Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Trouble with a capital T

Pro snowboarder finds second calling as musician
60816_l

Who: Trouble Andrew

When: Sunday, Jan. 10, 9 p.m.

Where: Garfinkel's

Cost: First 150 tickets $15, $20 afterwards

Trevor Andrew (better known now as Trouble Andrew) is one lucky dude: at the tender age of 30, he's conquered the snowboarding world as a sponsored rider for Burton, Oakley, Analog and Gravis, is engaged to the next big thing on the music scene - the lovely and talented Santigold - and has just recently embarked on a second career as a professional musician.

"I feel like I'm never really working," Andrew said. "I really feel, truly, so fortunate that I've had one full career of something that was my dream job and I'm just transitioning into this new job that I just discovered was a new dream job."

Born and raised in Nova Scotia, this East Coast kid dropped out of high school at age 16 to move to B.C. and pursue a career in professional snowboarding. Today, he calls three places home - Brooklyn, New York; Squamish, British Columbia; and his hometown of Falmouth, Nova Scotia - though he's been so busy touring and recording that he hasn't been settled in any of those places recently.

But his transition into the world of professional music wasn't intentional. In 2004, he was sidelined with a knee injury and holed up at his girlfriend's place to recuperate. Surrounded by guitars, keyboards and a drum machine, the bored Andrew began messing around with the instruments. Before he knew it, his first song, Chase Money, was written.

Now Andrew wants to be known for something other than his feats on the slopes. His electro-punk, punk-rock fusion - which he refers to as electro sk8 or crunk rock - combines elements of the music that provided the soundtrack to his snowboarding to create feel-good and fun anthemic tunes riddled with tongue-in-cheek lyrical content. Think dark, grindy synths from southern rap coupled with programmed sounds from west coast rap, paced to punk rock with funk lyrics and flow.

"I don't really even think about it - it just kind of comes out that way," said Andrew.

His influences are all over the map, touching on everything from punk, hardcore, and rock to hip hop, with artists like Bad Brains, Black Flag, Descendents and Ice Cube, Tupac and Snoop Dogg on rotation on his personal play lists.

"I ended up having like four or five songs on these tapes and (Santi) snuck the tapes out of the house, because she was already in the music business, and that was like the furthest thing from what I wanted to do. I just wanted to get better and get back on my snowboard."

Producers in New York asked him to come in and meet with them, and soon, Andrew was working on his first record.

"My plan was, 'well, I'll just put it out amongst my friends and give it to my buddies that are looking for songs for their video or skateboard movies, and then it just kind of snowballed into what it is!"

After releasing his recorded tracks to the masses, Andrew still had to come to terms with the idea of getting up in front of people and performing, live, which was a recurring nightmare for the pro rider.

"It was kind of like the dream where you show up to school naked or something - I used to have these dreams where I would be standing on stage not knowing what I was doing there.

"Once I did it and once I got through it, it was just really something I got addicted to and I really found so many parallels to the same feeling that I would get if I was at the top of the mountain ready to hit a huge jump that was really not familiar and scary."

Soon, he was signed to Virgin and was rocking stages with the likes of legendary musicians like GZA, De La Soul, Wyclef Jean, Justice, Lady Sovereign, Dave Navarro and, of course, Santigold.

Now, he's just putting the finishing touches on his new record, which should be released in late spring or early summer. It's on the heels of the 2009 re-release of his self-titled 2005 debut, which was remixed and remastered by Virgin.

"So this is like the new, new record - the real one," he said.

"I wouldn't say it's way different. It's definitely a growth from then, that's for sure, because that record was the first 10 songs I ever wrote so this is like the last couple years of me writing songs and picking the best ones and just growing as an artist and as a person. So it's definitely got a lot of the same spirit and the same feeling to it, but it's different."

Though he's dedicating himself to his new career as a musician, don't be surprised if you see Andrew riding Whistler Blackcomb while he's in town next week.

"I'm doing this whole mountain tour really just as an excuse to be able to go snowboarding and do shows," he admitted with a laugh.

The tour kicks off here in Whistler this weekend and carries on through resort towns in California, Colorado and Utah, where they'll be performing some of the new material for crowds.

"I think that those shows are sometimes the funnest because it's just a little more intimate and my old kind of scene, you know. And we've had lots of really great shows in Whistler that we've all just had a blast and it's more just the whole spirit of being in the mountains and snowboarding in the day and then going out at night as opposed to just driving around in a van and playing at night."

A former Olympic competitor, Andrew sees the upcoming Olympics as an exciting opportunity for locals.

"I think it's great! I think it's really exciting that it's coming to Whistler - well, to B.C. in general. A lot of my friends are renting out their houses for lots of money, so that's great," he laughed. "We actually just got a call about 15 minutes ago that we might actually be coming up there to play during the Olympics, so that would be really exciting for me. I would love to be out there and be a part of it in some way, again!"