Norman emo outfit Trade School has a blast being sad. The music is decidedly mopey and sentimental, very much inspired by the earliest guard of heart-on-sleeve rockers and their modern day acolytes. But it’s also something of a lark, an element its members — singer Christian Curling, guitarist Dylan Mellgren, bassist Miles Redcorn and drummer Taylor Young — like to tease as much as indulge in. They feel all the feels, but they are perfectly aware of how ridiculous those are in the grand scheme of things, too.
Good luck finding music online; there are some rough (but promising) demos to be found with a little digging, but a much better opportunity to appreciate Trade School’s brand of knowing sensitivity is by catching them at a pair of Oklahoma shows this week. Wednesday night they are scheduled to open for Tiny Moving Parts, along with support from Limp Wizurdz and Ultra City, at The Conservatory. Then, on Friday, Trade School is joining Minneapolis hardcore act Conveyer, along with Poughkeepsie’s Meridian, Indiana pop-punks Give and Take, Oklahoma’s own Valleys, and its apparent conjoined-twin Limp Wizurdz at Dope Chapel.
Curling chatted a little bit with us about those shows, the band, and laughing the tears away.
OK: You all started off as Yeahmarkyeah and just recently kind of reassembled as Trade School. Why the name change? And what about Trade School and the connotation associated with that felt like the appropriate fit for you guys as a band?
Curling: We have had multiple incarnations and numerous names in the past, but Yeahmarkyeah was the name we randomly picked when we started to become an established band in Norman. We picked it very randomly at a time when the band was very goofy and less original, and as we matured and grew into our music more and more we found it less appropriate.
A consistent theme in both our music and our ethic as a band is a rejection of values we see as bourgeois and limiting to human freedom. Miles and I are very influenced by the philosophies of absurdism and existentialism, and we see our lyrics, music, and titles as representative of this. So the name Trade School has come to symbolize — to us — a rejection of the elitist assumption that one has to conform to a university education to be successful or happy, and that we would rather embrace beneficial work and working class values as healthier and more honest and free.
… Either that, or we just thought that Trade School sounds dope.
OK: How’d the four of you meet? And what made you want to play and make music together?
Curling: Miles, our bassist, and I met when we were in middle school, immediately beginning to make music together due to our common interests and tastes. We have had various lineups as our music matured and evolved, but we are finally comfortable in our genre and with our bandmates. Miles and Dylan, our current guitarist, are classmates at Norman High School, and we met Taylor Young, our drummer and the frontman of Limp Wizurdz, through the Norman music scene.
It was a very long process of getting to where we are now. We have all matured a great deal since our first days, and personally I would have never guessed we would be making the music that we do now.
OK: There’s a good deal of that kind of Modern Baseball, emo/punk/pop aesthetic rolled into the music, along with some ’90s college-rock vibes. It’s all kind of tied together with that willfully sad kind of mood. Is that something that follows you outside the music or something you kind of purge with songwriting and playing shows together?
Curling: Yeah, we get the Modern Baseball thing a lot. I’m not sure if there’s a Modern Baseball school of vocal performance, but if there is, I would definitely be considered a student of it. We also often cover a couple of their songs live.
I don’t think we’re sad people, but we’re not really happy people either. We throw the word “sad” around a lot because we are making fun of ourselves — for the most part, we consider ourselves part of the emo revival scene. Emo lyrics have a tendency to be almost comically self-pitying, and we made a vow to not be that kind of band. We have referred to our genre as “sadcore” or “sadboy jamz” due to this, and we’re known to bring boxes of tissues on stage.
To answer the question, no, those are not emotions that follow us around outside of music. And even within music, our songs are written in the midst of laughter and obscenity, despite the content matter.
OK: What are some of the other bands you could say you guys are collectively influenced and inspired by, be them Oklahoma artists or otherwise?
Curling: We’re very influenced by Modern Baseball, American Football, Tiny Moving Parts (which is why we’re so excited to be playing with them this Wednesday) and This Town Needs Guns. I wouldn’t name any particular Oklahoma band, but we have been nurtured and supported by the OKC and Norman punk scene, and for that we are forever grateful.
Why should people come out to your shows with Tiny Moving Parts and/or Conveyer?
Curling: All of you should come to both. Tiny Moving Parts has been a huge influence on my songwriting and guitar work for years, and I am so excited to play with them. They’re a fantastic band. Everyone should come out to the Dope Chapel on Friday to support the touring bands and the venue, because the Dope Chapel is just a great place.
