The John Truscinski Interview

When and where were you born? 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 drums? Was music relevant around your household growing up?

I was born in 1976 in Middletown, Connecticut. My family lived in an old haunted house built in the 1860s at the end of Miner street near an old quarry. My memories are pretty idyllic, just wandering through the woods with my older brother and sister, or other kids from the neighborhood. We were always getting chased, blowing something up, or throwing rocks at each other. There was a lot of freedom and danger in those days, and I did a lot of wandering in the woods alone. My older brother and I shared a room. Some of my earliest memories were of the records he put on like Ozzy, KISS and Sabbath. But we also listened to the radio in the car while it played Karen Carpenter and 70s rock. Then there was catholic church every Sunday, the organ, dark sounding hymns and stained glass images of crucifixions and tortured saints with bubbles around their heads. It felt like there were a lot of ghosts around. My dad and brother played the drums so that was always around too. At a certain point there was a Ludwig blue vista light kit that got passed down to me. Hard to say when I fell in love, or became obsessed with music. It was a gradual thing that grew from the beginning. By the time I hit 12, or 13 I was a quiet kid struggling to find my way. I hated school, but played in the school band and the music teacher converted an old closet into a little drum practice room and let me use it anytime I could get out of class. The drums became a lifeboat, a different way to communicate and connect.

What would you and your friends do for fun growing up? When and where didyou see your first concert that really made an impact on you in your formative years? Who were some of your earliest influences?

I turned 12 in 1988. The music that was around me was a lot of 80s metal like Motley Crue and Guns n’ Roses, shit like that. I got deep into Metallica and got to see them at the New Haven Coliseum around 89 or so. My first year of high school was 1990. My science lab partner ended up being a lifelong friend who first introduced me to punk and hardcore. He let me borrow some cassettes, Minor Threat, Fugazi and Operation Ivy I think. I went to my first punk show at a community center filled with at least 300 skinheads who all had the same sneakers and clothes, beating the shit out of each other. The band was called Mindwar, which was a local hardcore band around in those days. I was terrified, but felt the excitement of my first encounter with underground DIY music. I was all in at that point. There was a great local college station at Weslyan U. in Middletown. I got into a lot of music from the DJs at WESU 88.1. I remember one show where they would play whole records and I’d drive around just listening. One day I called him up and asked “what the fuck is this record??” And a scratchy soft voice answered… “Circus Lupus… Dischord Records…” I got heavy into the all the Dischord and DC stuff. Sonic Youth blew my mind around that time too. My first job was washing dishes at the residence for clergy at a local Catholic school. Everyday there was a 30 minute window in the afternoon when I could hang out and watch tv in the dining room. I got into the habit of watching Yo MTV Raps every day and also became obsessed with hip hop which was really in its golden age during that time (1990-94).

Tell me about participating in bands such as Slaughterhouse Percussion and X.O.4. How did you initially meet Bill Nace, a friend/partnership you’ve had for quite some time? How did these outfits come about? What were those initial jam/rehearsal sessions like? What was the overall chemistry like between everyone?

I met Bill Nace through a flyer that Bill put up on the wall at Newbery Comics in Boston circa August 1995. I’d just moved to Boston to go to school and had been playing in bands in CT through high school. I happened to see this damaged hand scribbled, totally unprofessional flier with tabs cut along the bottom. I ripped off a tab and called the phone number. A few weeks later I was in a living room jamming with two weirdos from New Jersey, one of whom was Bill. We hit it off immediately and wrote a bunch of songs in a week. That started a long friendship that continues today. In the late 90s Bill and I along with another friend relocated to Western Mass. We met Jake Meginsky shortly after and started a band there. It was a great time to be in “the valley” from 99-03. There were a lot of musical threads converging organically. The fire in the Valley/Eremite scene was flourishing and legends like Sunny Murray, Joe McPhee, and Milford Graves were showing up to drop insane gigs at the Unitarian church in Amherst. Thurston Moore and Byron Coley had opened the Yod record store/space and were putting on shows, potlucks and bringing in underground dignitaries from all over. A bunch of DIY spaces were happening like The Flywheel, the School House and The Shed (which was actually a shed in someone’s back yard). It really felt like a time when people were just trying things and getting a lot of fulfillment out of just making the music for each other. There was such a heavy crew of drummers there at that time. Chris Corsano, Pete Nolan, Matt Weston, Jake Meginsky and Neil Young.

I think we were all pushing and getting inspiration from each other, at least that’s how it was for me. I used to play drums with Chris in the parking lot of an abandoned strip mall, just trying to keep up. Also I’d play drums with Jake and another friend Sean Mattio, out on the sidewalk in Northampton, all drum kits. Those guys were totally shredding on the drums and I think I gravitated to the bells and cymbals as a way to almost find melodies or a different frequency range to work in. Also I got into the feeling of paring things down, playing slower, how slow and quiet could I go, how much space, how long could I stretch out. That felt the heaviest to me, to be able to sit there and do nothing… I worked in a recording studio at that time, that was an old slaughterhouse, as an engineer. One of the perks was I got to use the place when it wasn’t booked. That became the place for a lot of experimenting and playing that eventually grew into some of those early projects like Xo4 and Slaughterhouse Percussion. The Slaughterhouse Percussion stuff grew out of Jake and I doing field recordings, finding tunnels, barns, grain silos and interesting spaces to record in. We also both studied with an afro Cuban percussionist who made homemade drums and taught traditional folkloric patterns. Xo4 started as a recording project I did with Bill. Just trying things in the studio like sticking paper clips inguitar strings or plucking refrigerator parts. The 2 projects kind of merged at some point and Xo4 became a trio of Bill, Jake and me.

Tell me about the Gunn-Truscinski project and how you initially met Steve. I understand you also started a short lived project called Desert Heat as well. What have been some of your most favorite projects/records to work on during that time and why?

I met Steve through our mutual friend Pete Nolan, sometime around 2005. I’d just moved to NYC and started playing with Pete and jamming a little bit with Magik Markers. Steve had been doing GHQ with Pete and Marcia Bassett on and off for a few years. There were a lot of one off projects, short lived bands that played one gig at a gallery, or basement. The Markers were trying out different lineups with guests and Steve and I played one of those gigs at the old East River Park Bandshell (RIP). It was a few years of that in NYC around that time, with GHQ, the Markers and others. A lot of it was pretty zoned out, with people trying different things, recording and releasing CDrs and tapes. A very DIY scene that grew out the of the early 2000s. I guess it was all part of the “new weird America” crossed with No Fun Fest and other regional scenes (Baltimore, Philly, etc.). Maybe around 2009 I felt a little drained and stretched thin. There wasn’t much commitment to any one project, or band and the music kinda felt that way after a while. I think Steve was feeling similar and trying to focus in on his guitar playing to break through into something else. We had a similar sensibility with wanting to stretch out but maintain a focus at the same time, pulling inspiration from Indian classical rather than incessant jamming. We also simplified things. It was a very unradical set up, with drum kit and electric guitar. But Steve had developed an amazing tone with his Gibson SG and a rickety Fender twin. The amp was so heavy and the tubes would fall out every time we played a gig. But I could hear how good his playing was becoming. I was feeling more and more drawn to finding space with the drums, just wanting to play quieter, more stretched out, more tonal.

Maybe it was feeling more radical to me to say less, do less at that time. I think being able to hold space was really helpful for Steve and all of a sudden magic would happen. There was a lot of room for conversation, subtlety. The music grew out of that. We found a magic in the ritual of listening to each other and seeing what could unfold. It was really simple in that way, but worked for us. It was also a delicate thing that wouldn’t always work if the conditions weren’t there. Making the records was hard because we would rarely find that energy in a studio setting. But we did our best. I still love those duo records even though they were at times painful to make. I think we did 10-15 takes of “Ocean Parkway” and the last one was the one that went on the record. Minetta River is probably still one of my favorite recordings because I think it’s as close as any to the free flowing energy that came up when the music was happening. “Pyramid Merchandise” is another favorite. It was recorded live at Union Pool during a residency Steve did in February 2020. We hadn’t played for months and I just walked up on stage and we dropped into it. There was a lot of energy at that moment right before the pandemic, when things felt like they were about to change forever. I’d just found out I was about to become a dad a day or two before. You can hear a lot in that recording. Desert Heat came about during a tour in Europe (2011) when we linked up with Cian Nugent. Steve knew him and we played some epic gigs on that tour, including a bowling alley in Brussels where I maybe had too many tripels. Cian and Steve had a similar vibe and played well off each other. It was great playing with Cian. As far as favorite records it’s hard to say, they’re all so different and embedded in their own time and place.

What have you been up to in more recent years? Are you guys planning on any new music, or shows in the Spring/Summer of 2024? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?

Still playing with Steve and Bill and in fact we just put a record out as a trio in 2023 (Glass Band). We’ve played a few gigs, but I hope we can do more, make more records. That was a really fun experience for me making music with those 2 together and I felt like I had to work through some new things on the drums when we made Glass Band. Steve and I have an upcoming duo record that came out of the same session from Glass Band. That’ll be coming up in 2024 with our long label partner Three Lobed. It’s great to be able to continue these musical friendships that’ve stretched over decades and revisit them. I really appreciate that. Other than that, just trying to keep the flame alive within the current stresses of life. I’m struggling to figure out where music or anything is heading given the collapse of basic humanity all around us. What does it mean for me to make records and do shows in 2024? It feels very abstract now and far away from the real people and places that inspired me before. I think I’m going through some kind of transition with it and will come out the other side in a different place as always. But thanks for asking me about my journey through this music.