The Tressels

02/15/2006

Rock music with a dose of insanity
By Joe McAllister , CORRESPONDENT

The Tressels, a Drexel Hill-based band, will release its second CD Friday.
Tresselmania is coming. Don't say you weren't warned. "We like to say we sound like if Bruce Springsteen grew up listening to Radiohead," says Brian "Big Dirty Tressel" Sarkisian. "We're into the classic stuff like Neil Young but also into the newer bands like "Guided By Voices" and "Morning Jacket."
Besides Springsteen and Neil Young, professional musical influences Warren Zevon and Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. "We're a very loose, fun band," says Sarkisian. "We're always out to have a good time."
In yet another Tresselism, the band describes itself as Steve Miller meets Grizzly Man. "We love that movie," says Sarkisian.
"A guy goes out to the woods to live with the bears - and they eat him.
Personality-wise, we can relate."
And that is just the mixed musical message this eclectic, blue-collar band from Delco wants to project. On-stage, The Tressels are one, big dysfunctional family.
Besides Big Dirty, The Tressels are Andrew Fullerton, 22, guitar, aka "Butch Tressel," drummer Patrick McCollough, 21, known as "Cheeseburger Tressel." Shaker and tambourine player extraordinaire is Mike Turner, 22, with the stage moniker of Mickey Reds Tressel; John Graham, "Lord Jonesy Tressel" on bass and Mudflaps Tressel known to his mother as Jason Rogers, 22 on keyboards and cello.
Just a bunch of guys from the neighborhood playing rock 'n' roll and weirding out onstage.
Now The Tressels are ready to step out from the shadows of the El and rumble across America. First stop: Club 218 on South Street in Philadelphia for the record release party of their sophomore CD Divorce.
Following closely on the heels of their debut album Burmont Bill has a Posse, this Drexel Hill-based band is ready to break out - from a mental asylum.
"We're available for interviews and can give you colorful quotes like 'we are musical paint thinner' writes Brian "Big Dirty" Sarkisian in an e-mail press release. Musical paint thinner?
"Yeah, some bands want to be your musical heroin ... We just want to mess up your brain."
By listening to songs like "Autopsy," "I'm Thrilled," and "I'll Stay Up" the brain isn't destroyed but rather soothed by the tight arrangements and orchestrated syncopation of a band that knows where its headed musically.
Just ask any Tresselmaniac.
"We think of ourselves as a weird artistic band with an eccentric music taste that drink at neighborhood bars," says Butch - Andrew Fullerton - Tressel.
"Our typical fans are a mixture of construction worker and hipsters with some regular dudes and girls."
The Tressels have always done the unusual. Before playing live, three original group members recorded the infamous "Burmont Bill has a Posse" first. "Then we got together as a live band," recalls Sarkisian.
"We're very hands-on. We record everything ourselves with the help of musical computer software like Pro Tools.
The band has been together as a living, breathing, playing unit for just nine months. "Our new record Divorce is like six guys who had a messed up baby," is how Sarkisian describes the band's latest musical creation.
The Tressels now play regular gigs in Philly and New York but know their future lies on the Internet.
"In a couple of months, Divorce will be available on itunes," says Fullerton. "CD sales are down. It's all about the Internet now - digital music. We're basing our marketing on the Internet."
Fullerton is banking that people will pluck down a buck for a Tressels tune. If you ever hear "I'll Stay Up," you'll part with a dollar gladly.
"That song is the centerpiece of our show. We extend it and change the arrangement when we play it live," says Fullerton who describes his alter-ego Butch as a "real thoughtful guy but a nutcase, too."
Fullerton's haunting voice and brutally honest lyrics paint a dark but not hopeless picture. "I'll Stay Up" is probably the closest thing The Tressels have to a love song.
"We don't write true love songs," says Sarkisian. "But hope still shines through most of our songs." And that's no easy exclamation when song subject matter wanders from Nazis to autopsies - all done in a Jimmy Buffet meets Jimi Hendrix kind of way.
Fullerton shows this devil-may-care band's more busy-savvy side when he describes their latest CD as having "more of a pop sense. We know people are listening to our music now so we make it a bit more satisfying."
But what about this whole Tressel bit? "It's just like the Ramones," says Fullerton. "Playing rock 'n' roll is like a fantasy life anyway so you make up a character."
Watch out. The reality band The Tressels may be coming to an iPod near you.
To find out more, go to www.allnewtunes.com/thetressels or www.myspace.com/thetressels.


- Joe McAllister

I didn't think much good would come out of PA this year, and this album proved me wrong (yet again.) The song "Autopsy" will chew off your face and make you eat it with it's driving guitar riffs alone.

by Christine

versatile album ranging from acoustic folk to pop rock to alt country. it's like The Damnwells led by Ben Kweller plus strings and occasional horns. wonderful.

by noise for toaster

- Christine, Noise for Toaster

"One very surreal and seductive vision much like that of neutral milk hotel and the Decemberists" - Ryan Hoffer, Shut Eye Records

West Chester, PA – Rex’s

Enter Santa Claus Tressel, patron mascot saint of The Tressels band. We walk in Rex’s to set up and there’s a beat up plastic Santa Claus lawn ornament on stage wearing a Spider Man mask.

I move to investigate further and am met by Mickey Reds. Mickey, plays tambourine and shaker in The Tressels. He tells me to, “Man up, and do a shot.” During The Tressels’ set, when there was not a beer in Mickey’s non shaker hand, there was a smoke. He brought it, hard, Ozzfest style.

Santa Claus Tressel was kicked, ashed on, and stepped on. But he remained - solid and stoic, with Christmas cheer. The women like Santa Claus Tressel. He commands respect, while at the same time, his gaze is tender and loving, in an inanimate kind of way. Mickey drank 9 beers and absolutely killed it on shakers and smokes.

Trent - out.

- Trent Moorman, Thestranger.com