Timber! Fest 2013: Pablo Trucker

The inaugural Timber! Outdoor Music Festival has come and gone leaving us with our fingers crossed that next year will afford us another chance to gather at the picturesque Tolt MacDonald Park for music and fun times. The event, put on by Artist Home, was a supremely stunning success hosting an eclectic collection of bands ranging from the slow swoon of Bryan John Appleby’s heart string tugging tales to the brain melting heaviness of Hobosexual to Kithkin, the Cascadian youth tribe who want you to know and understand the secrets of the forest.

One stand out for me at Timber! was Pablo Trucker. The Seattle trio, made up of Brian Wagner (vox, guitar), Andrew Rudd (vox, drums) and Kory Kruckenberg (bass), played the first of the two night fest, just as the sun was starting its decent into slumber, to an intimate gathering of music lovers. Pablo Trucker, this time around playing as a duo, had the undivided attention of the crowd throughout their raw but warm set.

To date, Pablo Trucker have a few EP’s under their belt and even a Christmas album. A bad-ass Christmas album, I must say. Presently, the trio have some songs they’re working on as well as a recording project which I hope translates to a brand new LP. Only time will tell, my friends.

I had the chance to catch up with Brian after his set at Timber! where we talked about the origin of the band name, why the guys decided to take a two year hiatus and trucker hats.

the mixtape: Tell me about the band name.

Pablo Trucker: When I first started writing music I had this weird hang-up about some of the things that I was writing and I wanted to build in some separation between me and what I was doing. So I came up with this character Pablo, and he had to have a last name and Trucker sounded good to me.

tm: You should get trucker hats made, do you have any?

PT: We have had trucker hats, we don’t have any right now, but yeah, I feel like at some point it’s gonna make a lot of sense when we have trucker hats.

tm: Why did you decide to take a break from making music?

PT: Some family situation stuff from my side and also we’d been pushing really hard and playing a lot of shows. Things were great but we weren’t quite ready I think as a band and all three of us as individuals to move up to the next level.

tm: What was the next level?

PT: Well, it would have been more significant touring and more of an intense recording process. We had built to that point and we weren’t ready for it.

tm: How did you and Andrew get in contact again and decide to make music?

PT: It was one of those days and I was like, “What are you doing right now?”. He said, “I dunno, I kinda want to play some music and record something.” I said, “Dude, I got a new song, you should come over.”

tm: Cool! Do you have any shows coming up?

PT: We don’t have any shows lined for the rest of the summer but September and October things are going to be picking up for us.