Trans Am

Interviewed march 1997 at Patronaat in Haarlem

Did you run into trouble with the name? Phil: 'Oh, Pontiac didn't mind as long as we didn't use the same logo and didn't start building cars.' Trans Am are the most popular spacerockers at the moment, on their first selftitled mini album their repertoire mostly consisted of either bombastic or cheesy guitarplaying intertwined with many bad bad solos. On the new record "Surrender to the light" Trans Am has fooled friend and foe with a few mindblowing experimental tracks which at times sound like easy listening techno and other times don't.

Trans Am are from Washington DC, but they sound like they have their heart close to Chicago. The Tortoise comparison is inevitable, especially since John McEntire has engineered the last album. Phil: 'There is something people call a "scene" in Chicago, but we have decided to stay in Washington, because that's where we all came from. It's better to keep some distance, so we can concentrate on our own direction. In DC we have nothing to do with any of the local bands and that's why we attract more attention. In Chicago we would be one of the many.' But even from a less geographic standpoint, Trans Am do get dumped onto the same pile as the bands from Chicago, the "post-rock" pile. Phil: 'Oh that's such a useless term. The only comparison you can make between us and Tortoise or UI is that we make music without any lyrics. You should dump us on the "instrumental music" pile. We used to have singer, but we soon ran into a huge argument. The strange thing is, he started to make instrumental music also.' Music is considered to be one of the most direct ways of expressing emotion. Is that a reason why Trans Am doesn't bother to write any lyrics. Phil: 'Well, it's more because none of us can sing, but agreed we can express ourselves better without the lyrics.' How do you keep music without lyrics interesting over a certain period? Phil: 'I think many bands use lyrics to keep the music interesting. I know it is quite a challenge, but you can use many tricks. For instance by repeating a lot or keeping things simple on purpose and try to force that. That way the lack of lyrics make the music more interesting.' Trans Am is one of the first American rockbands who use structures also found in Techno and Drum'n'Bass explicitly in their music. Phil: 'It ain't important what kind of instruments you use, but how you structure the music. Techno and rock aren't that far apart. For instance you could find parallels to what we do and what Panasonic do, although they are much more extreme. American rockbands still play electronic music within the boundaries of rock. We're just guitarbands fooling around with other instruments. The sound Trans Am is making now originated only a few years ago, because we didn't know what music to make. A standard case of writersblock, but there was a Casio in the rehearsing room and just like that we wrote ten new songs on that thing. After that every time we got another writersblock we added an electronic instrument.' The electronic instruments have now outnumbered the rock instruments and their studio has become a true paradise for the techno musician. Phil: 'At the moment we have too much, we should get rid of something soon.' And what will you sell first? Phil: 'Er... Probably the amps. Electronic instruments can be plugged into the PA directly, so why bother using amps and microphones?'