Trey Warner
Life may have presented Trey Warner to you in a number of ways. Maybe he sped past you on the PCH in Surf City, USA, top down in a blaze of sound and blonde fury. Maybe he knocked on your door in Mesa and charmed you into a new home alarm system. Or better yet, he was the star of that insane Zombie movie you streamed a couple years back right? No no, it must have been that he was the top QB from your hometown that was most likely to take the Heisman. Of the many paradigms Trey Warner has maneuvers within, it’s not only the success he achieves that is hard to believe, but the indelible impression he leaves along the way.
Not that you could ignore him… beaming positivity out of his 6’3” 200 pound frame. Trey is the good looking game-day hero that would lift you up above his head, but instead of tossing you in a trashcan, he’d tell you all the ways you shine and then hold you up there in the firmament until you too became aware of your own magic. This paradoxical nature is what makes him so alluring. When you first see Trey Warner, this towering tour de force, your mind simply isn’t prepared for the earnest, humble fellow that wants to learn about you; that wants to open up about his own self-loathing and mine courageously into those self aspersions to elevate his art.
Fronting bands that played with Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, Jimmy Eat World, Plain White T’s and Lifehouse, and having spent years writing under Warner/Chappel Music creating music now woven into the fabric of networks like ESPN, Trey is a proven songwriter with an undeniable sense of melody. His sound continues to evolve and represents the more refined step from where the infectious pop-punk of the oughts wanted to go. Often through clever yet vulnerable lyrics, Warner manages to bend over-arching maxims to the will of his perceived shortcomings… making you want to laugh and root for him at the same time.
It is likely Trey’s experience in film that contribute to the cinematic quality of his music. There is an innate sense of atmosphere in his sound and the songs almost instantly transport you to your very own Tony Scott set piece… wet asphalt cooling neath a half-disk sun, the titian locks of your crush unfurled in the heatwaves as you speed off to chase the last bits of the day. Yeah, that’s the feel of a Trey Warner chorus.
“We are all a bunch of kids trying our best”, he says when asked of his sprawling endeavors. When he was in high school, Trey painted street numbers to pay for his first drum set. He’s now established a real estate empire to provide for his family and fund his film and music ambitions, all of which he approaches with the alacrity of a motivational orator. And as estimable a repertoire as he has built, the reason you love him is because he is still the kid with the power stance playing guitar in his garage. In this sense, Trey Warner is somewhat of a renaissance man for the modern American Dream. Making us ask ourselves… do we have to grow up? And if we do, should we do it like Trey?
-Chris Hess Of SWIMM