Anthony Trupia is a member of several Wichita bands, including Cow Skin Creek, The Sweets, Huffy and the Nighttrain, Vagabond String Band. He will perform with Huffy and the Nightrain at Vorshay’s Lounge, Friday, June 7 at 9 p.m.
“Mandolin started for me when I was about 18-years-old. I heard a band, Yonder Mountain String Band, that time in your life when you’re looking for a new sound. Not so much a new artist but you know that there’s something else out there. I’m coming out of metal and all of that stuff and that’s all that I knew. [I thought], ‘Something else is out there, surely.’ So, I was poking around on Archive.org and saw Yonder Mountain String Band and thought, ‘What’s a string band sound like?’
Played a show from 1998, I think at Penny Lane Coffee House, back when they were doing a lot of bluegrass. I heard that and a switch flipped. I thought, ‘Well, that’s it.’ It just did it for me. Jeff Austin was in the band at the time and I thought, ‘What is that incredible instrument? That’s what I want to do. That’s what I want to play.’ I’d never really been inspired to want to play like that before. I worked for a year to try to find a mandolin, got one and that’s been it ever since.”
