Interview with The Trujillo Company

I have known all the members of The Trujillo Company through various bands in Denver over the years, but never done a sit-down interview with the current group. I was able to get on Zoom with Mike Trujillo recently to talk about their how they came together, the latest single, and how they are forging ahead after lockdown times.

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The Trujillo Company Interview

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Aimee:
So, tell me about your new single. Let’s talk about that first and foremost, and then we can catch up on what the band’s been up to.

Mike:
Yeah, it’s called “Down Below.” It’s going to be the first single off the new album, which we called Four Arrows. We’re going to release the album early summer, but we’re doing a single every six weeks – which started on February 10th.

Aimee:
Oh, wow. Nice. Are they already recorded?

Mike:
Yes, ma’am. Everything’s ready to go.

Aimee:
Wow. Tell me about the song. I watched the video and I think it’s really clever how the lyrics pull back to the Nineties, weaves that all together. Where’d you get the idea for that?

Mike:
Yeah. It’s been a riff, the main riff of the song, that I’ve been toying with for a long time and just couldn’t really put it together the way that I wanted to. Then finally when we were working on songs for the album, I was like, I got this one that I’ve been kind of sitting on for a really long time and just, we should jam it out and see how it goes. When we played it, it was just really supernatural. Mark and Lenny really picked on it right away. All I could think of was how important the Nineties were to shaping the musician that I am today, and what songs really did leave a lasting mark on me, and what kind of a legacy that really leaves on you.

Then that really got me thinking about how different times are now compared to back when we used to record mix tapes. I had a little radio deck that had the option to record the radio. I could record songs and make little mix tapes for myself. I remember one time my dad took one to school on accident, and it went to Eric Clapton, “I Shot the Sheriff,” and the kids in the class were loving it, but he was just like, “I don’t know where that came from.” But I was like, “Oh yeah, sorry. I was practicing my mix tapes.”

Aimee:
Oh, that’s so funny.

Mike:
Then I just really thought about, I started playing guitar when I was 15, and the songs that had impacted me at the time and what I was trying to learn to play, and the ones that just really got me in the mode of being like, “Yeah, I want to play music,” you know?

Aimee:
That’s right. What a nice tribute.

Mike:
Yeah. I thought it would be nice to get back and reflect and actually feel the nostalgia, because you get the pain and the love at the same time.

Aimee:
Right? I thought the video was clever, because to be honest, the first time I heard the song, I didn’t entirely pick up on how much the lyrics went back to that.  I’m sure if I had listened to the song a couple more times, I would’ve picked up on it. It’s not like it’s not obvious, but I think the video is really clever for that too.

Mike:
Thank you.

Aimee:
Did you guys make the video yourselves or how did that go?

Mike:
Oh, yeah. By daytime profession, I’m a video editor, so I have a big passion for that. Everything that we’ve created recently has been stuff that I’ve put together. I knew that I wanted to put out something that was going to be striking visually, but I didn’t have time to go out and film a bunch of stuff, so I got a bunch of stock footage. I started looking up things, like I said, tapes and old stereos and radios and stuff. Surprisingly, there was enough footage that I could find royalty-free that I was able to craft together a little story that really accompanied the music well. I used like 84 clips.

Aimee:
Sure, sure. I think that’s a clever thing that people don’t think about sometimes. Like I use stock art with my designs all the time, and there’s a lot of quality stuff out there, and I think that’s a smart way to use it. I would never have picked up on it, that that’s what you did. That’s cool.

Mike:
Yeah, there’s nothing so quality that, as a storyteller, when you have striking imagery.

Aimee:
Yeah. Let’s go back and, because this is actually the first time I’ve ever interviewed you, even though we’ve known each other all these years. Just tell me a little bit about the formation of the band and a little history.

Mike:
Yeah. It was Lenny and I back when we started the band as a two piece. We got together and started jamming in May of 2017. I had just started a new career, but I had the itch to get back into music after I went back to school to graduate and get my degree. I had put music off for a couple years there. Lenny and I have known each other since 2010, 2011. We had met at a friend’s birthday party and he was like, “Hey, Lenny Trujillo, this is Mike Trujillo. You Trujillos should hang out or something.”

Aimee:
I feel like it’s so funny because you guys at alternate times and have teased me, making me think that you are related or you’re not related… but you’re not related, correct?

Mike:
Yeah, it’s no blood relation, but I always like to play it like the White Stripes. Loved how Jack White and Meg White did that for a long time of, “Are they married? Are they not married?”

Aimee:
Right. Right.

Mike:
So we kind of let the mythos build that way. Then, funny enough, I mean, we always used the word “brother” and “cousin” quite a bit just in our everyday vernacular, so definitely people are like, “Oh, that’s your brother, right?” Yeah, sure, totally. I was just like, how fun would that be to play with another Trujillo? It was instant; we just clicked, and it was so natural. It was like, oh my God, this is exactly what I had wanted to hear in my head, drum wise, without even having to tell him.

Aimee:
Awesome.

Mike:
We knew that we had a chemistry there, and interestingly enough, Lenny was contemplating moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma, at the time. It was the first jam session that we had together that he, in fact, turned down the job.

Aimee:
To stay with you!

Mike:
Right. Yeah, so I was like, “All right, man, well, let’s do this.” We spent the first five months of just writing music together and really crafting our sound and trying to build an image, starting out as a fresh band after I’d played with other Denver bands. It was just like, I had seen some local success and knew the amount of work that goes into getting up there locally. So I knew that it was going to be a lot of hard work, but it was also nice because I felt like the music that we were putting out was going to be strong enough to warrant the effort.

Aimee:
Right.

Mike:
Then we finally started playing live in January of 2018, and we played our first show at Larimer Lounge with Too Many Humans. It was their show. Mark was playing bass for Too Many Humans at the time.

Aimee:
Yes! I think I was at that show.

Mike:
It’s full circle now that Mark in The Trujillo Company. Our first show as a band, technically, he was there, he was on the bill. Yeah, and then, I have known Mark for damn near 15 years, going back to when he was in White Leather…

Aimee:
Wire Dogs.

Mike:
The Hate, Wire Dogs. We’ve been kicking around wishing that we could play in the band officially together for a long time. It definitely came to be in 2021.

Aimee:
That’s great. That was going to be the next question – of how Mark came to join you, so I think that’s a perfect turning around of that. Do you have any shows coming up this year that you’re excited about, or is that still to be scheduled?

Mike:
Yeah, I’m currently scheduling stuff, looking to do the album release in either May or June, but we’ve applied the normal Denver fests and working on those things. Venturing out in May and June and actually doing some touring out, either Seattle or to Nashville, I’m working on those shows right now too.

Aimee:
That’s great. It’s nice to see everybody doing more national touring. I think it’s really helping people build up the following.

Mike:
Yeah. It’s great to see.

Aimee:
Along those lines, I mean, I probably could guess the answer to this. Tell me some of the bands that influenced you growing up.

Mike:
Oh yeah. Big, big Nirvana fan. When you listen to the music as a kid, you’re just like, “Well, what can I actually play?” Whether that’s “Smoke on the Water,” like the first riff you ever learned, you know? Eventually someone shows you that opening riff to “Smells like Teen Spirit,” and you’re like, oh man, I can make it through the majority of the song with just these four chords. So Nirvana was big for me, definitely Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. I have to laugh because a friend of mine offered to sell me some CDs when I was in seventh grade, and he literally had every grunge band possible there… what I went with was Nevermind. It was the album that I spent my 10 bucks on.

Aimee:
That was the first album you ever bought yourself?

Mike:
Yeah, yeah.

Aimee:
I love that. Well, I’m older than you, so my first tape that I bought was Thriller.

Mike:
Really? Well, my dad was super eclectic. He was in the Vietnam War and in the Navy. He always said the one saving and grace of being in the war was that he got to hear music from everybody on the ship because everybody came from different areas. My dad was really big into the British invasion. Every Saturday morning I’d get up and he’d be making breakfast and cleaning the house jamming to the Buckinghams and some deep cuts that people today probably have not heard. But a lot of the Kinks and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. He was also into Grand Funk Railroad and ZZ Top. That was our big bonding together. My first concert that I got to see in person was ZZ Top.

Aimee:
Wow, that’s cool. Funny. My mom, literally, the three things she listened to were Elvis Presley, Billy Joel, and German Polka music. Literally.

Mike:
Dance… and polka.

Aimee:
Right. Anyway, but it’s interesting how the nostalgia plays into that. I always say, when people ask me what you guys sound like, I say Black Sabbath.

Mike:
Oh wow. Thank you.

Aimee:
So, how does the songwriting go between you guys?

Mike:
Typically, I’ll come in with a riff or a song idea. Sometimes I have stuff structured out from, I try to play every day, so anytime I hear music calling in my ear, I run to the guitar instantly and try to put something down so I don’t forget for later. But typically I’ll have some kind of structure or something lined out and then I’ll bring it into rehearsal and say, “Hey, what do you guys think about this?” Then it starts with a vocal melody rather than just having words or anything and then crafting to that. Most of the time I definitely do all the lyric writing for most part. There’s a couple songs that Lenny’s brought to the table, especially on this new record, which has been great. And then working together collaboratively and filling in the gaps of what’s missing.

I always love it because it’s like in Jurassic Park with the DNA chain, you’ve just got to fill in the gaps. Lenny will have an idea and he’ll just be like, “That’s as far as I can take it, man, but I hear this.” So once we get some kind of structure down, I’m meticulous with it, so I’ll sit there throughout the whole day and just listen to a rehearsal session. I keep listening to the same songs over and over and over again until I get it where I’m like, “Oh man, I can hear this idea now,” and work from there.

Aimee:
That’s so smart. Yeah. It’s funny. That’s a question I ask a lot because the answer is always different.

Mike:
Yeah. Like I said it’s a process, you know?

Aimee:
OK, anything I didn’t ask that you would like to mention?

Mike:
Just how grateful we are to be part of the Denver music scene. It’s great to see the eclectic and talented people coming up or the old school bands who are still going. A great community.

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