Mustard had the pleasure of speaking with Trey Roque! Together we discussed their relationship with music, The Witcher, ghosts, their newest single “Darling Priss”, and so much more!
1. Mustard is grateful to have you join them at Music Shelf. How are you doing today?
I’m doing the best I can – thanks for asking! Of course, that means different things on different days – or even between morning-noon-and night…
2. Mustard wonders what your relationship with music was growing up?
I grew up between the 70s-80s, so there was plenty of music to feast on. Even the airwaves had great music – from the raw to the sleek to the complex – and everyday people just grooved on it. It was amazing.
My nan was a country singer – country was big in Liverpool, surprising as that may be. She’d sing Patsy Cline around the house. She had a piano, but never played it. Me and my brother would hide her Woodbines (cigarettes) under it – she smoked like a chimney.
Bowie was the alien sex god fallen down to earth back then. His presence in the smelly, stuffy 70s was a real phenomenon. Naturally, as toddlers, we didn’t snag the sex part. But the cover of Aladdin Sane was fascinating, as was the big sticky cake-record on the Stones’ Let It Bleed. It was only much later, recording my first album, I realised how much of that Stones stuff was in my bones.
I could go on!
3. Between 2018-2019 you wrote over 260 songs. Could you share more about your writing process during this time?
I can kind of thank Netflix for that. Like everyone else, I gorged on the best shows and then started watching dross. I get bored very easily, so I always have a guitar to hand.
I have the habit to play something new each time I pick the guitar up – find a chord, twist a sequence, try a new rhythmic pattern. When I’d hit on something interesting, I’d put a melody on it – always – and if it really snagged me I’d jot down the lyrics. Usually this would take 10-20 mins. I just let it happen. Editing can take place later on.
I wasn’t aiming for a Guinness Book of Records thing, it just happened in one year I wrote about 105, and then the next 130 or more. I haven’t counted in a while…
One thing I see at fault with contemporary artists is – they’re always asking for permission. Seeing as I’ve had to fight everyone all the way to do this thing I do, that dumbfounds and irritates me.
When you ask for permission you’re not an artist – you’re a supplicant.
4. 80 of these songs were about a certain femme fatale. How did this human inspire these songs? Have they heard these songs?
I take my inspiration wherever she finds me. So I got involved with someone – Hannah – entirely unreliable and probably unsuitable. Like all these kinds of fascination, you think it’s the answer to your prayers, when it’s a fresh curse.
As she’s a charismatic narcissist, I doubt she’s thought twice about checking out my music since I last saw her. That’s not bitterness speaking – it’s acceptance.
5. Mustard is curious about the subjects of the 180 songs. What were some of these about?
I had to take a look in my songbooks to recall! I forget my songs as soon as I’ve finished them, for the most part. This lets me keep going to create new ones.
Lyrically, song subjects include drinking too much, a Van Gogh painting, ghosts of the past and childhood, the Beatles, dreaming, narcissists and psychopaths, philosophical dabbling, cherishing people, the nub of inspiration, sex, the Witcher, and different characters passing through.
When writing, I imagine a picture and then try telling its story through music and text. I take everything that comes downstream.
6. Have any of these songs been released? Are they a part of a collection?
Oh for sure! My LP Intimate Letters is a postcard collection of the Hannah-femme-fatale period. And the two albums I’m releasing this year – Trail of Treats, and Brother Wolf – also draw from these songbooks.
I’m just happy to have a reservoir of songs, and I can pick what I think are the best for an audience. Which ones can shape a tale told over an album.
7. How has your songwriting process grown throughout the years? Is there a big difference between 2023 Trey and 2018 Trey?
As I’m an aged person, five years is the blink of an eye. My biggest shift has been in my 40s, when I created the vast bulk of my songs. When it clicked how to get things finished, rather than having half-songs lying around forever. Or trying too hard to write a preconceived idea.
The key rule is – write a verse and a chorus, including the melody and lyrics. From there, the rest of the song is a doddle. Unless you have the second-verse blues…
8. Who or what influences you?
Lots of old music! I’ve borrowed from Bach and Debussy, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Zappa, the Fab Four, Echo and the Bunnymen, Burt Bacharach, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis… Everyone from before 2001 really. But also from literature, TV and movies. Old photos – real photos – which have so much more heft than digital ones. Paintings. Landscapes and cities.
I’d be a bit weird to not include other human animals too.
9. 2017 saw the release of your album “Subject to Change.” What was it like to put this project together?
2015 (did I make a typo on my bio?). My first EP – the Eagles one – was with an engineer in what would optimistically be called a ‘real studio’ and I wasn’t 100% happy with it. I’m not a good backseat driver. So I fired the drummer and started to make an LP on my own, and learn the ropes as I went.
After all, if I get hit by a tram tomorrow, that’s a lot of music sent up into the ether.
So through YouTube, books and a couple of online courses, I gradually pieced the album together. When I listen back to that LP, I’m surprised it doesn’t reek of my mistakes! I quite like it, actually.
But even a few albums in, there’s always a heap of mistakes and a ton to learn. Which is fine, as I like learning.
10. Mustard wonders if any big changes were made to this album?
Oh yeah. It started as a single album of 20-odd tunes. But I realised I’d never get it out the door that way, so I’ve filleted it into two different albums. Which has freed me to create a better arc – I still abide by vinyl track listings. Telling a story.
11. Some of your music is inspired by The Witcher and Slav folktales. When were you first introduced to each?
I discovered the Witcher through the TV show, season one. As I basically live in an ebony tower, I thought I’d get an Xbox. I turn everything into work somehow, and mere video games were never going to cut the mustard! How wrong I was. The Witcher 3 (Wild Hunt) and its expansion games are a form of literature.
Plus, reading the original Sapkowski books. I’ve come to end with my own navel gazing, so I used the characters from this world, plus Brothers Grimm and Slav folk tales with that whole dark atmosphere. I’ve lived in Prague, Czechia for a long time, and Erben (the Czech Brothers Grimm) is in the shadows of the castle too.
As you get older, the past can come into sharp relief. Folk tales and the half-world of childhood loom large in these two albums. Once I’m done with that, I’ll find another vein to mine.
12. What are your thoughts on Netflix’s adaptation of The Witcher?
First season, intriguing. When I heard ‘vlkodlak’ (Polish and Czech for ‘werewolf’) I pricked up my ears. The show was so-so. The books and game are my cup of hemlock.
13. You had a ghost haunted childhood. Can you recall your first experience with ghosts?
My nan raised me and my brother when we were small, and she was a bit of a nutter for tall tales and superstitions. As a pre-literate child, anything is possible. You’re just trying to work out the ‘in-game’ rules. So real life and dark fantasy were one and the same.
We did experience some odd paranormal stuff – the house we lived in was haunted, so it seems. Whether ghosts exist or not, that place was spooky as hell and it frightened even my tough uncles.
14. You recently released your newest single “Darling Priss.” Could you share more about your newest single?
Priss is, no surprise, a character from the Witcher 3 game. She’s the lover of Jaskier (Dandelion), an infamous skirt chaser. But she’s tamed him – and is a fab character in her own right. If you play the game, you’ll see.
So, lyrically, it’s a POV tale of Jaskier trying to figure out his feelings.
Musically, I borrow from ‘the English’ chords, which were very popular in the 70s. Lots of voice leading, for that satisfying story-within-the-music too.
15. What is next for Trey Roque?
I hate promoting my music! So that’s something I’ll have to solve this year. Walking my own wavy line between promotion and remaining myself, and not becoming a content creation serf.
I’m also designing merch, to help keep the lights on. It’s another fun thing to get my head around!
16. Where can readers listen to your music?
I’m on all the streamers, including Bandcamp and YouTube. You can find all the links, and my CDs and novel, at my website www.treyroque.com
I also have a seasonal podcast, where I open the kimono on a song from my album in each episode. It’s on all podcast apps and is called Trey’s Way.
YOUTUBE https://youtu.be/s8r6grCGCFo
Music Shelf With Mustard 