There are many who come through the Atlanta music scene with aspirations to create something that will leave an indelible mark on the artistic landscape of this town. None of them, however, have had quite had the uniquely rough and rugged time of it as Derek Lord, aka the Trespasser. He’s been making music and releasing albums online for the better part of the 21st century and his songs are riddled with the true grit of life on and off the streets. He’s done jail time, lived as a homeless vagabond, and has finally come to find some well-deserved stability in life, both as a musician and a human being. His songs chronicle some of the experiences he’s cultivated over the years and are frequented by down-and-out characters and outcasts from the far corners of society. It’s a form of DIY music that is steeped in a long tradition laid out by the likes of everyone from Daniel Johnston to Blaze Foley to Robert Johnson. He’s intermingled with everyone dwelling upon the barebones of the Atlanta music world and elsewhere. I had the opportunity to sit down with Lord and talk to him about the various themes that underpin his music and some of the experiences that have helped shape his strange, demented sonic vision.

So when did you actually start playing as the Trespasser?

Let’s see… I started making music as the Trespasser maybe, like, four years ago? I mean, it’s just a handle I’ve put on my music. I’ve been making music all my life under different names or whatever. A few years ago I came up with that name and it stuck, I guess. You know, just a handle to put out music on the Internet.

Word.

Word.

So how many actual releases do you think you’ve put out under that handle up to this present day?

I have like… well, basically it was just a handle to have a Bandcamp as. On that handle I think I’ve had like 25 different collections of songs, I guess you could call ’em. I mean, I could look at it right now and tell you.

Yeah, because I see you have one called House of Doom?

Those are all different collections of songs made at different times.

There’s one called Bugman…

Yeah, Bugman. That was a concept album, kinda.

What was the concept behind that?

Ah, Bugman was a dumpster baby that… It’s kinda like a superhero story where his name was Bugman. It’s a long story, man. His mom was like a whore, and she used to cater to guys with fetishes, and this dude had a fetish where he would put like bugs in his condom and then fuck her. So he fucked her and the condom broke and he got semen and bug juice all inside of her. So he was basically conceived with bug juice. That’s how he ended up with bug DNA or whatever. And then, so, she was a whore and she was homeless so she threw the baby in the dumpster. And the dumpster just happened to be out back behind a radioactive nuclear site. So he had like bug DNA and had nuclear juices coming in and he just became this like all-powerful bug guy with nuclear powers.

Damn, and is this loosely based on somebody who you’ve met or someone you’ve known?

Ah, when I originally wrote it, it was supposed to be largely semi-autobiographical just based on some of the things he did, like being homeless. Yeah, like he lived in a hobo camp. His dad was a hobo. Dumpster Dan was his dad. You can listen to the album and the whole story is in there. I say it’s semi-autobiographical because he did some of the same things I did, but I was trying to make it like a cliché superhero story so it’s kind of retarded at the same time with the whole bug from the condom and all that shit. So, basically, he can like control bugs but he’s one with all bugs. And I use the term bugs because that could be anything from spiders to flies to, like, maggots. Just anything that could be considered a bug.

Right, ok!

Like when he fights his battles he’ll have a bunch of bugs back him up. Like crawl on you and sting you and like… consume you. Shit like that.

That’s cool. Fucking gnarly! So is there generally underlying concepts such as this one in most of your releases as opposed to being a straight collection of songs?

I mean, I guess all of my collections of songs have some kind of a theme running through them depending on what I’m going through at the time, you know what I mean? Like, I’ve got a few albums that have several songs about, like, just getting out of jail or living on the streets or whatever it was that I was going through at that time, you know? Some of them are just complete nonsense and some are just completely random.

And the guy who you collaborated on your split cassette release, Matthew Sour. What’s his story?

He’s an old friend of mine I used to play in a band with called Forever Men. I don’t know if you ever heard of like, the Lazy Indians?

Yeah.

He’s played with them and some other bands. But he moved out to Portland and we kept in touch and we just wanted to do an album together, like via Internet, so we did. He bought a tape duplicator on eBay where you could make like a million tapes and we wanted to put a tape out, so we just put together a collection of songs and then we did a few songs together just via e-mailing the tracks back and forth, and he made all the tapes.

Cool, so how long were you living on the streets for?

The longest? Probably like 6 months. I mean, I’ve been on the streets off and on all through my 20s and shit, you know? Different times where I’ve just fucked everything up and had nowhere to go.

Did you have opportunities to play and record while you were homeless?

No, not really. I never really had access to anything when I was homeless, but I made a lot of songs and albums that came out right before I went to the streets and right when I got back. So it was all like fresh on my mind, I guess. I don’t know, but I need to go back and look through them all because you can kind of see how, like, this collection of songs might be about everything going to shit and right after that is when I’m homeless for a while. And the next collection is, like, me getting my shit together and you can kind of see a story throughout ’em, I guess.

Yeah, totally. So as far as playing out, do you perform in venues that much?

No, I’ve just played one show as myself. I’ve played with a few bands in the past, but just as myself, doing my songs, I’ve played one show. It was at Slop Fest in Athens a couple years ago.

Was it just you performing or did you have a band as well?

My friend Erin was playing with me. She played banjo and sang with me and we wrote some songs together. She learned some of my songs and we played some of the songs we wrote together and did a few covers.

Are you considering playing out more in the future?

Yeah, it’s always been something I really want to do. It’s just that I put out music so frequently that I have the problem of remembering the songs I’ve written, you know what I mean? Because I just, like, make one and then go on to the next one. It’s like I never stop and take the time to focus on one and learn how to play it more than one time. Like, I usually play it, get it down, record it, and then move on to the next one. And then just forget about it. But I’ve been meaning to re-learn how to play some of my songs, like some of the ones I like and would want to play out, and then play them somewhere with people, or even just with an open mic. It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for a while. I just haven’t gotten around to doing it.

But, for the most part, a lot of the stuff that you’ve recorded in the past, you just record it put it out and just sort of keep on going, moving ahead, and keep making new shit more or less?

Yeah, and you’ve seen how whenever I record a song I’ll post it on Facebook, and […] some of the reactions I get from people on songs like dictate whether or not that song is going to be a keeper. Like some songs that I never thought were going to be that great, a bunch of people ended up liking. So I thought to myself “Well, maybe I should keep that one around and learn it.” I mean, I know how to play a couple of them that I’ve gone back and re-learned for that purpose of being able to play it. You know, whether it was people liked it or I liked it.

Right. So besides the circumstances that are going on in your own life would you say there’s any consistent musical influences that you can name off the top of your head?

I mean, not really. I’ve always kind of had an identification with the blues. There are blues elements and maybe some folky kind of Americana stuff through there. I don’t know a whole lot about genres or whatever you’d even call a lot of that stuff, but there are kind of country themes and, of course, a little punk and rock and a little bit of everything. Every song is different, though, and none of them sound quite the same. I never really stick to one style or anything.

The Trespasser

Yeah, partially I think that’s kind of what makes this music even more interesting, because you can hear elements of the blues and pop.

Yeah, I try to make everything kind of catchy. I like pop music or pop-punk or pop whatever. I just want shit to be catchy and stick in your head, but at the same time I want it to sound kind of authentic, too, which is where I try to weave bluesy shit into it, I guess.

And the recording quality when you listen to a lot of this stuff, it usually sounds pretty DIY.

Yeah, it’s all DIY. Like, I’ve never gone to a real studio or anything. I’ve done it all either on a four-track or a computer mic or some sort of computer software like Audacity or some free shit you can get online to do multi-track recordings.

Have most of the physical releases you’ve put out been on cassette format?

Well, that Matthew Sour split cassette I gave you is probably my only official actual release that I’ve put out. There’s been a few albums I’ve put out where I made some copies and gave them to some friends, but nothing that has been officially released. To me it’s all “released” on Bandcamp and it’s copyrighted, so as far as I’m concerned those are releases. But I’ve just never gone and made hard copies of them or anything. I did go to Criminal Records, though, and slide a few copies of that tape there onto the shelves hoping that someone would pick them up! [laughs]

Cool, man.

Matthew out in Portland gave a few copies to people out there.

Have you thought about pressing anything on vinyl or anything like that?

I would if I had the means! If I ever came across a way to have some pressings done! I need to go through my collection of music first, though, because I have so much music and 80% of it is fucking garbage! A lot of the albums are just so thrown together and out-of-tune. The timing is off, just badly done. You can hear dogs barking in the background and roosters and shit. Like, I fucking screw up lyrics.

Well, the unrefined quality of a lot of this stuff is partly what makes it appealing, to me at least. Like, if you go and listen to some of the street recordings from guys like Moondog, who was recording on the streets of New York, you could hear sounds of traffic in the background and you could hear dogs barking…

Yeah! I mean, I like that shit. I don’t want to say that’s the sound I’m going for, but it’s just what I’m dealing with. You just record with what you’ve got. Work with what you’ve got.

And to go back to the thing about the country influence in your music. It comes through a lot in the lyrics, I think. Because a lot of what I hear is sort of you describing everyday circumstances. Like “I’ve got to work a job” or “I just quit my job” or “I got fucked up on drugs” or “I got drunk” or “my wife left me” or “my dog died,” which are generally common themes in country music.

The tragedy of life. That’s definitely something I sing about a lot. Add a little tragedy of life to some country sounding tunes and you’ve got a country song!

That’s right!

Or some blues. I’ve covered a few Townes Van Zandt songs. I can’t even remember really the covers I’ve done on the releases. I’ve done some Blaze Foley and some Roger Miller and stuff like that.

Yeah, I can definitely see some kind of connection between the music of Blaze Foley and your own stuff. But to take it back to some of the life experiences you’ve been going through lately, I heard about you and some friends recently had a mutual OD in Little Five Points.

Yeah, that was me. Actually it was three separate instances.

A guy died, right?

Yeah. Well, all three of us all OD’ed on the same night, at the same time, and I think all our dope came from the same guy. But it was three different incidents. Like, I didn’t know the other two guys and they didn’t know me as far as I know, and I don’t even know if they knew each other! We just all OD’ed from the same shit from the same guy at the same time and ended up in the same square. Passed out ODing!

Yeah, because I remember I saw something about that in the newspaper, too.

Yeah, it was in the news. The guy’s name was Kevin White. The guy who died. I didn’t really know who he was. I never even knew he was there, but we all just ended up passed out in the same square. I never remember hanging out with him. I remember the guy who came through with the dope, though, and I’m assuming they got dope from the guy, too, because it was fucking killing people.

And I’ve been coming to realize that this type of thing has been happening all over the place.

Yeah, all the dope these days is cut with fentanyl and it’s killing people left and right.

It’s a real shame.

You just gotta be careful. If you’re doing an amount of dope you’re used to doing, it could kill you. So you should probably, like… don’t do it at all! Or do half of what you would normally do.

Yeah, that must’ve been a pretty intense experience, though. Did that inform any of your songwriting at all or did you write a song about that?

Uh yeah, I wrote a song about that. It’s called “I Died.” I had a whole album I made when I first came back from the streets that time. It’s an all synthesizer album, there are no guitars on it. It’s just about those experiences. I remember they called it a “triple overdose.” That’s the phrase they used in the news. So I wanted to start a band called Triple Overdose.

That would be a great name for a band!

I thought so too! [laughs]

More Info
Bandcamp: thetrespasser.bandcamp.com