He's tall, blond and pretty, and can rock high heels and smoky eye makeup. Justin Tranter, the frontman for New York City's Semi Precious Weapons, knows how to put his personality into well-crafted rock 'n' roll songs - like those on the band's brash, sexy, dark and humorous new album, You Love You. Tranter, however, didn't necessarily hone his style and sound while studying at the prestigious Berklee College of Music.
"I did a singer-songwriter thing in college and I was boring myself to tears, let alone everyone else, but I didn't really understand why. I didn't really get it yet,'' says Tranter.
He and some friends from music school - bassist Cole Whittle and drummer Dan Crean (guitarist Stevy Pyne joined in 2008) - moved to New York City and formed Semi Precious Weapons in 2006.
"We got in a room and the first thing we wrote together was the `I can't pay my rent but I'm f---in' gorgeous' song (a.k.a., the eponymous track Semi Precious Weapons).Oh my god, this makes so much more sense,'' Tranter remembers thinking.
The raucous glam rock song Semi Precious Weapons leads off You Love You with swagger. Even the slower tunes are full of glam-rock attitude; the stunning piano ballad, Leave Your Pretty To Me, includes lyrics such as "with bottles and her mamma's cigarettes'' and ``gorgeous and passed out on the cement.''
"A little much? Not if you're a rock 'n' roller", says Tranter.
"These ridiculous, amazing, absurd things I say in real life, if I'm fronting a rock band and I'm not sitting at a piano, it actually makes sense and it's allowed to be humorous and over the top because there's a bad-ass rock band to back it up,'' Tranter says, and that discovery allowed Semi Precious Weapons to take off.
Funded by Tranter's equally rock 'n' roll jewelry line, Fetty, Semi Precious Weapons self-released its debut album, We Love You, in 2008, then re-released it on the Razor & Tie label. The band signed a deal with Interscope in November 2009, the same time they launched a yearlong tour as special guests of their friend Lady Gaga on her worldwide Monster Ball tour.
"It's interesting, because a lot of the kids have no clue who the f--- we are,'' Tranter laughs. ``But Interscope did have a three-song EP up, but that didn't even go up until we were about halfway through this tour. So it's been a slow but sure build.
But rock 'n' roll is allowed to take a little bit more time than pop music is. Can't complain. There were even a couple of people who said, `Oh, you shouldn't do a tour without an album out,' but if Lady Gaga wants us to open for her, we're not going to say no!'' he says.
And when they're not on stage, opening for Gaga, Tranter says he and his bandmates can often be found hanging around the merchandise table, talking with people.
"Until we got on this tour, we were the type of band that was also selling our own merchandise, driving ourselves to every single show, blah blah blah. And now that we're on this tour, you're not even allowed to (personally) sell your own merch, so we just go stand near the merch and sign things and take pictures and talk and chat and do that whole thing.''
So what kind of comments are they getting from the audience?
"My two favourite things that happen are: I love the 35-year-old drunk woman who's desperate to just have sex with one of us. They're always hysterical and can barely stand up,'' Tranter laughs. ``And then there's always amazing kids that, whether they're having some sort of gender confusion or whether they think that they're a loser, or whatever it is, the kids really, really get it.
They're like, `If you can be a man in heels and stand onstage and tell everyone that you're f---in' gorgeous, then I can be f---in' gorgeous, too.' So the two are very different fan responses, but they're both awesome.''
By Karen Bliss, Canwest News Service
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