Danette Dooley
Special to The Telegram
A musician originally from Conception Bay South is about to release his full-length debut album “Light & Shadow” under his J.D. Salinger-inspired moniker Catcher.
“In (“Catcher in the Rye”), Holden’s whole thing is phoniness. In the quote, ‘I just want to be a catcher in the rye,’ he’s referring to adulthood and the loss of innocence,” 22-year-old Trevor Bennett explained.
Catcher the band, he said, is a little more focused. His concern is about making choices with integrity and honesty.
“I’d like to be part of keeping things real and true,” he said. “And if there’s a message in all of it, it’s, ‘Be happy with yourself.’”
An emotionally driven songwriter, Bennett said many of Catcher’s songs are about endings, beginnings and false starts.
“There are a lot of breakup songs and a lot of it is very direct, personal-experience songs.”
He suspects it’s material many people will relate to.
He said he’s been influenced by language ever since his high school days.
Bennett started writing songs for the album about three years ago, then recorded several demos under the name Catcher.
“I started playing acoustic shows with some of the songs, just to get them heard kind of thing, and that led me to the boys who’ve ended up playing in (Catcher),” he said.
The band members are James March, Sam Murphy and Zach Hall.
When it came time to make “Light & Shadow,” Bennett had March record the drum tracks. He then brought the sessions home to his studio and did the rest of the recording. “The guitars, the bass, pianos and synths and vocals, and all sorts of other little bits and pieces here and there” on his own.
“It’s very much a Nine Inch Nails-inspired way of doing things,” Bennett said.
It’s a method that works for him, he said.
“I have trouble reining myself in,” Bennett confesses on his website (www.catcher.ca).
“I tend to start arranging and producing pretty early in the writing process. I hear things in a full-scale kind of way, and being comfortable with multiple instruments allows me to use different thought processes in the writing stage to flesh the songs out and to get them sounding on tape the way they sound in my head.”
Bennett said working with talented musicians such as March, Hall and Murphy makes live performance that much easier.
“Light & Shadow” will be in stores Tuesday and the CD release is set for Sept. 8 at Junctions on Water Street. There’ll be an all-ages show Sept. 9 at 2 p.m. at Distortion on George Street.
“The bar show is fun because you get a lot of your friends in there, but in my ideal world people don’t have to drink to enjoy the music,” Bennett said.
“So, performing for those who aren’t old enough to get into the clubs is nice, too. It’s a way of making sure everyone has an opportunity to get involved.”
Bennett will return to Memorial University’s School of Music in the fall to pursue a degree in voice.