Peterborough rocker launches hip-hop album
Singer works on new project back home while band is on hiatus
Peterborough Christian rocker Trevor McNevan has come full circle in releasing his first hip hop album since he was working at McDonald’s on Chemong Road at age 15.
Fight Musik Vol. 1, released under the moniker I AM THE STORM, arrived Friday with the founder of five-time Juno-nominated Thousand Foot Krutch enjoying life in his hometown, spending time with his wife and two young children.
The alternative metal band is on its first significant pause from touring in more than two decades and after so many years of travelling, McNevan – who also owns a home in Nashville, where he met his wife – admits there’s no place like home.
“It feels really good to be back,” he said, pointing out how his son recently began playing minor hockey here. “It’s such a great place to raise a family.”
Hip-hop, especially the early 1990s music of Public Enemy, Run DMC, Erik B. and Rakim and the Beastie Boys, consumed McNevan from a young age. “It’s always been such an important part of my life.”
Back then, he studied the various patterns and styles of the genre while buying thousands of vinyl records from flea markets in Peterborough and Lakefield. He would obtain samples from jazz recordings, for example, to include in his early McFunded creations.
“I was such a student of hip-hop for a very long time. It taught me so much about music,” said McNevan, who recorded his first album at age 13.
The album he recorded at 15, which was half-rock, half-hip-hop, included drumming by Neil Sanderson, who also worked at McDonald’s and would go on to play in Thousand Foot Krutch from 1996 until co-founding Three Days Grace in 1997.
“We were both having a blast,” said McNevan, a frequent cross-genre collaborator who has written songs for a lengthy list of artists, including TobyMac, Hawk Nelson, Remedy Drive, Decyfer Down, Wavorly, Worth Dying For and Manafest.
Hip hop has continued to inspire him since those formative years and he often wondered if he could find the time to pour into another recording.
His current inactivity, including his pop punk side project FM Static, presented just the opportunity and inspiration he needed to finish the eight-track EP.
The name I AM THE STORM is not intended to be cocky, McNevan pointed out. It is about knowing you are in the centre of your storm, where there is peace and tranquility as you face the conditions that storms tend to bring into your life, he said.
It is a “statement that we could all use and an antidote to speak to our own mountains, obstacles, fears, addictions, hurts, pain and rejections,” McNevan stated. For him, it comes back to how he draws strength from his faith in Christ.
The album is hip-hop and more. There are aggressive, hard beats, but also groovier, smoother songs that pay tribute to the roots of the genre, he explained. “There are many musical rooms in its house … I wanted it to represent what I love about (hip hop) culture.”
The genre has changed much since he was a teenager, but there are still many great active artists, said McNevan, who said the classics are still his favourites.
With this project, it was important to him to not try to be current – he called it “classic meets fresh … it’s just honest to me.”
The emphasis on words makes hip-hop a beautiful art and McNevan enjoys the vocal “acrobatics” of the genre. Making the lyric video for These Lines, the first single, wasn’t easy because it has more than 1,000 words, he said.
NOTE: For more information, including where to get Fight Musik Vol. 1 by I AM THE STORM, visit www.iamthestorm.ninja/ and Trevor McNevan’s social media pages at www.twitter.com/tfktrevor,www.instagram.com/teerawk/ and on Facebook @trevormcnevan .