Take a step back

Sean Trelford (UK)

"refreshing ragged pop songs"

Bio provided by artist:
Sean Trelford writes songs of love, obsession, rejection, isolation and not fitting in. Making music has been the 19-year-old’s life since his mother – ‘a crazy, lovely Latin lady from Chile,’ laughs Trelford with affectionate pride – first sat him down at a piano at the age of 3, but it was always supposed to be an extra curricular activity. ‘We kind of had the ruler piano thing going on growing up,’ says Trelford of the regimented music lessons he and his older brother endured and enjoyed in a home where his parents would play The Beatles as much as Chopin, and Rachmaninoff as often as ELO. 

Picking up guitar at 7 and drums at 9 – learning all three instruments to the highest grade possible – creating music became Trelford’s only interest by the time he was a teenager, yet still he presumed his career would lie elsewhere, perhaps within his passion for literature. ‘Lots of people make art to make money, I was kind of making music to not make money,’ he says. ‘You have to be self indulgent and slightly selfish, because everyone is in their own head, so if you make music for yourself then it’s actually for everyone else.’

His latest single ‘Naked’ is a song of raw, lived-through emotion that nevertheless refuses to wallow and can just as easily be admired for its heart-stopping transition from psychedelic merry-go-round to alt-rock primal screamer that recalls The Bends-era Radiohead. Ending on the distorted sound of Trelford crying, ‘Naked’ is the story of feeling used from a teenage situationship and a protest about childhoods lost to an unregulated Internet that distributed pornography to a generation.

With the benefit of hindsight, it was perhaps inevitable that an artist as considered and skilled as Sean Trelford would end up making a career out of music, however much he initially resisted it, or indeed because he resisted it. Virtuosos like him don’t stay hidden for long, even if it’s an argument that he’ll modestly push away. ‘You don’t have to be the cleverest person on the planet 

Bio provided by artist:
Sean Trelford writes songs of love, obsession, rejection, isolation and not fitting in. Making music has been the 19-year-old’s life since his mother – ‘a crazy, lovely Latin lady from Chile,’ laughs Trelford with affectionate pride – first sat him down at a piano at the age of 3, but it was always supposed to be an extra curricular activity. ‘We kind of had the ruler piano thing going on growing up,’ says Trelford of the regimented music lessons he and his older brother endured and enjoyed in a home where his parents would play The Beatles as much as Chopin, and Rachmaninoff as often as ELO.

Picking up guitar at 7 and drums at 9 – learning all three instruments to the highest grade possible – creating music became Trelford’s only interest by the time he was a teenager, yet still he presumed his career would lie elsewhere, perhaps within his passion for literature. ‘Lots of people make art to make money, I was kind of making music to not make money,’ he says. ‘You have to be self indulgent and slightly selfish, because everyone is in their own head, so if you make music for yourself then it’s actually for everyone else.’

His latest single ‘Naked’ is a song of raw, lived-through emotion that nevertheless refuses to wallow and can just as easily be admired for its heart-stopping transition from psychedelic merry-go-round to alt-rock primal screamer that recalls The Bends-era Radiohead. Ending on the distorted sound of Trelford crying, ‘Naked’ is the story of feeling used from a teenage situationship and a protest about childhoods lost to an unregulated Internet that distributed pornography to a generation.

With the benefit of hindsight, it was perhaps inevitable that an artist as considered and skilled as Sean Trelford would end up making a career out of music, however much he initially resisted it, or indeed because he resisted it. Virtuosos like him don’t stay hidden for long, even if it’s an argument that he’ll modestly push away. ‘You don’t have to be the cleverest person on the planet 




FRIDAY | DOELEN - STUDIO 1 | 20.00

SATURDAY | CLUB CENTRAAL | 18.50

Go to the previous act:

Go to the next act: