Benny Trokan - Spoon Interview
Born and raised in New York City, Trokan’s influence and passion for music grew from his mother’s impeccable record collection that featured the likes of The Stones, The Beatles, Sam and Dave and many more greats from the 1960’s. He quickly became infatuated with the drums at an early inspired, inspired by the great Ringo Starr and began wailing on hit kit in his family apartment. Trokan would soon go off to college where his musical horizons expanded when he saw some of the most defining groups of his generation, Fugazi, A Tribe Called Quest and Jesus and the Mary Chain. As the years went by, Trokan participated in groups such as Boy Morgan, The Jay Vons and even played with Marky Ramone. Having met Jim Eno, drummer for Spoon, some 20 years ago, it all came full circle when he was asked to become a full time member as their new bassist in the Summer of 2019 and the rest is history! In this interview we explore his youth growing up in NYC, his obsession with The Beatles, his participation in bands before joining Spoon and more recently his solo album, “Hey Lovers”, on Wick Records.
Tell me about growing up in New York City. What was your childhood like growing up? When did you first begin to fall in love with music and what was it that initially fascinated you about it, more specifically the guitar and drums? Was music relevant around your household growing up?
We lived on 14th Street and 7th Avenue, kind of right on the edge of Greenwich Village. I grew up listening to my mom’s record collection - Beatles, Stones, Sam & Dave, Dionne Warwick, pretty classic 60s stuff. I didn’t listen to the radio much except for Met’s games. I started playing drums when I was fairly young, I remember getting a toy kit that was the same grey oyster shell as Ringo’s before moving up to a real hi-hat and snare set up - I still can’t believe they let me wail on that in our 2-bedroom apartment. I took a few lessons from this heavy metal dude down the street who lived in a studio apartment alone with his double-bass drum kit. He lived closer to the meatpacking district which was sketchy as hell back then so I mostly remember running home afterwards.
Do you have any siblings? What would you and your friends do for fun growing up? When and where did you see your first concert that really made an impact on you in your formative years? Who were some of your earliest influences?
Yep, I have a younger sister. Our family moved outside of Poughkeepsie just before middle school so it was a bit of culture shock for the two of us to be in the sticks all of a sudden. But growing up there meant basements to jam in with friends. I started teaching myself guitar and playing drums in bands in high school. My first concert was Cheap Trick in 6th or 7th grade, I still have a Rick Nielson pick from that show somewhere. Poughkeepsie had some ok venues and thanks to Vassar College being there I was able to see some decent shows growing up - Fugazi, A Tribe Called Quest, Jesus and Mary Chain, but mostly it was bad hardcore, funk or ska bands, or an abysmal combo of all three. I’d mostly do the 90 minute ride to the city to see concerts pretty regularly. In 10th grade I saw Guided By Voices at Tramps for their “Bee Thousand” record release on Matador and it blew my little mind.
Prior to Spoon you participated in groups such as Reigning Sound, Robbers On High Street Boy Morgan and The Jay Vons. Would you mind telling a little back history to some of the outfits and how they came to be? Is it true you played with Marky Ramone when you were just in high school?
Robbers was a band I started with some friends from high school in the early aughts. That was the first time I was fronting a band, singing songs I wrote and playing guitar and keys. We made records and toured around the US in one form or another for about 10 years. Out of that same circle of friends I joined Boy Morgan on drums and The Jay Vons on bass. Jay Vons was the first band that I would say I started being a bass player, not just recording it for demos and things. Already being a drummer and guitar player it was a good fit, it’s kinda the best of both worlds for me anyway. Jay Vons got absorbed into the Reigning Sound line-up, backing up Greg Cartwright starting in 2011. We put out a couple records on Merge and toured a bit over the next decade but our involvement kinda fizzled out over the pandemic. I have to say, in terms of bass playing, starting to play with Lee Fields in 2012, and then filling in with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings made me have to up my game on bass pretty quickly. Just the stage energy alone was new to me. It was definitely trial by fire but in the greatest way. And oh yeah, I did play with Marky and Dee Dee, the year between high school and college so I was like 18/19? Those guys are freaks!
You joined in the summer of 2019 as the new bass player, correct? How did you initially meet the other guys and what were your first impressions of everyone? What were those initial jam/rehearsal sessions like as you were being brought in? Shortly after you joined you guys played with Beck and Cage The Elephant. What was that experience like for you right out the gate?
I met Jim Eno probably 20 years ago through mutual friends in NY and we’d stayed in touch and would hang here and there in NY, or Austin, catch each others shows, Boy Morgan went down to record with him at Public Hi-Fi at some point. Around 2017 I was playing this festival with Charles Bradley that Spoon were headlining. I honestly hadn’t seen them play in years so when I caught their show I was like damn these dudes leveled up! Where was I? Then the following year Britt did a benefit in NY and some of Charles’s band were backing him up and that was the first time I hung with him. I first jammed with them in Austin in the spring of 2019 and we all got on pretty much immediately. By now it feels like I’ve known them all longer than I actually have. It was a lot going from zero to that Beck/Cage tour. I’d never been on tour with dozens of buses and tractor trailers, it was like a touring mini-festival, it was nuts. And I’d never heard of Cage before but those dudes had pyro! I was like what is this?! I usually prefer touring venues in cities and on a tour like that one you’re waking up in an Amphitheater parking lot somewhere miles from town, but we had some really fun times that summer and I made friends with lots of quality people. Also I got to play “Pump it Up” on bass with Beck!
After the pandemic you guys wasted no time getting into the studio and making up for lost time! Tell me about writing and recording the band's highly anticipated 2022 release of “Lucifer On The Sofa”. What was the overall vision for writing and approaching this record? Would you mind walking me through the process of writing songs such as “My Babe”, “Lucifer On The Sofa”, and “The Hardest Cut”?
By the time I came into the fold in 2019 they had a bunch of songs almost finished, My Babe was one of them. There were some others I added bass to and then the pandemic happened. In fact I think the last time I traveled before things shut down was coming back from one of those sessions at Jim’s studio in February of 2020. Over the following months, years - it felt like forever - Britt wrote new tunes. “Lucifer on the Sofa” was one of those and we worked on it remotely, sending parts back and forth and then sending to Dave Fridmann who produced the track. Once we could reconvene again it seemed important for all of us to be playing in a room together. That’s kinda how “The Hardest Cut” came about. They had been working on different versions of it for a while but the main riff and feel didn’t happen until then.
The band released their immediate follow, “Lucifer On The Moon”, that same year. With this being a bit of a concept approach, can you tell me about writing and recording this album and how you guys wanted to approach this project? What have you guys got in the works as 2023 continues to roll out nearing Spring/Summer?
The “Lucifer on the Moon” LP are dub mixes of all the songs on the album done by Adrian Sherwood. I’m not gonna lie I had to google the man, but if you’re into UK Dub from the 80s dude is a heavy. As for the rest of the year we’ve got shows here and there until the summer when we’re doing a big European tour, most of which is with the Black Keys. There’s talk of putting out a digital EP at some point of a couple tunes from the Lucifer sessions that didn’t make the record.
I understand you just recently released a solo project entitled “Hey Lovers”. Can you tell me about writing and recording this album and how you approached this project? How did the deal with Wick Records come about? 2022 was a huge year for you!
Thanks man, yeah a lot happened! I started recording a couple tunes under my own name in 2017 and put it out the following year as a 45 on Wick Records, the rock’n roll subsidiary of Daptone which is where we recorded it. It seemed to get a good response, so I went out to Penrose Studios in California and recorded an albums worth of songs with Gabe Roth and Wayne Gordon. I put out a couple more 45s on Wick over the years and then they compiled them all for the digital EP “Hey Lovers.” We’re working to have another digital single out this fall and a proper full-length release next year.
Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
Check out my man Lee Field’s new record “Sentimental Fool” and go see him live, he is the real deal. Let’s Go Mets!
