Trust Punks

Right now, Auckland quintet Trust Punks are attaching themselves to this lineage. The band’s constituents still look fresh-faced, but their debut LP Discipline isn’t an account of adolescent indiscretions. The album’s lyrics were largely informed by the work of French philosopher and social theorist Michel Foucault.

“With that Foucault thing, [it’s] the idea that power relations aren’t always obvious and they aren’t always apparent to the people that play into them in the most harmful ways,” says Trust Punks guitarist and sometime vocalist Joseph Thomas. “I think we’re particularly susceptible to playing into that sort of thing because we’re middle class, white and we’re men. That was something that we were becoming more and more aware of as we got older.”

Foucault’s philosophy is reasonably lucid to read, but paraphrasing his theories of social and political import in an academic piece of writing isn’t exactly a breeze. Rearticulating these ideas within snappy punk songs seems an insurmountable task. Thomas clarifies that Discipline isn’t intended to be a precis of Foucault’s challenging theories.

“When I’m called upon to talk about it I have real trouble expressing myself,” he says. “Because we’re not academics, it’s hard to justify how we feel about it. So that’s why it’s music and why we didn’t write an essay.”

Trust Punks mightn’t have pretensions about being literary scholars, but including critiques of prevalent societal norms in their songs is a pretty bold move. However, they’re not the only contemporary punk rockers packing provocative content into their lyrics.

“I like the Perfect Pussy album that came out earlier this year,” says Thomas. “I know [vocalist/lyricist] Meredith Graves is really interested in Roland Barthes. That was something that made us feel a little bit more comfortable about talking about that sort of thing. Obviously she has a lot more weight behind what she says because she’s actually oppressed in a lot of ways that we aren’t.”

While the Perfect Pussy frontwoman has some first-hand gripes to express, Trust Punks also take cues from another bunch of renegades whose subjective viewpoint is closer to their own.

“Fugazi touch on a lot of stuff about that,” says Thomas. “The song ‘Suggestion’, that really influenced me to ask about the patriarchy. That made me feel like it was OK, you don’t necessarily have to be oppressed yourself to call out oppression. Obviously you can fall into traps a lot easier, but I think if your heart’s in the right place then you can try at least.”

Speaking of oppression, the music industry comprises all sorts of hierarchical imbalance. It’s an environment where even those with the noblest intentions can fall into commercial ennui. Trust Punks aren’t shy about expressing their opinions, but Thomas knows there’s still a lot to learn. “[Fugazi] are probably one of the only rock bands in history that were fully capable of walking the walk as much as talking the talk,” he says. “We can say we’re DIY until we’re blue in the face, but we have a label [Spunk Records] and we have a distribution deal with Universal, apparently. Now that I know how easy it is to fall into a more commercial arrangement, I respect that band a whole lot more.”