Break of Reality Interview: SXSW 2010

Posted on Feb 15th 2010 7:00PM by Amy Kuperinsky
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They may have gone to college to become classically trained musicians, but cellist Patrick Laird and drummer Ivan Trevino, two members of the four-piece crossover instrumental group Break of Reality, were more than relieved to break the mold and flex their flair for rock. The two met in 2003 at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. A few years of performances later, they're proud to bring their brand of stormy "cello rock" to SXSW.

Describe your sound.

Patrick Laird: I like to say it's really organic and natural music that speaks to people on very intrinsic level. Because there's no vocals, we have to use the timbre of the instrument and its range to speak to people. Our sound tends to be very organic and dark.

How did Break of Reality form?

PL: As a freshman I had a couple of arrangements to some rock tunes -- Metallica and a couple of things I had written for three cellos. I only knew how to write for cello. My stand partner in orchestra and another friend of mine who was also a cellist read them with me for fun one day and we decided to keep reading them and work on more of them. Within four months we decided to publicly perform. We started off at local coffee shops and invited our friends.

How did you come up with your name?

PL: The name was first the title of a piece I wrote for a string quartet. We felt that it reflected what we were doing at school. At Eastman it's a classical conservatory and many of the people who teach there and study there are traditionalists, very much pro-classical and against other things. This project was sort of our break from the reality at school.

What are your musical influences?

PL: Even though I always trained classically on the cello, in high school all my friends were metalheads, so I grew up listening to a lot of hard rock and metal. My all-time favorites are Metallica and Rage Against the Machine. Karnivool is one of my new favorites -- I think they're awesome. I'm a big fan of Death Cab, and I also listen to a lot of classical music. And the standard composers -- the Brahms and Beethoven string quartets.

Ivan Trevino: I like Radiohead a lot. Steve Rice, a minimalist composer. There's a composer called Alejandro Vinao, a South American composer. He writes a lot of great percussion and marimba music.

You're working on a cover song project. Do you play covers during your shows?

PL: We almost always do cover songs in our shows. We usually do 70 percent original music and 30 percent covers. It helps to draw in our audiences.

IT: When we play 'BYOB' by System of a Down it can be a cool thing. We play a couple of heavy, heavy metal shows, put the distortion on the cello and just get going.There's a Coheed and Cambria cover that we do called 'Welcome Home.' I first heard it when it came out, but now the song has taken on a new life since it's on Rock Band. There's a chant that happens in the song toward the end and that's one of the few times we vocalize anything. It brings a different element.

Do people have misconceptions about a band composed of three cellists and a drummer?

PL: The rock people and the metalheads actually like the idea. It's the classical people who don't think that cellists should be playing music besides classical and the occasional jazz. We've created our own sound that I think bridges the gap pretty well. Once they see us, they feel that maybe we're not selling out as rock cellists.

Where have you played before?

PL: We've done most of our work on the East Coast, but every year we go down to Texas for a three-week tour. We'll go there and sell out thousand-seat auditoriums. Here we're still working to fill 300 seats. Texas is kind of our second home. We've also been to California and Washington, D.C. Hopefully over the next few years we'll be all around the country at different performing arts centers.

Ivan, did you ever expect to be the lone percussionist in an otherwise all-cello group?

IT: When I was in high school I grew up playing in a couple rock bands and I really liked it a lot. When I went to Eastman, I didn't really have an outlet to do that. When Pat approached me I was like, "Oh, this is awesome." For me to get the angst out -- it was a good thing. I definitely think that the drums add some drive to the music that we're playing. I also play the djembe, an African drum. It actually created a different sound for us, a lot different from our drumset sound, and it allows us to play acoustic.

You list your heights on your bios. Patrick, I'm assuming you're called "Tree" because you're 6'7"?

It's really funny, because Ivan is 5'6" and so I'm over a foot taller than he is. We do a lot of educational workshops for kids and every time we go we'll make a mention of our height. Usually that's a big thing for the kids. They like that.

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