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The Cover Story
Trash Boat: “I want to write a song that changes the world. I want to sell out stadiums 10 days in a row. The idea of accepting relative mediocrity is painful”
Following Trash Boat’s last record, Tobi Duncan found himself consumed by anxiety. The things he once found easy were now completely terrifying. The weirdest part? He had no idea why. Now out the other side and armed with a new perspective on life, the St. Albans five-piece are set to drop their most chaotic and honest record yet, because nothing can capsize this vessel…
- Words:
- Rachel Roberts
- Photography:
- Derek Bremner
“So, what are we going to talk about?” Tobi Duncan asks eagerly. He crouches on a small staircase next to the dressing room of an East London photo studio, where Trash Boat are currently in the middle of their Kerrang! cover shoot. Guitarists Ryan Hyslop and Dann Bostock, bassist James Grayson, and drummer Oakley Moffatt are bustling around the space, teasing each other on their go-to poses. Slow-motion showers of feathers drift over them, a box of which Tobi has already requested to take home for his cat. “I just don’t want to leave any stone unturned,” he informs us, stroking his majestic facial hair and gazing upwards.
There’s a duality to Trash Boat that becomes apparent within the first 30 minutes of hanging out with them. On a surface level, the Hertfordshire quintet are full of beans. They hip-wiggle and mime along to Dann’s playlist of classic rock bops in between photographs, as hits from The Rolling Stones and Dire Straits soundtrack the afternoon. They’re quick with their banter, and it’s the lovingly savage sort that can only occur when you truly know each other inside and out.
Ask them about their music, however, and a switch flips in the opposite direction. They have a care and diligence for their artistry and the legs it stands upon. We need a quiet patch of the building to really tear into its meat, though, so we migrate to a rather unglamorous utility room of sorts, where Tobi – unfazed by flickering lights and a rather off-putting sink – pulls up a set of chairs, and sits poised for some brain-picking.
- Get your exclusive Kerrang! x Trash Boat T-shirt and hoodie
Those familiar with Trash Boat will know they’re not sonically straightforward. From their 2016 debut Nothing I Write You Can Change What You’ve Been Through, through to their latter releases – 2018’s Crown Shyness and 2021’s Don’t You Feel Amazing? – they’ve tried new ways of writing each time. And soon-to-be-released fourth LP Heaven Can Wait is no different.
“This isn’t me talking shit,” he prefaces. “A Day To Remember are one of my favourite bands, [and] they’re very consistent with their albums. Knocked Loose, again, one of my fucking favourite bands, but you know what you’re going to get. They’re going to put out an album that’s going to be the angriest, heaviest thing ever. We’re different. We have multiple influences, and [our music] may end up sounding way different to what you expect, and some people don’t like that.”
We ask Tobi what message he hopes people will take from this album, and he is genuinely stumped for a while. But it’s not because he doesn’t have an answer. If anything, his thoughts on the record feel far too vast to simplify.
“I think people should rely less on idolising charisma and [focus] more on honesty,” he replies after a long pause. “I don’t like how it’s becoming a cult of personality when it comes to conflict resolution, or dealing with overly complicated social issues that we face, like gender identity, politics, anything. It’s so easy to find someone that talks about these things who is very direct, very strong, they [seem] like they know what they’re talking about and they’re confident, but they’re just so misguided and chatting absolute shite.”
“People should rely less on idolising charisma and focus more on honesty”
This is just scratching the surface, though. Tobi is a deep thinker, and doesn’t believe his views and inspirations behind this album – or any of their records, for that matter – are easily marketable. They can’t be condensed into a couple of pithy quotes for a viral social media campaign. This is why, despite the studio emptying and the end of the working day approaching, he will not rush. He will stay here long after everyone has left the building, exploring every nook and cranny of perspective on this body of work.
And when Tobi tackles a topic within his music – like mental illness or the complexities of politics and identity – he doesn’t just grab an idea and run. These tracks are not brief moments of rage at something learned about through Twitter or an AI generated Instagram Reel. They’ve been pondered, looked into, and intricately picked apart.
The band’s barnstorming collab with I Prevail’s Eric Vanlerberghe, Be Someone, most richly divulges into toxic masculinity, and this ultra-macho, big personality-big winner idea. But there’s a “broader brush stroke” that underpins the track, which was made even more relevant when the two bands witnessed a drunk man trying to start a scrap with anyone he could while at a pub during their tour in Ireland.
“It’s more about our general proclivity for violence as a first option, and that obviously ties into bigotry and whatnot, but we just seem so quick to believe that we resolve issues by who is bigger and who is louder,” explains Tobi. “You have people in the social media space these days who are overwhelmingly popular. I won’t name names, but a lot of their ideology is like, 'As long as I’m massive and I know how to fight and can make loads of cash, I’m right.'”
The positive attention this sort of attitude garners online sets the wrong precedent for the kind of person that people should aspire to be, Tobi believes. We should do more good things and not shout about them. We should care less about clout.
“I don’t want to be the type of person that is just trying to be a big personality just so that I can get money and fame, and be the loudest and strongest and biggest person in the room and make that my ethos.”
Tobi is no stranger to these “irk”-inducing types, having grown up playing a number of sports, and again within heavy music culture. Interestingly, last time we met the frontman for a cover feature, he spoke in-depth of his athletic background. He openly shared details on the life-changing injury that occurred as he was playing rugby, and the subsequent struggles he faced in the aftermath, in regards to addiction. Today, he shares a rather different tale. One of a perplexing inner turmoil that completely humbled him.
After the release of Don’t You Feel Amazing?, Tobi found himself consumed by immense fear that tied him to his bed. But, as a lot of anxiety sufferers will understand, sometimes you have no clue why you feel the way you do. This was true for Tobi, too.
“Things were going really well," he begins. “It was Christmas 2021 or 2022, it was after COVID, and I don’t know what it was because it had never happened before. Generally, I’m a very confident person, obviously I experienced anxiety to some degree, but never where it would need medical attention or where I need to call someone, which I’m very fortunate for, I don't know how it happened, but my guess is that [it was because] I was taking an [over-the-counter] supplement. I think it was called ashwagandha.
“I started to just feel a residual feeling of fear every day. Whatever chemicals were in my brain, for some reason, those chemicals left the building. I spent about six months just terrified of literally anything. I’d wake up in the morning and the prospect of getting out of bed filled me with dread. I’d sit there being like, ‘I can never go on tour again. I can never get onstage again.’ We had an American tour coming up in a few months. I was thinking, ‘How the hell am I going to go to the airport? I feel like I want to throw up.’”
“I spent about six months just terrified”
These struggles have been explored throughout Heaven Can Wait, with recent single Break You being the most on the nose. Thankfully, this bout of severe anxiety hasn’t since “reared its ugly head”, but “your brain sort of [keeps] memory of what that feels like and will just throw it out there,” Tobi shares. “Because it’s a trauma, I guess. There was a lot of negativity and a lot of optimism to draw from it. It's great songwriting material!”
It’s not surprising that such a perspective-flipping ordeal became a vessel for new art, but there’s a good reason why this wasn’t made the entire overarching theme of the album. “I wanted to avoid being a trauma tourist. You know what I mean?” Tobi says. “Like, ‘Oh, I had a really bad six months and now I know everything there is to know about how these people feel.’ I don’t.”
Though already a considerate and open-minded guy, the whole period made him far more aware of the debilitating effects of mental illness. Mostly because it completely contradicted the positive actualities of his life. He had just started dating his current partner, he had a job he loved, and the band were blowing up. “Everything was at its absolute peak. Success, success, money, money, brand new girlfriend, love her, everything’s fantastic. And then, bang! It had no logical reason,” he recalls.
Though often brushed off as ‘just worrying’, there is a physicality to anxiety. It’s waking up feeling scared and not knowing why, and then feeling scared because you don’t know why you feel scared. It’s a thick, slimy slug that sits on your chest, heavy and repulsive, that convinces you that you cannot do the simplest of things you once did every day. It blurs your vision and pounds your heart, and for Tobi, the tears would not stop coming.
“When I was in the throes of it, we were supposed to go out for Oakley’s birthday to a curry house in St. Albans. Five-minute drive, done it a million times before, bread and butter stuff,” he remembers. “I stopped twice on that drive. I pulled over and I was like, ‘I can’t do this.’ I stood outside my car for about 10 minutes and cried. And then got myself together, went and then stood outside the curry house, almost cried again. I was crying almost daily during this period, just because I was so confused.”
In this time, Tobi did everything you’re advised to do. He reached out to his loved ones, doctors, even the Samaritans helpline.
“I had no ego about it. I was like, ‘I’m in trouble,’” he says. “The lion is on the savannah, and you have no idea where it is. Whether it’s your physical health, you’re touring, or going downstairs to make a cup of tea or going to have a curry. Fear, fear, fear. I always felt like I was going to lose control of my body and pass out and float away…
“My physical health is horrific when it comes to my joints, and that is getting worse, and it always will. But when I was in that really low point, you’d think I’d be sitting there dwelling about how bad my physical health is. It wasn’t really a factor.”
Tobi may never know what really kicked off that period of suffering, be it the ashwagandha or something lying deeper that previously laid dormant, and he is now back to “normal” – though he says with air-quotes and a raised eyebrow.
“It gradually just phased out. And my biochemical-whatever just realigned itself,” he explains. “Now when people say they suffer with anxiety or something…” he shakes his head, a gesture of unfathomable respect and sympathy. “I didn’t know it was like that.”
One thing Tobi is pretty terrible for is his competitive streak. It's a part of himself he has a love-hate relationship with.
“When I was a kid, I was an incredibly sore loser. Still am,” he laughs. “I stay on top of it now. It’s something that I check [myself for], because my inward experience I have to be honest about. But then I then process it, filter it, and what comes out, I hope, is humility and being proud of my friends and my peers, because that is the feeling that I choose to have.”
We put it to him that he is perhaps guilty of being a perfectionist, even suffering from what some describe as 'gifted kid burnout', and he agrees that is the case.
“I just want to write a song that changes the world. I want to sell out stadiums 10 days in a row. I want everyone to be touched by my music, and the idea of accepting relative mediocrity is quite a painful one internally.”
Don’t get it twisted, though. Tobi’s constant thirst for more does not equate to ungratefulness.
“I’ve achieved my dream,” he acknowledges, “and then I got a new dream.”
He grins, a little mischievously, knowing he will forever be in this loop, and seemingly doesn’t want to get out. For as long as Trash Boat sail on, he will always be reaching for what comes next.
“I think denying that I initially have that feeling would be dishonest. There are some people out there that genuinely don’t have those feelings. They’re just happy with what they got – which I am of course, I have so much – but I will always expect more of myself and always want more.”
Perhaps then, it is this insatiable hunger that has helped the band travel this far already. 2024 marks 10 years of Trash Boat. We acknowledge this, and Tobi interjects proudly, “All original members as well!” And gloat he should. Staying bandmates (and friends) for a whole decade with a pandemic thrown in the mix, alongside physical and mental struggles, is no mean feat. Trash Boat deserve their flowers.
This love for their craft is visible, too. Posing for photos surrounded by various sausage dog ornaments that decorate the studio, the band’s mouths often twitch with suppressed laughter between shots. But has anything changed amongst them over the past decade?
“You know what? No,” he beams. “We have always fit together so well from the start and I think it’s because there’s no hierarchy. We all exist on a very equal plane. We all hold each other to the same standard and no-one can rise above the others and take charge.
“It keeps us all humble,” he continues. “We’re more like a family. Of course we argue, but not to the extent that we would ever consider losing a member or having a really bad fight. It’s just bickering.”
With that said, the five-piece will continue making music that feeds their soul for a very long time. They have never done what people think they should, particularly when it comes to their sound and experiments with genre. That will never change. Heaven Can Wait has already been dubbed by Tobi as their “heaviest, slowest, fastest, most complicated and contradictory” album. It melds luxurious and dark instrumentation similar to that of Deftones with the creative chaos of Enter Shikari. You’ll even hear a 22-second-long scream in Are You Ready Now?, which implores the heavy slog of recovery and working your way out of despair.
“One of the biggest criticisms I’ve seen from people is that they think that we’re constantly trying to reinvent ourselves, as if on an album to album basis, we think, ‘What’s going to work this time? What’s going to get us the biggest [success]?’ And whether they want to believe it or not, it’s just not true,” he states.
Would it be fair to say Trash Boat are still figuring themselves and their sound out?
“We are, perpetually, I guess. When you say, ‘figuring yourselves out’, that puts an end point on it. I don’t see an end point. I see a constant evolution that is entirely dependent on how we feel at the time. There’s no, ‘We’re going to pick this style,’ there’s just, ‘What riffs and lyrics do we fuck with in this moment?’ Does it sound good? Let’s put it out.”
Tobi gets it, though. Some people want consistency. They want guaranteed hardcore or guaranteed pop-punk with every release. They want whatever it was they first fell in love with. For Trash Boat, such uniformity would be stifling.
“Who knows where it’s going to go?” he says. “I think that’s part of the fun.”
The ocean that the Boat Brotherhood sail in stretches far beyond the horizon. They want to be bigger, better, collaborate more, tour more. Though our interview has been peppered with the odd self-depreciating joke, Tobi knows Trash Boat are fucking great, and can only get ever greater.
“Getting onstage, and just seeing how riled up I can get people, I just want more of that. Best drug ever. I see everyone in the crowd, and they’re vibrating, and as soon as we play a note, you just see everyone lose their fucking mind. They forget everything,” he says with wild eyes.
“We’re a black hole of opportunities, and whatever presents itself to us, we will snatch it with both hands.”
Get your exclusive Kerrang! x Trash Boat T-shirt and hoodie now.
Heaven Can Wait is released on October 4 via Hopeless Records.
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