If last month’s sophomore release Running From the Chase hadn’t already made their thesis as a band clear, Truth Club recently wrapped up a month-long set of North American tour dates in a bid to establish themselves as the pre-eminent post-punk-by-way-of-slowcore band working today. Picking up with where they left off with 2019’s brooding, riff-driven Not an Exit, it feels like their latest LP takes pages from the books of their recent gig-mates—namely Horse Jumper of Love’s penchant for sleepy slacker rock and Squirrel Flower’s recent flair for livening a song up with jarringly muscular riffs.
Another important feature of the band’s live set, though, is some A+ stage banter. They aren’t the type of band to slink onstage, bang out 40 minutes of music, and vanish; nor are they the type to feign unrestrained enthusiasm night after night in an era when touring is increasingly transparently more unprofitable than it’s ever been (vocalist Travis Harrington gave us a detailed rundown on his level of sleepiness at their gig in Chicago from underneath an indiscernible mass of hair while tuning his guitar between songs). It’s a facet of their personality that evidently keeps things exciting on the road, as proven by some borderline-chaotic moments captured on film that they’re sharing with us today in tour-diary form.
Although their dates wrapped up at the end of last month, you can find some off-stage highlights from the trip below, which feature cameos from tourmates Squirrel Flower (featured in the above image) as well as Horse Jumper’s Dimitri Giannopoulos, a paparazzi shot of Joe Pera, and a nearly convincing likeness of Dua Lipa (not to mention a fascinating rendering of The Two Genders and a glimpse of Chicago’s anti-rat propaganda that goes unreasonably hard). Find those pictures and captions by the band’s Elise Jaffe below.
Crafting our halloween costumes in NYC with Squirrel Flower before our show at Bowery Ballroom.
Kameron outside of Tubby’s in Kingston testing how well N95 masks actually block particulate matter (he said it worked really well).
Kam and Travis were on a huge chess kick the whole tour. Periodically we’d hear one of them yell from the back of the van (in a very teen-boy-playing-Halo kind of tone) after making a bad chess move.
Elise doing some Bathroom Bouldering in Boston. The rules are simple: Lay some toilet paper down for cleanliness, set your phone to 10 second self timer with flash on and set to 0.5, and then see how high you can climb before the photo goes off.
Kam and Yvonne going hunting in Boston.
Yvonne striking a pose with Dua Lipa.
Jacob from Squirrel Flower taking a pre-show nap.
Jacob post-nap.
Sadly the diner was closed when we stopped by :(
Travis hanging out with Joe Pera at the bar in Pittsburgh.
Kam in classic form: reading a book at the back of a loud venue in Pittsburgh.
Phoebe running Squirrel Flower merch in Pittsburgh without a voice.
Enjoying and photographing the sunset together before the Pittsburgh show with Squirrel Flower.
Michael from Squirrel Flower appreciating a beautiful work of songwriting and lyricism.
Toronto was our first ever international show—we spent a lot of time admiring Canadian money.
All of us admiring the natural beauty of Niagara Falls.
We stopped at Buccees and Kam and Yvonne got their classic jar of pickled garlic. Anytime they opened the jar, you could smell it throughout the whole van immediately.
Fiona the cat admiring Travis as he practiced guitar.
Kam loves mushrooms and really tried his hardest to pull this one off the tree, but it had too strong of a grip. In Chicago.
Detroit: our gracious host for the night, Modelo.
No explanation needed.
Kam getting cozy in Boston.
Hanging out in the van. We had a lot of extra room to really stretch out and move our feet.
Elise and Miss Kiss just doing their thing. On the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.
Elise learning about the dangers of rats in Chicago!
Dimitri of Horse Jumper of Love drinking something truly hazardous…but you can’t argue with a pre-show ritual.
Travis getting his workout on in Asheville. It was not his birthday.
Yvonne really experimenting with the mirror ceilings in the greenroom of DRKMTTR in Nashville.
Our gracious hosts in Pittsburgh! This is shortly before spending 10 hours in the van driving to Boston.
Our final night with Squirrel Flower in DC had a strict load-out time because of a Halloween party following our show. We ended up loading out all of our gear, merch, and personal things into a huge pile on the sidewalk, as the roads were getting blocked off and hundreds of people in costumes ran around us. Definitely a memorable and stressful post-show experience.
The final day of tour, we met up with Squirrel Flower at Atomic Music in Maryland. We all found some true treasures, such as this gorgeous guitar Ella picked up.
