With the incredible success of their major label debut, "The Lonely Position of Neutral," TRUSTcompany has become one of the bigger names in new metal. Their tour will stop at the Showplace Theater Tuesday night, where they will perform with Blindside.
"(Success) was a slap in the face, we didn't expect it at all. There were all the overwhelming, dream-come-true feelings," said lead singer Kevin Palmer.
Having toured on the Vans Warped Tour with New Found Glory and Good Charlotte, as well as just ending a fall tour with Korn and Disturbed, TRUSTcompany seems to have found a niche for themselves among the best in popular metal.
Since the release of their album "Downfall," the band has enjoyed a great deal of popularity, which they would not have without the help of record production veterans Don Gilmore and Andy Wallace, who respectively produced and mixed the album. The Gilmore and Wallace team also worked on Linkin Park's "Hybrid Theory."
"Andy Wallace is a legend. He was our first pick and we were really lucky to get him," said Palmer. "Don is great to work with because he's a musician, he talks to you from a musician's standpoint."
Although the band got lucky as far as recording personnel goes, they have not taken any shortcuts to success. They began as a trio rather than their present quartet and used to be much less melodic.
"It took me a long time to become comfortable with my voice. It used to be a lot more yelling," said Palmer.
Even TRUSTcompany's Web site described their old sound as "very Helmet" before the melody set in.
"We started to use more choruses, but other than that there weren't a whole lot of differences." said Palmer.
The addition of those choruses, along with their second guitarist James Fukai in 2000, altered their sound enough for the band to succeed.
Any casual listener will recognize the similarities in guitar sounds and lyrics to those found on Linkin Park's LP. Part of this could be attributed to their shared production personnel, but Palmer said there are distinct dissimilarities between Linkin Park and TRUSTcompany.
"People like to categorize bands and draw their own conclusions. If they want to compare us to platinum-selling bands, that's fine," Palmer said. "But it's weird that people would think we were so similar when they have the rapping and the DJ in the group. We're not rap-oriented at all."
In addition, Palmer said the band wrote each of their songs before Linkin Park released their first album.
As they have begun writing for their second album, Palmer said, "I don't know if it's going to be as slick as the first one. In our live show we sound a lot more raw, a little more heavy. I think we'd like to get that on our next album."
"We play a few new songs in our live show," he added. "We don't get time to jam like we used to, since we're on the road, so this is our way to test the songs out, get some reactions ... The crowd response has been great so far."
With indie rock scenes coming alive across the country and around the world, many have decided that new metal is a passing phase, a genre that will fade out the same way grunge did 10 years ago. By deciding to make their sound less produced, TRUSTcompany may be able to dodge that bullet.
"We're just trying to stay out as long as we can," Palmer said. "We've got a gold record, which is a dream come true. We're hoping we can make more dreams come true."
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
