Biography
Hailing from Detroit, American Mars crafts an ethereal, layered strain of Americana that weaves in pedal steel alongside vocalist Thomas Trimble’s candidly confessional lyrics. The band formed in 1995, drawing from atmospheric forebears including Galaxie 500, Grant Lee Buffalo, and Yo La Tengo. Their debut album, Late, was tracked in 1997 with producer and pedal steel player David Feeny, whose credits include Mule, Simon Bonney, and Cathouse. After a lengthy run of shows stretching from late 1997 through 1998, internal friction surfaced and the members disbanded once the tour wrapped.
Trimble kept writing material and shared stages with David Feeny in 1999, among them a stop at Toronto’s North by Northeast Festival. Soon afterward the pair began laying down tracks across scattered sessions that spanned nearly two years, setting aside the fixed-band approach and instead recruiting a changing roster of players to complete the project. Contributors featured ex-Mars member Karla Richardson, drummer Scott Michalski of the Volebeats, Jim Johnson, Patrick Pantano, Mike Popovich, and bassist Garth Girard; Popovich and Girard later joined American Mars’s touring lineup. The finished record, No City Fun, appeared in 2001.
Trimble kept writing material and shared stages with David Feeny in 1999, among them a stop at Toronto’s North by Northeast Festival. Soon afterward the pair began laying down tracks across scattered sessions that spanned nearly two years, setting aside the fixed-band approach and instead recruiting a changing roster of players to complete the project. Contributors featured ex-Mars member Karla Richardson, drummer Scott Michalski of the Volebeats, Jim Johnson, Patrick Pantano, Mike Popovich, and bassist Garth Girard; Popovich and Girard later joined American Mars’s touring lineup. The finished record, No City Fun, appeared in 2001.
Albums
