Page 29 - Black Velvet Issue 89

BV89 pg26,27,28,29 Hands Like Houses_BV89 pg29 28/06/2016 03:05 Page 4

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record’ sort of thing. For me, it’s always been live, the world and the future. We reflect the people is a different story. Like, I am writing
something that I’ve learnt to deal with and way our social narratives, culture and our songs for me, but I know that they are signif-
it’s one of those things that once you go identity shifts are responsive to our place in icant to people and I take a sense of pride
through it, it’s always there. It doesn't ever the world and at the same time we have the but a sense of responsibility and accounta-
disappear from your mind, so stress periods ability to change things for the better but it bility in that too. So I try to be balanced and
kind of bring back stuff that you don't want takes a collective decision to do so which is worldly in the songs that I write. It’s not
to be there.” near impossible. So it becomes a cycle, as about what I want a song to do, it’s about
He also adds that where he finds therapy ‘the sickness, the symptom and the cure’ what people can take out of it, that is more
to reduce his anxiety, “It’s good to be able to and we become resistant to our own cures important for me. And you know that sort of
have that discussion, and say ‘I am currently and it turns into this vicious cycle where justice in it, I would love to see change in a
seeing somebody to help me work through things get worse but they get better in some lot of people but it is very easy for people to
my shit, to be more connected and more en- ways. I hope that somehow we find some have fans coming up to them and the fans
gaged with those people around me’. It’s mean average of being able to improve the say ‘Your music saved my life’ and things
nice to be able to inject my problems and my world in our own state of being, but whether like that. They start to kind of believe in tak-
stuff into my music as a way of therapy for it’ll happen is hard to know.” ing on that messiah complex, that and the
myself, but seeing that reflect in other peo- So, with the knowledge that Trenton has usual fame bullshit, does create a bit of a
ple and the pieces that they pick up on is about the way humanity is causing our way sick relationship which I think is not sustain-
showing that music is a really powerful way of living both harm and improving it at the able or healthy for either party. That would
of telling people that they are not alone in same time, we ask one last question. Is there be the only thing that I see, but, you know,
how they feel. All the most powerful songs anything he would like to change about the it’s a changing industry. It’s always rapidly
of the last 100 years have all been the ones current state of the music industry? shifting and it’s impossible for music not to
that make you feel something.” Trenton replies, “It’s difficult, because in reflect the state of the world because music
‘The sickness and the symptom and the the music industry people can vary so wildly, is expression, and expression is just
cure’ comes from the third single of ‘Disso- naively and ignorantly. In some ways, it’s sourced from people. The most powerful
nants’, ‘Colourblind’. Trenton’s unique take egotistical or it’s genuinely heartfelt and mis- music comes from not being happy with the
on life summarises what as humans we guided, other times it can be entirely pas- status quo, so it’s got to be keep shifting to
should be trying to change. “I have a very sionate and justified. It’s such an odd mix of be what it is.
bipolar attitude towards humanity. In a lot of people, it’s really hard to say what’s good Trenton ends with, “I couldn't say there’s
ways, I think that we are a virus, or a plague and what’s bad about it. I think people take anything right or wrong, but there are little
on the planet. I take publicly my place in a on a lot of self-importance in what they do as things I’d like to see shift and, I guess, get a
collective responsibility for that, like I’m just a musician.” little more genuine appreciation for it.”
another human amongst 6 billion. We are, From his own perspective he says, “As Hands Like Houses are definitely prepared
through overpopulation, if you ask me, by far a singer, I mean, I wrote ‘I Am’ about a couple for whatever obstacle gets thrown at them,
the biggest threat to our own way of life. But people in particular that kind of believe in so you should expect to see them more often
as a species we have our unique ability to their own hype. They mean well but they get in the future!
make the best of something and also make so caught up in the ‘we are here for you’ at- For more info on Hands Like Houses,
the worst of it. The saying with ‘the sickness titude that does become a common thing to visit www.handslikehouses.net
and the symptom and the cure’ is we are so say on stage. Like ‘Fuck that, you’re not.
much a part of what’s wrong with the way we You’re here for yourself’. Whether it benefits Words & Live Photo By Annina Cremona