AN INTERVIEW WITH TREY MILLS


By: Fridae Mattas




FRIDAE: “Before we start in on the music I would like to get to know more about Trey, tell me a bit about you.”


TREY: “Oh ok that’s wide open! A bit about me I am Canadian so uh thank you, we had a lot of snow in the last week so being Canadian I enjoyed shoveling snow all day long on a Sunday.”


FRIDAE: “Where did you grow up?”


TREY: “In Owen Sound just two hours north of here (Toronto) it’s like Buffalo North.”


FRIDAE: “What was it like growing up with a father who was a preacher and a teacher?”


TREY: “He’s a preacher that didn’t really preach to me, I think he led more by example. He ended up leaving the Church and moving into the school, he felt that was a better way to actually help people because the church was too rigid for him. This is years ago my dad welcomed everyone into the church so it didn’t matter about race or sexuality or any of that stuff. He just said “My church is a place for people to come.” He tried building his community like that and of course by the Bishops, that was unaccepted, it was a terrible thing to them. How can you let people in that have not been baptized or from another race, he got very frustrated with the Church.”


FRIDAE: “So what brings you to the music industry professionally? How did that happen?”


TREY: “My mother is a choir director and piano teacher; there was a lot of putting on the red robe with the white collar and singing in the choir every Sunday and Thursday which was humiliating so it helped me develop thick skin, I learned how to handle ridicule especially when the school orchestra came in “Whose the guy wearing the robe!” That was tough and at the time I hated my mother for putting me through that, I’m like she hates me why is she doing this? But now I have a nice foundation in music


FRIDAE: “You have produced music for a bunch of different artists, is this your first record as an artist yourself?”


TREY: “Yeah!”


FRIDAE: “How do you feel about that, how was the recording process? Was it grueling and frustrating or was it all smooth sailing?”


TREY: “It was pure release; I finally was able to just let it all out, all the stuff that I have been holding back, songs that have been building up. Things that are personal I wouldn’t preach to somebody, it’s me and my
experiences it’s like therapy.”


FRIDAE: “It has this personal journalistic vibe to it from track to track, what was your main inspiration behind the album?”


TREY: “A girl named Carly, her name appears in a few of the songs. I’m writing about Canada too and travelling it. It’s a lot of time spent between shows, we all know this, and people outside of Canada can’t wrap their brains around how you can drive for fifteen hours from one show to your next show, what do you do so a lot of experiences go on in that time.”


FRIDAE: “I’m sure there are plenty of experiences!"


FRIDAE: “How would you describe your sound?”


TREY: “It’s tough because I have so many influences from a variety of genres.”


FRIDAE: “I heard a little Bono and Chris Martin in a few tracks a one point."


TREY: “Well Chris Martin has a beautiful falsetto voice which I dig and Bono when I was a kid growing up ‘With or Without You’ just changed my life I was like whoa this is crazy! So “Joshua Tree” was an awesome album that was one of my early vocal influences. In general I am more influenced by soul singers so I’m more influenced by Stevie Wonder and all these guys that I sound nothing like. It took me a while to figure it out so I try and sing like Stevie but it doesn’t work. I produce my genres but I’ve tried to build my record around the voice that I have. It was hard to find influences I feel I could connect to so Freddy Mercury from Queen, George Michael and Bono. There are some white dudes with a lot soul and they are not singing Motown but they probably listen to a lot of Motown so it’s kind of built in there.”


FRIDAE: “It’s always a foundation.”


TREY: “For sure, for sure!”


FRIDAE: “Which of the tracks is your favorite, if you had to pick which one is closest?”


TREY: “At this moment “Holding On” and it always changes just because it’s so much fun to play, it takes all the energy I have to play, a lot of fun to play I guess the live show right now is bringing the songs to life.”


FRIDAE: “You know what honestly, from listening to the album to listening to you perform live, you are so much better live. On the album it doesn’t capture your essence and the soul your voice actually does have, you do have some soul, Canadian soul!”


TREY: “Thank you very much, because my experiences have been more in the studio and I’ve wanted to represent the record I just didn’t want to disappoint people, my fans who have bought the record and love the record. I am finding I have a lot of fans who love the live show.”


FRIDAE: “How did you hear about “Love In Action”?


TREY: “I did my CD release here at Revival in Toronto and at the end of it Joe the owner came and said “I love your band and love what you are doing so I’m going to pencil you in for December 20th.” I was like what are you talking about I don’t know if I’m around then I don’t know what’s going. Then I saw the date was falling upon us and we haven’t done any promotions for it yet and my friend who is producing my video after Christmas calls me up and asks me to donate a sleeping bag. I asked what are you doing, she explained to me about the mission to help the homeless by raising two hundred sleeping bags but she needed a venue and artists so I said well I have a venue and I was planning on performance. Especially now it’s the holiday season people can keep warm, what we are doing tonight is really amazing!”


FRIDAE: “Yeah it’s awesome because people tend to forget about those in our own backyards, they only think oh let’s go to Africa but what about the people next door or down the street!”


TREY: “It’s been the coldest most miserable December weather wise! It’s tough it gets cold. We are making a difference; we have sixty volunteers working around us each volunteer is enrolling three or four people, to help you have to get people involved to make things happen.”


FRIDAE: “You are going to deliver sleeping bags tomorrow night?”


TREY: “I am going out myself.”


FRIDAE: “By yourself or with a group?”


TREY: “No, with a group.”


FRIDAE: “How are you doing this just handing them out like here you go, here you go?”


TREY: “The owner of another club (The EL Mocambo) Abbas who is out every night from two till six in the morning feeding the homeless from his hummer he spends over twenty thousand dollars a month in groceries out of his own pocket.”


FRIDAE: “That’s amazing that he does that, taking time out of his own life to help homeless people.”


TREY: “He’s taking us with him to help us connect; really we are going with him to help him out!”


FRIDAE: “Well Trey thank you very much that is it, it’s over!”


TREY: “Thank You.”


Trey Mills




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