Back in mid-2002, life was good for Montgomery, Alabama, outcasts Trust Company. The band's first single, "Downfall," was a summer hit, and it seemed like its debut LP, The Lonely Position of Neutral, would be another one of those melodic, neo-grunge chart-toppers. Unfortunately for Trust Company, hard rockers can be a fickle bunch.
The band's second single, "Running From Me," failed to connect with the strength of its predecessor, and the group struggled to retain the confidence of its record company, even though the album ultimately went gold. And now, with the release of their second disc, True Parallels (which came out late last month), Trust Company find themselves playing the role of underdogs.
"When that first album didn't sell as well as it was expected to, suddenly we weren't their precious little band anymore," singer Kevin Palmer said. "We had to really struggle to be noticed, and it became extremely frustrating."
To regain momentum, Trust Company entered the studio with producer Don Gilmore in July 2003. But while the material was powerful, expressing the genuine uncertainty of a band fighting to make it to the top, it took nearly two years for the band — Palmer, guitarist James Fukai, bassist Walker Warren and drummer Jason Singleton — to get back on the map. While the band was in the studio, its label merged with other companies, leaving Trust Company just one of many similar groups at the new corporation. Soon after, their record was put on hold.
"We heard 50 million rumors that we were gonna get dropped," Palmer said. "That gave us a glimpse of the whole other side of the music business. Everything's about writing the big single, and that creates a lot of stress when you're just trying to make a good album."
The harsh realities of the music industry were sometimes enough to make them long for the time before they had a major-label record deal. "We named the album True Parallels because that was the name of our first album — which we recorded for an indie label — that never came out," Palmer said. "It was a tribute to the days when we used to ride around in a van and live on peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. Everything was so cool back then. We didn't have to worry about how many records we were going to sell in the first week. We just did our thing because we loved music and we couldn't think of life without it."
During the long months that Trust Company were waiting for their new label to schedule a release date for True Parallels, they went back into their Alabama practice space, where they wrote a few more songs and restructured "Stronger." Then, last year, they re-entered the studio with producer Howard Benson, who helped them mold "Stronger" into their comeback single. The track features a churning main rhythm intercut with a more restrained verse and a soaring, harmony-filled chorus that's as melodic as Crossfade and as heavy as Linkin Park.
"The song is all about the hurdles I had to get over from the last record," Palmer said. "And not just with this band getting back into the public eye. A lot of the first record was about the horrible divorce I went through before we got signed. Once you survive something like that, it makes you stronger as a person" (see "Trust Company Rev Out Of Neutral With New Single, Video").
Overall, True Parallels is heavier and more multifaceted than The Lonely Position of Neutral. The songs are more dynamic — constructed with passages that surface, build, then fade out again — and the guitars are so sharp they leave bite marks. Also, instead of hiding beneath a fortress of invulnerability, Trust Company expose themselves with songs equally fueled by fear and anger.
"We just decided to be honest with this album," Palmer said. "We weren't gonna pretend life was peachy and write a party record. I wrote about a lot of the things that weren't going well in our lives, and it allowed me to get some of that stuff off my chest."
Nowhere is this more clear than on "The War Is Over," the second Benson-produced number, which sounds like a collaboration between Saliva and Stabbing Westward and features lyrics as hopeless as the song is catchy: "There's nothing left to believe/ The end is now, I surrender."
"People think that song is about the war in Iraq, but it has no political overtones, and it's not about a relationship," Palmer said. "It's really just me expressing every ounce of frustration I have. I'm saying, 'This is my last effort. I'm gonna give you everything we have and lay it all out, and if this doesn't pan out, then we're moving on.' "
