The Temper Trap

One night in a bar in Melbourne I found Dougy, born of Indonesian decent and bearing the trans-atlantic accent of a kid who grew up all over he world, but this isnt some fairytale connection story. He was looking to start a band and thought I looked like a muso. But I wasnt interested in joining another band, so I palmed him off to a friend and thought I was done with it. But you cant fight fate, and I kept running into Dougy around the city, he continued to ask me "Hey, do you want to start a band?". I guess I ran out of excuses and eventually found myself behind a borrowed set of drums, listening wide eyed, mesmorised by the sound coming from Dougy's stereo, the sound of Dougy's voice blowing like the QE2 on full steam heading into port. I was struck immediately by the power hidden in those songs and knew that I had to be a part of it.

Jonny enters stage left about now. A jovial young idealistic kid with more dyslexic dreams than Marvin Gaye. He'd been friends with Dougy for years and was drafted in when someone didn't show. He'd never played the bass before and tried to strangle himself with the strap pulled tight, but he made up for any lack of practice with a raw energy that filled the room. From here we chewed through a couple of guitarists, before finding ourselves with Lorenzo, an old friend of mine who'd played in half the shitty garage bands I ever started, and in keeping with the theme of our story, the very person I'd palmed Dougie off to in the first place.

It's been years of smiles and tears that's left The Temper Trap on the brink of something...
A band whose connection with forces out of our control shimmers through every wall of melody, burns through every feedback loop and seeps out of every aching pore in the intense and provocative body of sound we create. I guess we're pushing for something beautiful, something we've felt in the music of Leonard Cohen or The Mars Volta or Echo And The Bunnymen. And so we stand, feet on the edge, head in the clouds, ready to take the leap of faith into the unknown.

If you ask around, our standout tracks are usually pretty diverse. I like My Sun, it races out of the blocks, all crash and bash, while others point out Peter Parker's Alter Ego's pop sensibility, shrouded in a dark veil of melancholy. Another popular one, Sirens is an anthem that builds and builds.

In our short lives, The Temper Trap have shared stages with internationals, Damo Suzuki (CAN) and Omar Rodriguez (Mars Volta), Modest Mouse, The Dears, and Spank Rock as well as being the only unsigned act invited to play both the Melbourne and Sydney Laneway Festivals.