No sooner had our intrepid reporter Lisa Fox arrived on site at Sonisphere than she was speaking to Charlie Wilson, guitarist with London hardcore act TRC. They chatted about side projects, fractions and being more rock than sin.
This is Lisa Fox from Rock Sins and I’m here with Charlie from TRC. Hello.
Hello, you alright?
I’m fine, how are you?
Very good. It’s just very hot.
It is very hot isn’t it? You’re from London, so you’re not really used to the heat?
I must say, I like that its hot with a breeze, I guess where I live because it’s a lot of tall buildings, you just don’t get the breeze.
You get stuck in the joy of smog of London.
Yes it’s like being an ant under a microscope, it’s, you know… [Laughs]. …it’s hard.
So are you looking forward to playing today?
Yes of course, yes I mean it’s going to be a good day I reckon, it’s the kind of shows that I look forward to personally
So what can we expect from the show today?
Mmm, the singles. I mean, when we do festivals we just give them what they want, you know? Just play what, the songs we’ve released as singles so everyone knows it and it’s good all the way, all the way through.
You’re one of the earlier heavy bands to be playing, are you really going to throw it down?
Who knows.
Or is it going to be too hot?
If it’s too hot I’ll probably just try and stand by the water cooler and just drink water!
Only water?
Well anything else. But no I’m sure we’ll bring it today.
Good so are you going to see any bands over the weekend?
Yes of course. Yes I’m staying up until, I go on tour with another band I play in on Monday morning, so, yes I’m going to stay right till the end now. I’m going to watch Metallica are my favourite band so I’m going to watch them, Slayer, Iron Maiden, the new Mastodon album blew my mind so I’m going to watch them. Yes I think that’s basically it really. The smaller stages are just bands I see all the time so I’m not too fussed about it. I’m just going to watch the headliners and see my pals. Like luckily we hired all of my friends as our tecs and TMs and that so I’ve got about 20 of my friends all running round like looking after me and that, so it’s going to be a good weekend.
How does it feel to be playing Sonisphere, because obviously it’s had a gap for a couple of years and now it’s back in the UK?
Yes I mean I love Soni, we went to the first one, just one of my friends just was like oh I’ve got these guest, I’d seen it obviously advertised but one of my friends just said, oh I can’t go, like, do you want my writstbands and we went and obviously I’ll always love Download with a passion, it’s my favourite festival but with Soni because it’s slightly smaller it’s a very, very close second because you can just enjoy yourself in that small space, whereas like Download if you want to go see a band, like there’s been times at Download where I haven’t gone to watch bands because they’re on a stage that’s a 40 minute walk… and it’s like, yes. No. I was with Terry Beezer, I dropped a name there sorry. Yes so okay. I was with him and he was DJ-ing the tent and he was like, “Oh come on we’ve got a buggy”, so I went to this after party with him, that he was DJ-ing, I just got battered. He ended up leaving and I thinkI was just hanging out with a few like kids I found that liked TRC… I always end up doing that, and then he was, “I’m going back”, I was like, “Cool, see you tomorrow”, and then it took me about 40 minutes to an hour to get back to my tent in the guest area.
And it was your tent you ended up at presumably?
I hope so.
So tell me about your side project with Tom from Heights.
Okay. I don’t really like calling it a side project because I wouldn’t be involved in anything that I’m not putting my all in, even though it’s hard to put your all in to three groups.
Your other 33 and 1/3 then?
Yes. You know, like they’re, it happened, it just happened, it wasn’t really that thought out. Me and Lasselle, the drummer from TRC, who’s also involved…we wrote some metal songs and we thought ah it’s too metal for TRC and then when TRC and Heights used to tour together quite a lot and I got really good friends with Tom and I actually run into him at Facedown, shameful, and we were chatting about it just after he’d been kicked out of Heights and I said to him, “Look mate, like, if anything happens to TRC like I’ll give you a ring and we’ll do a band”, and he was like, “Yes I’d love it”, and he sent me a message a few days later and just said oh it was nice seeing you, like, just so you know if you are on hitting up a project let me know. I always remembered it, it was in my head yes if I ever do something I’ll give him a shout and then we wrote these metal tunes and I just messaged him I said, ah look me and Lasselle have written this song, it hasn’t actually been released yet, the song we wrote, and I said to him just come and, sent him the MP3 and that and we came round at home and said you know right what you got and see what happens. And so he came over and we were just blown away, like me and Lasselle were just like oh my god. Because obviously with Heights, we’re fans of Heights as well so it was kind of one of them ones where it was like writing music and then having someone you’re a fan of to come on and do vocals on it. So it was awesome and then yes, and then just, I had some few other rifts floating around that I’d written, stuff I’d written for TRC that was a bit too metal and then that got sent Tom’s way and then the next thing I knew we had like, you know I’d say we’ve got about almost 10 songs now. Doing it, releasing an EP at the end of this month, 27th July or the 28th I can’t remember. But you know, so we’ve just built this band out of coincidence and then I was hanging out with Bobby a lot at the time who used to play guitar in Last Witness and More Than Life and yes, obviously you come along and then TRC are on tour with Rough Hands and I was chatting to them, we wanted to get someone that could do backing vocals because although I do bits of vocals on record live, I just can’t do it with the guitar so we wanted to get someone that could do backing vocals and I was just telling them, Alex Dench who sings with Rough Hands that’s what I wanted and he was just like, “Well I can play bass and I can do vocals” and we were like see you Monday for rehearsals and that was it and then, yes I mean it kind of, when we released our first song it was just, my phone went crazy. I wasn’t even expecting anything to happen. We put it out like to get like a thousand views and we left it at that and now it’s like, yes as soon as it went up my phone went, like offers, emails, everything so it was a bit sick.
So you did Ghostfest last weekend?
With Three bands. I’m playing guitar for Astroid Boys now. And obviously Counting Days opened one of the stages and TRC did our usual slot. So it was a long weekend for me.
Were you knackered by the end?
By Sunday, I was hanging on Sunday because we all, obviously I just played with Astroid Boys in the afternoon and then started having a few beers and that and then one, you know, I didn’t get in till like five and then I had to be at Ghostfest for 11. And I was just, the next day, I was just like oh, no all three sets, smashed it.
So, TRC are on tour with Deez Nuts later on in the year?
And Counting Days…
Oh my god! You are a machine!
That’s going to be another busy one. Well I keep thinking it’s a really good idea to just go like, yes, yes, like kind of a lot of this, I won’t lie to people, a lot of the things that Counting Days have done are done off the back of TRC like TRC got offered it and now I’ve just, because I’ve known the promoter or whatever I’ve gone and whacked them on as well. And then I always think it’s a really good idea at the time and then when it actually comes up to it it’s like oh this is really annoying because I’ve got twice the amount of stuff to do so it’s twice as much as press, twice as much sound checking, twice as much. You’ve still got to play twice as well.
Twice as much fun though as well.
Yes twice the fun.
So what else have TRC got going on for the rest of the year?
We’re going to do a single at the end of the year. I mean I don’t know if there’ll be another record. Just because we kind of feel, regardless of what fans say, we just don’t feel that it’s worth doing any more. You know you can do a single and people will be talking about you for six months or you can do an album and they’ll be talking about you for six months.
It’s like Iceman Thesis who have got like what? Three songs.
Yes. Yes. So there is definitely power behind a strong song. Yes I mean just, let’s cut the crap you know and then if people don’t want an album then just put all the songs that didn’t make it to your single and call it a B-side album and there’s your album, now leave me alone.
So one final thought. What is your biggest Rock Sin?
My biggest rock sin? Well I don’t know my mum might see this. I don’t know if I can say. I mean see this is the thing, I thought I was quite, I was quite a bad boy, you know, I was in Scuzz’s Bad Boys of Rock once, I was like yes I’m fucking, sorry I don’t have to swear, I was like I’m doing it, you know I’m like, I’m up there, like I’m Keith Richards and then I went out for a drink with Defiled. And then I was just like, well I told one of them a story from when I was in Vegas and he just went, “Oh that is so funny”, and then told me his story from Australia and it just completely blew my story out of the window, so I don’t even know if I have, I don’t even want to say, it might be embarrassing, I might be like this one time I drank three beers before we played. Maybe my biggest sin is not being as cool as The Defiled.
On that note thank you very much indeed.
Thank you!
You can follow Charlie on Twitter at @_CharlieWilson for the latest updates, and also The main TRC account at @TRCOfficial.
