On the Rise
Truman Sinclair

For the 23-year-old songwriter, music became a workaround; a way to communicate when language falls apart under pressure.

“This is where I make my music,” he says from his studio, sunlight creeping in around the blanket draped against his window, a bright Californian morning taking precedence. The room is lived-in, decked out in instruments the writer is well versed in, a ginormous “MUSIC!” sprawled in tape across his wall.“I've always wanted to have a band room in my house. My friends can come over, we play and we record. It's honestly a dream.”

He’s relaxing (at least, as much as this morning interrogation allows) ahead of his gig at Los Angeles’ Silverlake Lounge later that evening--a part of a residency taking place throughout November. A stripped-back set, just him and his guitar, it’s very similar to the setup I’d attended months prior at his first show in the UK. Steamed windows framed the Camden pub, where fans and industry figures alike pressed close, the air buzzing with excitement for the hotly tipped songwriter fusing Americana, folk rock, and ’00s emo.

“It’s almost easier to perform when no one knows anything about you,” Sinclair looks back on the show, "you're just saying what you want to say and there’s no pretence about it at all from anybody.” On the other hand, tonight’s set is a five minute drive from his duplex. For Sinclair, it’s as important to foster community as it is to be honest: “I want the music to feel abundant. If you like it, you should be able to access it.

Coming-of-age in 2025’s America radicalised Sinclair, instilling this urgency for clarity and unity. “I saw how people misunderstood each other and how it led to division and all of these problems.” Music soon became a vessel for communication. “I started writing because there were ideas and feelings my friends couldn’t say out loud, and music became the only way to share them.”

“I think there's something in the back of my mind where I know that as long as I can record at night and write songs, I'll be alright, because I've done that enough times,” Sinclair reflects. At eight, he picked up the guitar his parents had bought for his brother at a garage sale; “I was genuinely obsessed with moving sound around,” he laughs, “I had a real trip about it when I was like a little kid playing the guitar, and I couldn't get over it. I would make my mom be like, "Look, I can move this note.”

In suburban American spirit, by his early teens he was bouncing between garage bands in Chicago, running through Green Day covers in friends’ garages. Amid a round of layoffs at his father’s company, the family then uprooted to LA to keep his dad’s role stable. “I just didn't know anybody, and the only thing I had was music,” he says. Alone in a new state, he began to experiment with recording and production. Accompanied by an "obsessive" foray into refining his guitar playing, these skills now form the backbone of his projects.

He adds hesitantly: “I don't know anybody who's insane at an instrument that wasn't severely depressed for at least two to three years and didn't just do that for a while.”

It’s this sincerity that allows Sinclair, who’d initially wanted to work as an audio engineer, to move between musical outputs without losing direction. Whether it be the bands he’s in, Fat Evil Children or his high school writing project, Frat Mouse, or even his solo project, it’s less driven by the branding that often comes with an artist’s identity, and more independence, function, and this repeated need for communication. Inspired by artists like Lucinda Williams, Phoebe Bridgers, Neil Young, The Front Bottoms, Tom Petty and Pinegrove (“when I was 17 that band basically saved my life”) whose throughline is their honesty: “music that’s vulnerable and has attitude”. “When I'm playing with Fat Evil Children, I'm trying to do my best to support my friend and what he's trying to say, and add my own thing too,” he reflects in contrast to his own project--the rawest version of his voice. “It's just one person's idea and it's just a very pure representation. Every single note is exactly where I want it to be. Every single guitar is played with this feeling that I have right now.”

Milling outside West Hollywood’s iconic Troubadour club, an argument over Springsteen led to Sinclair meeting his now manager, Autry. A prolific songwriter, he released his debut record last year via indie outliers R+R (home to Dijon, Mk.Gee, Racing Mount Pleasant), which laid the groundwork for his current partnership with Capitol Records/Polydor. Sinclair describes the experience as unexpectedly freeing. He’s conscious of the contrast: “It’s really important to me that all of the art comes from an independent place, even though I’m signed to a major label and I don’t make independent music,” he laughs. What matters, he adds, is that every decision is intentional, a balance that keeps the music authentic (“It’s being made in this independent space”).

In “Dustland” and “Sugar,” his most recent singles and Capitol debut, Sinclair draws from American history and tradition in a way that’s neither nostalgic nor patriotic. It’s literal and lived, not a denim jacket he shrugs on. “I'm just a fucking American,” he laughs when I ask about his relationship to it. His perspective is naturally nuanced. “My dad loved Bruce Springsteen. I drive around America with my fucking rock band and play music on highways and freeways. I have love for that, and I have fear for where our country is going, but I also have hope.”

Today, with Zohran Mamdani (“our fucking boy”) announced as mayor of New York City, it feels like a small inkling of light. “I’m definitely not someone who believes America used to be this or that. There’s no delusion. But what we can do is take some of those tenets and work towards them. If we really did have a society that gave everybody an equal shot, that would be fucking awesome--and it just isn’t that. That’s the future for America I hope for.”

“Falling in love honestly made me political,” he adds about “Dustland.” “I care because someone I love is in the world. If the world’s a dumpster fire, I have to put out the fire for them.” He sees beauty in the entwined history and tradition: “Music is a tradition, love is a tradition, human history is unbelievably beautiful. When I met my girlfriend, I thought, generations lived and died for people who look like you, it’s a historical feeling. It’s terrifying and inspiring. And here we are, in Los Angeles, in 2025, in love. Music is the same. People have been recording forever, and now I get to make albums in my room. That’s impossible in the past, and thinking about that history is where a lot of the imagery comes from.”

Sinclair sees himself as a steward and this philosophy is ever present. It’s perhaps a little grandiose (something he’s aware of throughout, “I'm also like, this white dude, you know what I mean?”) but rooted in community and earnestness. “You’re just a little thing that holds one piece of air and the next together and you’ve just got to do your best to be a good steward of the space you take up,” he says. “I want people to feel something when they listen to music because, for me, it’s functional. When I'm super depressed and I listen to music and I'm not depressed anymore – it’s like drinking coffee. And I treat that as a real job. I’m making this thing that has the power to lift your spirit and that’s so valuable.”

What’s next? “I’m making an album right now. To me, American Recordings was this folk rock thing and I love that, but I'm making a rock and roll album. I'm writing about the same shit that I've always written about, because that's the shit I care about – love, understanding and surrendering to things. And fighting for things that you care about. And also the fucking world burning and all that shit. And playing as much as I can, I think I'm touring next year… Truman rock band playing every Wednesday!”