genre. They are capable of playing these different types and creating great songs out of each of them,” said the former manager who vacillates between referring to the band in the first and third person as he still takes a lot of the managerial responsibility.

Among the band’s goals cited by Mouttet were to be the, “biggest, most popular band in the nation and head into the international market. We would like to tour worldwide. This is not about the dollars or the chicks. We’re just looking to see how far we could go as a band. The plan is to be a household name. One day we want everyone in TT to have heard our music and like at least one of our songs.” In the land of kaiso, how have these musicians landed on the rock scene? Bibby and Affonso in particular have lived lives deeply entrenched in the Trini-rock sub-culture. “We were both influenced by rock music. To be honest I was never really in to a lot of the local music like calypso. I simply liked rock and it was a fun way for me and Chad to express ourselves,” explained Bibby.

Affonso added, “We just grew up listening to lots of rock music.I always had a universal taste but I liked skating and the music was fast-paced and went along with the sport that I was into.” Among their influences the two pointed out the foreign bands “AFI,” “Our Lady Peace,” “Pearl Jam” and “Pennywise” as most significant. Mouttet referred to rock as, “a definite bastard child of Trinidad and Tobago culture,” making reference to its North American roots. “Regardless of this, rock in TT has no season. You’d see soca die down after Carnival and these artistes are forced to seek a market outside of the country. The same can be said for the parang. However, there is a demand for rock in TT all year round. We just take the rock culture and decide how we morph it to suit our situation.

“Before we’re worthy of a record deal and the recognition that comes with it we have certain responsibilities, certain steps we must take first. It goes far beyond having a list of songs on your own CD. Some of these are the perfection of our stage show, a repertoire of songs that cover all genres recorded at the highest quality, owning all our own equipment and keeping our fans happy along every step of the way and our new CD is a step towards this like a breath of fresh air for the fans,” Mouttet said. The launched their new CD End is Now on Friday at the Circle of Rock VII at the Chaconia Inn.