Chatting with Justin Tranter, Semi Precious Weapons’ ambisexual frontman
GLAMOURING FOR ATTENTION | Semi Precious Weapons invades Dallas with Justin Tranter, second from right, leading the charge. (Photo courtesy Ryan Aylsworth)
SCOTT HUFFMAN | Contributing Writer
scott_in_dallas@yahoo.com
Many people enjoy celebrating birthdays with a party. But for Justin Tranter — the gender-bending rocker and frontman of alternative band the Semi Precious Weapons — every work day is a party. So, when he turned 34, just a few days ago, he traded his birthday cake and ice cream for a leaf rake and work gloves. And (because he prefers to consume his occasional off-diet calories in the form of drink) perhaps a bottle of Chardonnay.
“The whole band lives together in a house here in Los Angeles,” the singer/songwriter says. “What I wanted was for everyone to hang around the house. We have this awesome backyard, but there is a sad, beautiful tree that is dying and it sheds all over the place. For my birthday, we turned my backyard into a nice backyard.”
For Tranter and his three straight band mates — guitarist Stevy Pyne, bassist Cole Whittle and drummer Dan Crean — pulling together to achieve a common goal is the rule rather than an exception to it, a fact that holds true whether they are performing onstage, recording in the studio or cleaning the backyard.
In April, Semi Precious Weapons issued Aviation, a frustratingly delayed third studio album held back as the result of some unresolved record label issues. The delay, however, gave the band time to produce a number of tracks and then pick 12 of their favorites for release. Tranter feels that Aviation reflects the band’s evolution from a NYC “fun, party band” — one that caught the early attention of Lady Gaga and led to a gig as the opening act for her Monster Ball Tour — to a group of more serious and truthful artists.
“The early stuff that was really trashy was not dishonest,” Tranter carefully explains, referring to the band’s glam roots. “[But] the early stuff wasn’t really telling our life stories. The new album is our chosen musical voice — what we always wanted to do and dreamed of doing. In the early albums I was kind of screaming. Now I’m singing. Everything is calmer and a lot more hopeful.”
On June 25, the band brings its promotional tour to House of Blues Dallas. “We love Texas,” Tranter enthuses. “It’s probably our favorite place to play in America. Right now we are on this radio promo tour. It’s finally happened which is pretty crazy. We’ve been to Austin with these new songs, and we are excited to bring them to Dallas.”
Tranter’s fashion aesthetic has also evolved with his music, so don’t expect necessarily to see him performing in his former trademark heels and stockings. “I have been wearing men’s shoes for this album cycle,” he says. “For the first time in my life, I’m being inspired by menswear which is really fun. The clothes that I am wearing most men wouldn’t wear, but it’s still technically menswear.”
While Tranter generally dismisses labels, he admits that most of his personal relationships have been with guys. He states, however, that things “got confusing” when he had a six-month relationship with a woman. Regardless, he is grateful for the insight and perspective that his relationships have offered.
“I cannot imagine what it’s like to walk into a room with strangers to write a song and not have a queer point of view,” he says. “I think that there have definitely been some [record label] executives who were very scared of it and don’t know what to do with it. For me, it’s one of the best things in my life.”
And Tranter has no regrets about any of his choices. “I’ll make jokes like ‘Oh, goddammit, we should have moved to L.A. the minute we graduated college’ because things are going so great out here,” he says. “But then again, I don’t even regret that. We moved to New York and that’s the reason why the band sounded the way it did — and that’s why Lady Gaga became a huge fan of ours even before she was Lady Gaga. If we had moved to L.A., none of this would have happened.”
Interestingly, a few simple words of advice from Mother Monster at a tough time in his life were the best counsel Tranter remembers getting. “Lady Gaga told me that ‘Cool is priceless,’” he recalls. “When all of this [record] label drama was happening, I talked to her. She said ‘Stop panicking. Cool is priceless.’”
If Tranter had not managed to earn a living as a performer, he imagines that he would still be involved with the music business, probably as a manager. “I like to be in charge of things,” he states. “Before music, I was always working in retail. But I think I would like to work managing artists, helping them figure out their artistic journeys.”
Could his penchant for control suggest that Tranter is perhaps a bossy bottom? “Listen,” he laughs before giving an unsurprisingly ambiguous if not flirtatious answer. “I’m not agreeing with you, but I’m also not saying that you are wrong.”
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition June 20, 2014.
