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It’s never easy to deliver a second album, but Trophy Eyes frontman John Floreani is a satisfied man. Speaking from the US of A, he unabashedly reveals the positive response to their new record, ‘Chemical Miracle’. “UNFD loves it, our managers love it, my mum loves it”, he laughs.
“Everyone has been fantastic. We’ve been playing the new songs over here in America and people are already singing them. They’re stoked on it, actually much more even than our old tracks”. Once a low-profile outfit from quiet Newcastle, it’s a point of pride for Aussie rock fans that the band is attracting audiences, world over. That isn’t to say that’s been achieved without a lot of hard work, with their US success attributable to the elbow grease invested in touring the States last year with Warped. “Every night when I finish the set, I run down to merch and just try and meet as many people as I can”, Floreani reveals.
“At least five of those people every night saw us at Warped Tour and those people I guess have told their friends. We’ve had a lot of people say ‘I showed my friends you guys after Warped Tour’, people saying ‘my friend showed me you guys, they saw you on Warped’, so word gets around. It definitely helped us make our presence stronger in America”.
It’s not just the Western countries that are lapping up Trophy Eyes, as Floreani gleefully points out. “My favourite show we’ve ever played was in Northern Italy. We’d never been there before. We expected two or three kids to show up. It was like 250 people in this room and they knew every single word. They couldn’t even speak English and they were still singing along. It was totally mindblowing”. Despite their overseas jaunts, they’re still loved back at home Down Under.
Prior to heading over to America, the UNFD artists packed out a gig at Frankie’s Pizza in Sydney and anyone who was there isn’t likely to forget it anytime soon. “I feel like Trophy Eyes’ sound is suited to that environment”, Floreani notes, praising “tiny little venues you can fit as many people into as you can and just go crazy”.
“It’s getting drunk and jumping off weird shit and expelling all of that energy”, he mentions. “We’ve had a couple of Frankie’s shows like that”. Beneath the rush of the moshpit, there’s substance under what Floreani puts forth and his desire to instill meaning into his music informed the creative process of ‘Chemical Miracle’.
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“’Chemical Miracle’ I guess just kind of sums up life. Everything in life, or in the world that exists, is a chemical. But the way it exists, we still don’t know how or why life is”, ponders Floreani. “So I guess in that sense, it is a miracle. I guess that’s how I see life. I kind of explained that to the boys and they thought it was a great way to depict that meaning”. Prevalent themes on the album relate to love, death and plunging into the depths of melancholy. Rather than simply being about life, ‘Chemical Miracle’ explores what happens when you’re living.
“In everybody’s lifetime, they go through things like love and death and depression, things that dramatically change the way you look at the world and the way the rest of your life plays out”. While Floreani claims to be the kind of person who doesn’t “really talk to anybody” about his feelings, the album is a candid recollection of his encounters with friends committing suicide and having seen his “fair share of depression, heartache, and love”.
“I guess writing about things is therapeutic for me”, he admits. “It’s totally important for people to speak about their feelings. If I could help anybody with the music we’re writing it would be with [the fact] that there’s somebody out there who feels like that. It’s okay to feel like that and feel normal”. It’s not all doom and gloom with Trophy Eyes, despite the human experiences detailed on ‘Chemical Miracle’ being devastating at some points. “My mother cares for us as a single mother and I learned what a person will do when they love you unconditionally, like a mother loves a child”, he points out.
In his words, mothers will “do anything they possibly can regardless of their own wellbeing. I’m very grateful for that kind of lesson so early on in life”. Floreani’s candour is refreshing and something his fans clearly appreciate, with Trophy Eyes selling out three dates of their 2017 Australian tour. For better or worse, Floreani believes life is all about learning through experience. “Doing it, and getting your hands dirty. These things will happen, but it’s all about experiencing them”.
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