Features
Change Is In The Air
The band’s new album, Sex Change, is out now on Thrill Jockey and the band will play three East Coast shows this week in Buffalo, Pittsburgh and New York City. They’ll head to Bristol March 1 to launch a week of U.K. dates, followed by European gigs through the end of the month.
The North American trek will run from April 10 through May 4, starting in Washington, D.C., and finishing in Philadelphia. Zombi and Psychic Paramount will support.
Trans Am has been largely absent from the stage since 2004, when the group released Liberation. The trio left its longtime base of Washington, D.C., that year, with Nathan Means heading for New Zealand, Phil Manley for San Francisco and Sebastian Thomson for London and New York.
They reunited last fall, recording Sex Change in three week-long sessions with much of the material written in the studio.
Means told Pollstar the group is feeling refreshed and excited after its hiatus.
“Nothing’s as good as not seeing each other for a long time,” Means said, laughing. “We’ve been friends for a long time, but I think you get a sense when all you do is tour in a marginally successful indie rock band and you put out records and it takes up a lot of your time … I think eventually you get the feeling that somehow this band is stopping you from doing something else that you might rather be doing. So everyone got a chance to go play with other bands or do different kinds of work.”
Means said he has “no idea” what the band’s plans are following the upcoming tour. Manley, at least, will be back on the road almost immediately with his other band, The Fucking Champs.
“It’s all up in the air,” Means said. “I can’t imagine that we would get back into putting out an album a year, just because we all have lots of other things going on in our lives and we all live in different cities. But I think it’s entirely possible that we could put out a couple more albums in the not-too-distant future. It’s just going to depend on what kind of feeling we have in May.”