By AMELIA HEAGERTY
Staff Writer
This Saturday, crowd favorite Trolls Cottage is returning to the Island that gave rise to the band nearly 10 years ago.
The band, which got its name from the small cottage tucked in a Lisabeula ravine where it first held practice sessions, has played up and down the West Coast and at many music festivals including Bumbershoot, Island Earthfair and Folklife Festival for five years in a row.
Today, Trolls Cottage is one of the Island’s most successful groups, with a sound that’s been dubbed reggae, jazz, jam, fusion, high-energy and danceable, depending on whom you ask. Trolls Cottage has played sold-out shows at nightclubs in the Seattle area as well, and their popularity shows no signs of letting up.
Now, the five Island natives, who range in age from 26 to 30 and all boast Vashon High School as their alma mater, will take the stage at revamped Island venue Red Bicycle Bistro & Sushi (formerly Bishops) on Saturday, April 19. Another Vashon band, Grebes, will open.
“I just loved their music right off the bat,” said Ron Hook, singer and guitar player for Subconscious Population. “It just captivates you, and it still does.”
Hook has been playing music with the band since it first formed in 1999. Nine years ago, the two bands played together in venues like the Vashon VFW Hall, and more recently, Subconscious Population has been the opener for Trolls Cottage at Seattle clubs such as Nectar.
“I would describe it as original roots music from the Northwest, and highly danceable, too. I think that’s a big part of their energy,” Hook said. “And they have a good message; they have a message that I’m always interested to hear.”
Hook said the band draws a wide appeal on and off the Island because all five members are highly talented musicians and it shows.
“It’s their dream to play music, and they’ve weathered the challenges, and they’ve kept it together,” he said. “There’s not much pay in it. They love music. They’ll be musicians forever, those guys.”
The band members said they defy single-genre categorization.
“We don’t give ourselves the name of reggae because the thought of being a straight reggae band or being labeled that, it doesn’t sound like as much fun to me,” said Jacob Bain, the band’s acoustic guitarist and one of its vocalists.
Still, in 2002, just three years after the band formed, Trolls Cottage’s live album was a semifinalist for best reggae album at the Grammy Awards.
Band member Mike Marlatt explained his take on Trolls Cottage’s musical philosophy.
“Philosophy-wise, you have your voice; use it, a lot of people don’t get that chance,” he said. “And as far as music-wise, don’t get locked into any style, and we kind of pride ourselves on being able to play different styles and not be locked into any one.”
The group is comprised of Gabriel Blake on percussion and harmonica (Blake is in Jamaica and won’t be at this weekend’s concert, but a guest percussionist may step in); Marlatt on guitar and vocals; Bain on acoustic guitar and vocals; Earl Clay on drums and Erik Reimnitz on bass and vocals.
Only one of the band members still lives on Vashon; the others moved to Seattle. Several of them have jobs, and Bain is a full-time college student.
When Trolls Cottage comes to Vashon, Islanders flock to their performances. The venues are often packed to capacity, with people waiting outside to hear snippets of melodies. Music festivals, too, draw throngs of people who kick off their shoes and start dancing in the grass.
Trolls Cottage draws a “comparable size crowd to what we get with our national acts,” said Jennifer Johnson, the entertainment director for Jazzbones, a nightclub in Tacoma that has had Trolls Cottage play several times. Jazzbones is also the new owner of Red Bicycle on Vashon.
Trolls Cottage most recently played at Jazzbones on Friday, April 4, and Johnson said the show was “fantastic.”
The crowd loves Trolls Cottage, she said.
“It energizes them; they get out there and dance. I actually got out there and danced, and I don’t ever do that,” she said.
Johnson said she appreciated that none of the band’s songs sounded exactly the same — “they really mix it up.”
“Some are really rock-oriented, others are jazzy, and I appreciate the musicianship it takes to pull that off,” she said.
Trolls Cottage shows are “lighthearted and fun, easygoing, it’s just a good positive feeling,” Johnson said. “TC brings a really good vibe with them.”
In 2007, the band hit the road, touring the West Coast in cities including Portland, Eugene, Ashland, Chico, Malibu, San Diego and Pacific Beach. They typically play 300 to 400 person venues in Seattle, but have been known to play dive bars in farther away locations, such as Missoula, Mont.
“To go on tour, to sleep on couches and play dive bars, hell yeah,” that’s a rite of passage for musicians, Bain said.
They band released a seven-track EP called Chasing Trains in April 2007. Those seven tracks, plus six or seven more, will comprise an album to be released in May.
Why did their last album have the name Chasing Trains? “Chasing trains of thought — an ongoing quest of humans to make sense of things that don’t make sense,” Bain said. “We liked that phrase, I guess.”
On that CD, many of the songs were timely, touching on national or international issues.
“If you have the chance to say something then you should take it,” Marlatt said. “A lot of those songs fall into that category.”
One brief but sweet melody, “When the Good Takes Over,” was written by Marlatt. He said he wasn’t inspired by an event to write the song, but it features questioning lyrics like, “Some claiming evolution, others claiming Genesis, when’s the fighting gonna end?” and “Who wants to join the system if the system is corrupt?”
He said the song is a “a general take on the absurdities of constant fighting and when the good takes over, you never know, one person’s good might be another person’s bad.”
The chorus of “Satisfied,” an upbeat ballad with a driving bass line that Bain wrote and sings, is as follows: “Keep this nation satisfied, even if it means we’re going to tell them lies. / Feed them propaganda through the satellites. The people will cheer because the picture’s more clear.”
Bain said it was a sarcastic chorus, but meant to provoke thought.
“I write about what I’m thinking about, and most of the songs I write do have a political or religious context,” he said. “I definitely have feelings about the way things are and the system and capitalism. I try to understand the morality behind the system.”
The album with a release date of May 17, as yet untitled, will have a wide variety of songs, Bain said.
“When we’re putting a record together we try to have some diversity and not just questioning about something that’s wrong,” he said. “There’ll be positive moments and the beautiful parts of being alive.”
He said besides the global or politically current songs, there will also be personal songs.
Marlatt said truth is an important recurring theme on the upcoming album and revealed that one song on the album is called “How many times can the truth change hands.”
He said returning to Vashon for shows is fun.
“It’s nice to find a place on the Island that supports live music,” he said. “I always like playing there. We get to see a lot of people who were around when we first started.”
Hook said the members of Trolls Cottage have given their talent to charity events on Vashon in the past.
“They’re really devoted to Vashon. They love Vashon — at any music festival, or event going on, or fundraiser, it seems like they’re always there to volunteer their sound to an event,” he said. “It always heightens the event.”
Bain said Vashon had likely molded the band’s identity.
“Vashon is a great place to meet other people that are creative, and that creativeness promotes things like music. In that way, Vashon has probably greatly influenced us,” Bain said. “There’s a place called Trolls Cottage in the middle of the woods with a bunch of instruments, and you can just go down and play them, and that’s pretty great.”
However, he admitted that most of the instruments made their way to warmer homes over the winter, and the cottage was all but empty this time of year.
“I think there’s my old Yamaha guitar with one string and an old saxophone hanging from the porch.”
