Trauma Kit are finding solidarity in a state built to divide them

Or perhaps it started in a condemned Victorian mansion where they threw a party with Show Me The Body, the chandeliers threatening to fall from the ceiling. But really, it started long before them – it started with Idaho. People lived and died violently for their land, and from that bad seed came a remarkable fruit: artists who waited for no one, would not leave and rallied a community to create something that was entirely their own. If you build it, they will come.

Trauma Kit is a product of these strange ways and an increasingly strange world. Describing themselves as “Boise noise-punk exhibitionists”, the four-piece are like a game of exquisite corpse – each member challenging and contradicting the others to push their sound to the furthest extremity. Mason Waters, the band’s frontman, cuts an intensely physical presence onstage; hair shaved to the skin, startlingly pale against the dark as he paces and practically crackles with charged energy. His one-two punch of rap and hardcore vocals storm against the musical contortions of bassist Shadrach Tuck, guitarist Dustin White and drummer Max Ball.

Their 2024 album TRAIN WRECKS TAKE TIME captured over a decade of the band’s evolution. What began as Tuck and Waters, fourteen-years-old with a need to express their love of music and their poor inheritance in the world, grew into a band which could match and exceed the immensity of that feeling. Trauma Kit’s music feels like an absolution; desperate and dazzling relief.

The artwork depicts a brutalist building left to ruin, a shot of a dilapidated Scottish bank the band chose under fair use. They felt that its unforgiving realism, an image of stagnation and decay, captured the spirit of the record. “Brutalism as an architectural style came from an urge to allow the human element to take over a building. They start out empty and bland, and the idea is that you’ll put plants and your own things in there, and eventually it will become yours. That abandoned ideal of humanity in this picture is what this album feels like,” shares Waters. “It wasn’t an explosion or something dramatic. One day someone stopped caring for the building, and the building just fell apart.”

The album’s lyrics are rooted in “various subdivisions of existential dread” which Waters had been contending with since he was a teenager. ”When I think about it, I think it captures that difficult transition into adulthood in a world that once felt promised and the realisation you have that there are no guarantees and shit actually can suck pretty bad,” he shares.

“GROWING IN A BODY” untangles the complex relationship Waters has with his dad being a veteran, ending in an almighty crescendo between White’s guitar and Ball’s Drum as if your world is about to crack wide open. “It’s about the mixed feelings I have about whether it’s something to be proud of, or something to shame and reject,” he shares. “It’s the difficulties of him being a part of that enterprise and the difficulties of him being there, wondering whether he’s dead right now.”

Tuck is not only a prolific bassist in Boise but the founder of Mishap Records, a label which aimed to collectivise knowledge and talents to usher experimental music into the world. His work as a visual artist and graphic designer can be seen across the entire roster; the label’s logo is a bloody subversion of a lucky rabbit’s foot. “I thought it would be cool to design the lyric sheet for the record to match the cadence of some of Mason’s vocal deliveries, so the lyrics are offset in certain areas or emphasised with italics or bolded in weird places.”

The members met each other through the tight-knit community of artists in Boise, a network of house shows in basements and friends of friends drawn together by their passions. Treefort Music Fest is a music and culture festival which has put a spotlight on this scene – created by artists, for artists. While creatives have flocked to the storied lands of LA and New York City, the festival was founded to show that the grass is not greener on the other side but where you water it. Boise is one of the fastest growing cities in the US, a gasp of blue in an otherwise overwhelmingly red state where kindness is not forced but reflexive. Attracting over 20,000 people each day to explore events and performances taking place across the city, the fortunes of Boise have transformed in line with Treefort’s vision.

What unified them was liking “the same type of shit” – especially when it came to their taste in aggressive music. “There are a lot of schools within it,” White points out. “There’s a level of dissonance, intensity, speed – but not necessarily overall discomfort – that we had in common. For me, it’s heaven to hear that and be in those moments in live sets even though for a lot of people it’s very repelling.” Rather than mutually agreed influences, Trauma Kit instead want to elicit a common feeling that they share about the world.

The band made their live debut at the first Treefort after COVID when White was invited to join. What began as two full songs and sketches of another became a fully-fledged set – albeit a short one. “Half of those songs were either completely destroyed or cannibalised at one point, but it proved that we could write and perform together really well,” says White. “We all have equal footing in the composition. I think that’s what makes the songs so great to perform: we all hold equal grounding within them.”

I saw Trauma Kit at The Shredder, the natural home of hardcore with its dungeon-like atmosphere, excellent smoking area with a ramshackle skating ramp and towering, Burtonesque automaton which holds a screaming baby by a leg. It’s also an all-ages venue and a sanctuary for young people who seek the same rush the band once felt themselves as teenagers. “We’ve always been more concerned about our live sound more than any recording material we’ve ever done,” says Tuck. “Performing provides its own feedback. My goal for our next record is to have it reflect our live show as much as possible, because I believe that the energy and the sound and the sheer volume that we strive for is hard to capture in a studio.”

The band belong to a storied lineage of hardcore music, an inheritance of their land which extends into the Pacific Northwest. I wonder what it is about this place that stokes such rage; why such a concentrated pool of artists are so predisposed to punk. “I mean, our politics are fucked,” White says bluntly. “It sucks. We’re almost the worst state in the country for education.”

“We’re on the bathroom ban now. Shout out to our local politicians for getting that one approved. It’s the most fucked up bill we’ve seen in a while, but it’s so predictable,” Tuck sighs, referring to the law passed earlier this year which restricts the transgender community from using the bathroom which matches their gender identity. Failure to comply can be punishable with up to five years in prison. “Our music stems from a frustration with the stuff we grew up having to accept. We grew up and apart from things that were instilled in us from a young age, but there are still a lot of external pressures and interpersonal battles. What drew me to hardcore and heavy music in general was I found solace in people directly speaking about the things I felt deep down inside. Music changed me for the better because of that.”

Then, Waters – who is currently in law school - offers: “There’s a cantankerousness to Idaho’s heritage. It’s, at its core, an angry fucking state and it has been forever. Like great-great-grandpa shot his neighbour to death over water rights; the fifth governor of Idaho betrayed the mining unions and they put TNT at his door and killed him from the explosion.. There’s a history here of people being reluctant to abide by authority. On a structural level it has become a boot licker’s capital, but historically this state has had a broader ideology of “get out of shit” – and now it’s shifting into a more intrusive version of that same political ideology in a way that creates some kind of contrition. The bands are an extension of this anger against the weird parasitical political environment Idaho has been infected with, and has always been a little infected with. But now it’s harder to ignore.”

From this adversity, community has thrived against all odds. In this startlingly beautiful state with its vast mountain ranges and surreal, volcanic landscapes, it might be a person’s “Own Private Idaho” – but togetherness can always be found. “One thing I do like about this place is there is a sense of solidarity across the political spectrum when it comes to class-based woes,” says Tuck. “You talk to people who, on paper, would be totally against you but when you talk you realise you have more in common than you imagined. I wish there was more discussion around farming and conservation nature – the stuff Idaho contributes to this country – and class unity, rather than identity politics and aligning with the left or the right.” 70% of Idaho’s public lands are owned by the federal government, and it’s enshrined in the Idaho Constitution that the land must be used for financial benefit. If it were to be given for the community to use, it would be unconstitutional.

Boise is a gasp of blue in an overwhelmingly red state, and its arts scene is a refuge from the surrounding turbulence. With Treefort making the city an essential destination on a band’s touring route, with the likes of Geese, Father John Misty and Magdelena Bay headlining this year’s edition, Trauma Kit feel as though they are standing on the shoulders of giants: all the bands who came before them to change its fortunes. “They had to work fucking hard for it, but it’s in the water here,” Tuck says. “It’s a very nurturing community. Bands encourage each other, and no one’s trying to make it into a competition. Everyone’s here to make art, put on a show and have a good time.”

Though their musical language is one of vitriol and white-knuckled intensity, Trauma Kit’s outlook on the world is ultimately optimistic. “This album emerged with a beautified perspective,” says Waters. “I feel, honestly, that the feelings I had about those rough years resolved a little bit with the release of the album – which was strange. But I got it off my chest. It’s a celebration of still having a spark left in his, even if we’re gonna die kicking and screaming.”