Trinity Scum is Not All Bad: an interview with Katryna Nields

by Amy Jeffries

It’s seems strange to be publishing this interview I had with Katryna Nields now, and in this context. I have since (if it isn’t already apparent) left the institution of Trinity College which Katryna survived for four years, along with Dave Chalfant and Dave Hower, and I survived for a year and a half. However, I think that The Nields deserve more than mere survival. It is to the eyes of a readership that permits the flourishing of worthy art that I present this conversation for consumption.

Katryna: Yes, yes I am, along with Dave(Chalfant) and Dave(Hower).

Katryna: ’91.

Katryna: It’s making me feel old to realize how long it’s been since I was actually a student here.

Katryna: It’s alright, I feel my age and that’s a good thing to feel.

Katryna: I don’t know, it’s like every once in a while you take an accounting of your life and realize, wow, I’m no longer in that group of people that are right around college, right after college, right before college; I’m not in that right after college phase of my life anymore, I’m in the phase of being somewhat of an adult I suppose. It feels different than it looks from the outside, you know. Every age I think does. I remember when I was six looking at 14-year-olds and thinking they were the biggest, coolest, oldest people. And then when I got to 14, 14 seemed like a totally different thing. Same is true of 25 and beyond.

Katryna: Mmhmm, I was, I was indeed, and so was Dave Chalfant. Though, the Trinitypipes is officially called a college a capella group, we had a guitar — I don’t know if they still do — but we had a guitar and it was Dave Chalfant’s job. He was called Guitar Dave.

Katryna: Well, actually, I think what happened was in the 70’s guitar, sort of acoustic pop music was around a lot — Cat Stevens and James Taylor and Joni Mitchell and that sort of thing — so they started incorporating a guitarist back then, so then there were a lot of arrangements that called for guitar that had been passed down, so when they could find a guitarist that was capable they would. And I was not in the group, actually, when they decided to invite Dave — Dave was in the group for longer than I was — he would have to tell you exactly, or he may not even not why they did it. It’s in the folklore of the Trinitypipes.

Katryna: Yeah, so it was probably their 50^th anniversary, and they made an album called Mitasized. But there was albums all the time. We made an album my senior year which only came out on cassette. But before that they put them out on vinyl, and it was sort of… I think that, by the time I, by my senior year it was before it was cheap enough to make your own CD — you’d have to make thousands of them, I think, in to do that, things have changed — but nobody was listening to vinyl anymore. So, in fact, nobody was listening to vinyl anymore my freshman year and yet they made a vinyl album which I’m nobody can listen to because they don’t own a record player.

Katryna: Yeah? I did too.

Katryna: I listened to Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, and Sesame St. the original cast recording, and also Elvis Presley. (Katryna sings) "I’m in love, I’m all shook up, ohooohooh" that was my favorite song.

Katryna: Me and Nerissa made friends with this girl whose parents had every single Beatles record, so that, that blew our little minds. But we didn’t own the records, our parents were not hip enough yet; we had, you know, Joan Baez and Pete Seeger and stuff like that… and Elvis. But, you know, later on, the Beatles, we started collecting the albums one by one.

Katryna: No. Dave and Dave played together in a band called the Ghostshirts. Dave Chalfant was later not in that band, but he was in a band called Dert that I remember playing once. But, no, I never played with him outside the Pipes, until later, until after college. But, um, occasionally, but Nerissa and I, Nerissa and Mary and I performed once right after I graduated at like an alumni event or something.

Katryna: Well, Dave (Chalfant) and I were friends, and after college we were both sort of doing the same thing. He was in a band called Top Dog, and Dave Hower occasionally played with them. I called him up — he played both bass and guitar in Top Dog — I called him up and I said would you ever be into just coming over and, you know, jamming and maybe playing a little bass with us sometime, and said Yeah, that would be fun. So I invited him to Nerissa’s birthday party in what, 1990-? (Nerissa: three) and he came up to CT where we were living at the time, from NY where he was living and it was amazing, it was instantly like, whoa!, our music needed this so badly. And he was really really good, so we asked him if he’s play shows with us and said yes. And the first show that he — he was supposed to play this show with us in NY but I think that show would have sucked, but the club was closed down ‘cause it didn’t pass the fire marshal’s test or something like that, so we couldn’t play that show — so we invited him to DC with us where we happened to have this unbelievably great audience, there was like 250 people there, it was just amazing, it was like one of those early show that happened to be really excellent. And he was like, Wow this is good, this is fun, all do this; so we fooled him. Later he got to do some more of the fire-marshal-almost-closing shows.

Katryna: You mean why do I sing for my profession, or why do I sing anyway?

Katryna: Ok, well, I sing because I can and I grew up singing, it seems like the most natural thing in the world to me. I sing for my profession because I decided that I loved it more than anything else and that I wanted to love my job, and so why not make something that I love my job. Also because Nerissa helped encourage me to do so, ‘cause I think it’s a scary thing to decide to do and it’s a little bit of a selfish thing to decide to do and so it was helpful to have, you know, a cohort.

Katryna: When I was about two. Well, we always sang together all our lives (Nerissa: not as a duo), yeah, not as a duo. The first time we ever performed together, like in a restaurant, was in the summer of 1987, right? Before I came to college. We went to open mic nights in the Washington DC area.

Katryna: Well, we definitely argue, and fight. I think that’s good and healthy. And think that it’s one of the things that keeps the band together. There’s so many incredibly strong bonds in the band that you’re allowed to say stuff, and you’re allowed to say when you’re annoyed so it doesn’t well up into an explosion, you know lots of little things don’t blow up. You know when a little thing happens, Nerissa and I say, Err, don’t do that, we say, Oh, ok, I won’t do that. If you can fight, you can stay together and I think that’s really important, cuz it allows more elasticity.

Katryna: It really changes, what my favorite song is at any given time. This summer one of the songs which I’ve just been loving performing is innertube, which is gonna be on our new record "Play". Umm, but I always love doing Best Black Dress. There’s no songs that I’m really sick of.

Katryna: Which is pretty remarkable I think.

Katryna: But my favorites definitely change all the time.