Victoria and Vancouver Island have a lot of musical talent, and Victoria Buzz wants to highlight some of the best and brightest local artists and bands.
Every Monday, there will be a fresh ‘New Music Monday’ article to help people find and support local artists and bands that are up-and-coming, well established or hidden gems!
For this endeavour, Victoria Buzz has partnered with our good friends at CFUV 101.9 FM, UVic’s campus radio station, to find and select the musicians and bands for this regular column.
This week, Trophy Dad is the New Music Monday highlight!
Trophy Dad is a band that has survived a pandemic and continued to make music against the odds, all fuelled by the dream of becoming a household name.
They are a local Victoria outfit who self describe their fun-loving brand of rock and roll as, “if Friday was a band.”
Formed with members from the now-defunct One Night Stand, frontman Nevil Meyer, bassist Reggie Bast, lead guitarist Quinn Colpman and drummer Lee Henwood started Trophy Dad as a way to make the band work, while also making sure to have fun along the way.
They have previously released two EPs, Rock ‘N’ Roll Love Songs and Hang In There, they have played festivals like Phillips Backyard and All Ways Home and they have also mastered the craft of making a good fun music video.
Now, they are releasing a third EP and have already dropped two songs from it, with another two being released this week on Wednesday, July 31st.
The two songs already released are “Believe”, which is a cover of Cher’s mega-hit, and a new original of theirs, “Nightshift”.
When asked why Trophy Dad decided to record a cover song and release it along with three originals of theirs, Meyer told Victoria Buzz they did it for two reasons.
“Well first off that song rules,” Meyer explained.
“Also, my friend and I, her name is Freddie, we were really sad. She was going through a lame breakup and I was just very sad.”
He says that the two went on a road trip to Tofino one day on a whim and listened to Cher’s “Believe” seven times on the four hour drive.
Meyer added that before that trip with his friend, he hadn’t written a song in a long while, but was able to get out of his rut by taking the chord progression of “Believe” and making it his own for a song that has yet to be released.
The other new single released from their upcoming EP, aside from “Believe” is an original called “Nightshift”.
Meyer says this song is a standout to him because it is a song about his girlfriend and how in love he feels with her.
“It’s weird because I’ve never wrote a song before about someone I’ve been with; they’re always about people I’m longing for or missing or never had,” he said.
“It’s not a normal Trophy Dad song because, ‘a’ I’m in love and it’s the person I’m with and ‘b’ it’s not normally how I would write.”
He says that this song was written more collaboratively with the band when normally, Trophy Dad’s writing process begins with Meyer bringing the skeleton of a song to the band and them all fleshing it out together.
Henwood, the band’s drummer suggested at a rehearsal that the band write a song together and insisted upon the band trying it out.
“He basically forced me to write a song,” Meyer laughed.
After 45 minutes of working on the song, they had sorted out the structure of the song and all that was left to add was lyrics.
“I said alright guys, I’m done, let’s finish the rest of what we have to rehearse and I’ll go back to the song at night and get it done,” he said.
“I got home and I wrote all the lyrics in like, 10 minutes.”
From there they took “Nightshift” along with “Believe” and two others into the studio and hired Mike Fraser, a famous Canadian producer, to work his magic on their music.
Fraser has produced numerous AC/DC records, along with albums from Metallica, Aerosmith, Franz Ferdinand, Zac Brown, The Cult, Led Zeppelin and many more.
According to Meyer, the result of this was a really big, anthemic song reminiscent of arena rock. He added that the song is one of the band’s favourites and all the feedback they’ve gotten back thus far has been overwhelmingly positive.
Check out a preview of both “Believe” and “Nightshift” below:
You can find those songs in full via Trophy Dad’s Spotify and Apple Music pages and you can also find their music videos for “Nightshift” and “Believe” on YouTube.
For upcoming shows, Meyer and the rest of Trophy Dad are ecstatic to be taking the stage at the upcoming ‘Reverb’ edition of the Phillips Backyard Music Festival.
They will be opening the day for headliners Black Pumas and Current Swell on August 9th.
“Hopefully we can get a bunch of people out for that because that’s always a ton of fun,” Meyer said.
“The lineup that day is insane, even if I wasn’t on that lineup I would still think it was great and I’d be all over going to that one.”
Following playing at Reverb, Trophy Dad will be setting their sights on getting a little road trip organized and playing some shows on the mainland in addition to getting a local show put together for the fall.
Follow Trophy Dad on Instagram to stay in the know regarding upcoming shows.
Related:
- New Music Monday: CORRODE injects debut EP with hardcore energy and meaning
- New Music Monday: HOTPOT embrace Black music on new single ‘IOU (Hot Mix)’
- New Music Monday: Standard Issue Pleasure Model release song about resilience to struggle
CFUV is a non-profit campus and community radio station that plays a ton of local music of all kinds across Vancouver Island. If you like to support local music they are an amazing resource with a plethora of new local tunes in their arsenal.
“They’ve got their hands in so many cookie jars and it’s cool because [CFUV] makes room for new opportunities,” Meyer explained.
“Whether it’s me or students or anyone who doesn’t have opportunities and that’s the most important thing anyone can do in the community is give someone opportunities and it starts with CFUV.”
He added that what makes CFUV special is that they are so consistent in the ways they help and the opportunities they provide people with in Victoria.
Tune into CFUV 101.9 FM on air or online!
Let us know what you think of Trophy Dad in the comments below.
