A Quote by Justin Tranter
If you listen to Semi-Precious Weapons' last single, 'Aviation High,' you can definitely hear that even in my old band, even in the songs I was writing then, the pop influence really started to take over.
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I worked at a jewelry store to pay the bills when I first moved to N.Y.C., and I always loved the phrase 'Semi Precious.' So I wanted to just call the band Semi Precious, but my dad told it was kinda sissy, so I added Weapons.
I started writing songs in high school and always wanted to have a band, and eventually my creative endeavors developed into Theocracy. So in some ways, you could say the vision has been there since I started writing songs.
I try to listen to over a hundred different songs a day. I listen to every single thing. If you're just listening to pop music, you're just gonna make pop music. I listen to Adele, Yo Yo Ma, Gucci Mane.
In the band Semi-Precious Weapons, I got to sing, wear, and say exactly what I wanted for ten years.
I used to write songs that mimicked other songs that I would hear as a kid, cos I was 12 years old when I was writing those, right. And you hear a radio so all I'd write about was [sings] "hey girl, look at you", you know what I mean. I think that even doing that made it easier for me to write non-personal songs because, from a kid, I never wrote personal songs, they were always like mimicking. And now I'm just trying to understand my writing and where it's coming from.
That's how it all started, when I met my wife. My music career, even though I started when I was 16, it never really started till I was like 30, when I started singing and writing my own songs, and that's when it really took off. But prior to that, I was just doing a bunch of covers.
I usually sing a lot on my mixtapes. I sing a lot on songs that just really aren't singles. Even my first single, 'My Last,' which I feel like is more pop than anything - I was originally singing the chorus on there. I'm used to that. I've always had fresh melodies.
I write almost all my songs on an acoustic guitar, even if they turn into rock songs, hard rock songs, metal songs, heavy metal songs, really heavy songs... I love writing on an acoustic because I can hear what every string is doing; the vibrations haven't been combined in a collision of distortion or effects yet.
I write almost all my songs on an acoustic guitar, even if they turn into rock songs, hard rock songs, metal songs, heavy metal songs, really heavy songs I love writing on an acoustic because I can hear what every string is doing; the vibrations haven't been combined in a collision of distortion or effects yet.
When that band started out, I was 18 years old. So that was my reality all the way up until I quit the band. And even then, you know, Guns N' Roses has a nasty way of sticking around.
It's funny when you start writing an album and then recording - the songs begin to take on a spirit of their own. Once you start to perform it live, this happens even more so than in the studio. They really start to develop a personality that takes shape over time with the audience.
I shot a gun one time in New Zealand. An entertainment news program there thought, since the band was called Semi Precious Weapons, they would bring us to a gun range.
The Replacements definitely changed my life, I think they're just amazing. The thing that blew me away [a band like that] is that you'll get into a band from hearing one interesting song and then you'll realise that you've got seven or eight albums to listen to afterwards and every single one of them is a great record. The Replacements definitely changed my life.
The reason I don't play any of the old songs is because I really honor my old band, and I think that those songs are best served within the context of that band.
I still only play by ear. I don't have any training. But the piano actually makes more sense to me than guitar, even though I play more guitar now. And then, it wasn't till later that I started really writing songs. Writing songs was an outlet that I needed, so I became obsessed with it. It allowed me to express a bunch of stuff that had been piling up.
I was writing music when we finished the last Walkmen record, Heaven, and a few of these songs may have even been started before Heaven was done. With The Walkmen we all wrote a lot of stuff alone, but then we'd start collaborating with each other.
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