Trail Of Dead Hated Being The 'Perfect Ten' Band

In a recent interview, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead guitarist, vocalist and drummer Jason Reece voiced some misgivings about the perfect Pitchfork score and general critical acclaim heaped on their second album Source Tags And Codes, which they will be playing in full on their upcoming Australian tour.

“We were happy with it of course, you want to be favoured, you want to have that kind of recognition, you want people to realise that you've worked your ass off. But getting a ten, you can't get any higher. And we have never thought we were going to make a couple albums and opt out, go do something else; we have always seen this as a career, as something that would last a long time, maybe even outlast us, something like the Flaming Lips or Sonic Youth, even Fugazi, what they've achieved and still continue to achieve.”

The prospect of a long and storied career where you can still rock out in middle-age clearly appeals to Reece, especially in an industry where youth is prioritized over age and the quick single over the carefully-constructed album.

“We are surrounded by an ever-changing industry that expect different things, but we never succumb to it” he says. “Others will revert back to albums, eventually – Making an album and putting it on vinyl will be anti-establishment – the punk thing to do. In some ways it always was, and always will be.”

“When I was growing up, Sonic Youth and Fugazi were already fucking old to me. They were entering their 40s and I was thinking, 'Dude, I'm listening to old people!' But I gravitated towards those bands because they had soul, they had conviction, they had something that no one else could touch. Age, looks, gender – it doesn't matter, and as long you always have something important to say and do, it never will.”

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