ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, APRIL 8, 2004
By Steve Newton
Niagara Falls based guitar-rockers the Trews have a memorable bio making the rounds in the music press. Sure, the quartet’s Sony Music promo sheet is typical in that it comes off as a rave about the band, but the way it’s done is unique.
For example, bassist Jack Syperek is described as “a forty-foot boner squeezed into Montgomery Clift’s haircut”, and the group as a whole is labelled as “four saucer-eyed and clueless pixies”. As singer and rhythm guitarist Colin MacDonald explains from a van en route to Medicine Hat–after a gig in Lethbridge, opening for Nickelback–the Trews had gonzo Vancouver scribe Adrian Mack pen the bio.
“He’s just a really great writer, and we wanted something kind of funny and entertaining to look at,” MacDonald says of the John Ford drummer, who contributes a caustic column, Adrian Mack Is an Idiot, for local music monthly the Nerve. “Like, the last thing anybody wants to see is: ‘Colin was born on May 31, 1978, and he likes Metallica.’ ”
The band’s tight family ties extend beyond the human realm. There’s a shout-out in the CD’s credits to “the ambassador of love, Paul Steven Caillou”, the brothers’ beloved Labrador retriever. Sadly, he got hit by a car and killed four months before the release of House of Ill Fame. “His name was just Caillou,” MacDonald explains, “but we added the ‘Paul Steven’ for humorous effect, ’cause there’s nothing funnier than a dog with a really big name.”