Introduced by Monk
We first came across Liverpudlian garage rockers Little Triggers – essentially a one-man project centred around guitarist/songwriter Tom Hamilton, with a revolving cast of supporting musicians joining him along the road – back in 2019, when they made an impact similar to a medium-sized meteor with their debut single, ‘So Fine’. Now, three years, an album and a glut of singles down the line, they are back with their latest release, ‘Personality Crisis’. So, what better time to find out a bit more about the band, what they have been up to in the recent past and where they see their future taking them…
As ever, I started at the beginning, by asking Tom who all was on board with him at the moment:
The band is currently a flexible three/four piece with myself on lead vocals and guitar, Chris on guitar, Alan on bass and Sam on drums. I also play keyboards and harmonica on occasion.
How did you come together?
I’ve known Chris for years and he played bass in the original Little Triggers line-up. He is a great guitarist and he and I have really developed something special as twin lead guitarists. Alan and Chris are two young guys whom I jammed with when thinking of starting a Beatles tribute band. They bring the average age of the band down to early twenties!
Personally, as a historian, I have an interest in etymology, so I feel have to ask about where the band name came from and if it has any special significance…
I led a teenage R&B band called The 45s who had some success and we were offered a large publishing deal by Primary Wave/BMG. However, the other guys, under pressure from school and parents quit, leaving me to soldier on and fulfil a French tour with a couple of session musicians. Having lost the deal I then moved to Liverpool to study at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts and then the Liverpool Media Academy. While there I put a new band together but we were getting good gig offers for The 45s including festivals in France, so we went out and played them as The 45s.
It soon became obvious to me that we couldn’t continue calling the band The 45s as I’d moved on musically and it was basically a different band. Interestingly, we never got any complaints from people who turned up to see us. So, the search for a new name started. As anyone in a similar position will know its bloody hard to find a unique name that hasn’t been used before. We went through loads of ideas and I ended up flicking through the record collection given to me by my Dad. I picked up ‘This Year’s Model’ by Elvis Costello and The Attractions and scanned the track listing. ‘Little Triggers’ jumped out at me as a cool name for a young rock band. Amazingly there only seemed to be one band that had used that name and they were no longer active. We grabbed it with both hands!
Does the name Little Triggers reflect what you are seeking to do/achieve as a band?
That’s a tricky one. The simple reality was that it just sounded right for us at the time. I do use some old Blues memes in my lyrics which include the use of guns and shooting in an allegorical way. I’m certainly not advocating violence as a way of ending relationships! We have then carried this over to our artwork on occasion with the odd gun and bullet hole appearing on album and singles covers.
Music is categorized into various genres and sub-genres. How would you define your sound? What individual and collective influences do you draw on for your sound?
We’ve described our sound as ‘the new rock n roll’ and over a period of time the sound got heavier. We are no heavy metal outfit but the two piece version of the band established a wall of sound that carried some punch. My more recent writing, together with a return to a four piece line-up has widened the musical palate at my disposal and I’d now describe our sound as ’Garage Rock’, but in essence we are a rock n roll band with influences ranging from The Sonics through to MC5 and The Hives.
You are just about to release your first single with the new line-up… can you tell us about it?
The inspiration for ‘Personality Crisis’ came from the explosion of social media influencers and the millions of young people who follow them. I don’t feel any connection to this sort of instant gratification online culture. The minds of these digital influencers are a closed book to me. I just don’t get why so many people think they have something meaningful to say.
The personality crisis of the song title is both my alienation from this virtual world and also that of the individuals who think their online musings really matter. To them and their followers I say get a life – a real life!
Having taken a swipe at social media’s influencer generation, how important is social media in getting your music out there?
Is it more important than, say, streaming outlets especially given the fact that the financial returns for streaming can mean a band doing a lot of work for relatively little reward – i.e. you earn very small percentage returns, with the services themselves taking large chunks of your potential income. Is it worth the effort, or is it a fact of the business that you just have to accept?
Personally, I wish it didn’t exist. The lyrics to the new single make that pretty clear! Of course, we need to embrace it in some way as its on social media that we can meet new fans and engage with them. So, we do all that Facebook, Instagram, Twitter shit but we haven’t attempted Tik Tok yet!
We make very little money from social media and God knows who rakes in the cash from the adverts that appear before our videos on YouTube. It’s certainly not us. Streaming on the other hand does bring in a little income if you can get to hundreds of thousands of streams. Your numbers on Spotify are in the public domain and are thrown back at you by promoters and others in the industry. We all know that artists and their management/label use paid for marketing to boost those numbers, we’ve done it ourselves, but it’s all smoke and mirrors masquerading as hard facts.
The pandemic of the past couple of years led to a log of bands having to explore other methods of generating income marketing themselves. I’m thinking of how many bands found themselves having to go down the live streaming route. And a lot of them charged their fans for watching the shows. I know there are pros and cons to “free” versus “pay per view”, but as a young band I’d be interested to know if, given the shitfuck of the past two years, it is more important for you to get your music out there than to make money out of doing so? I guess the point I’m making is “is it worth some short-term pain for long term gain”?
To be absolutely honest, we found it hard to get into the live streaming thing. Getting hold of a suitable venue wasn’t easy and then finding partners to put on and promote the show was impossible for us. We ended up going into our recording studio in Liverpool and recording short sessions where we played live but videoed them for use on our You Tube channel.
One really successful ‘as live’ stream was when we were chosen to be part of the finals of a US music competition called the ‘No Cover‘ show where Alice Cooper was lead judge. We were supposed to go over to Hollywood for two weeks to film the show but were precluded from travelling due to Covid restrictions. The organisers asked us to provide a unique rendition of one of our songs and it was played as part of the finale to season one this summer. As it was shown on the Sumerian label YouTube channel those watching could submit comments.
Despite seeing only around two minutes of our performance people were commenting that we could have won the entire competition. It was a huge surprise but great to read such positive comments coming from people who had never heard of the band before. We have been personally approved to appear on season two by Sumerian owner Ash Avildsen and we are currently waiting on a confirmed date for filming which will take place at The Troubadour Club in West Hollywood.
Life does seem to be getting back to some form of normality, but do you think the option of things such as lives streams will continue to be used by bands, especially to reach into territories where they may not be able to play, or afford to go to?
In my opinion nothing beats the experience of seeing a band live and present in the room. Live streaming just can’t replicate the excitement, the sweat and the noise. If asked to take part, of course we will do live streams but I’d much rather drive hundreds of miles in a crappy old van to play live in front of 50 people. They then become real fans and are priceless.
So, what is next for the band? What is the plan for, say, the rest of 2022 and 2023 in terms of getting out there and bringing your music to new and expanding audiences?
‘Personality Crisis’ has just been released, and we have a headline gig at The Green Door Store in Brighton on 10 December to showcase the single and the new line-up. That’ll be a boss night. I’ve written some new material and want to get into the studio to do some recording.
The plan is to put some new songs out as an EP early in 2023. We’ve got someone in the States putting feelers out about a possible ÜS tour next spring/summer, and, of course, we are waiting on dates to be heading out to LA to take part in season two of the ‘No Cover’ show.
OK, now a bit of fun, and a couple of quickfire “out there” questions to give us a wee bit of an insight into your personality:
- Ice cream: vanilla or strawberry? Strawberry, vanilla sucks.
- Gravy or curry sauce on your chips? Gravy please.
- Salted or sweet popcorn? Salted.
- Buckfast or Iron Bru? Iron Bru.
- Smarties or M&Ms? M&Ms. I’m not a child of the sixties!
- Pineapple on pizza? Yeuch!
Final question: If you had your choice of any bill to be a part of, who would be the three other bands (signed or otherwise) you would choose to play with?
The Hives, Arctic Monkeys and The Rolling Stones.
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