Wagler brings it home on Saturday, May 4th, by playing a solo show at Court Square Theater, benefiting his favorite local organization, the Collins Center. Briefly off the road from touring Canada and the West Coast with The Steel Wheels, Trent promises an evening of new and old songs for this rare homecoming.Wagler’s musical works have received a number of awards including Independent Music Awards Best Country Song of 2011 for “Nothing You Can’t Lose” and is currently up for Best Acapella Song for “Rain In The Valley” and The Steel Wheels’ last effort, “Lay Down, Lay Low” is nominated for Americana Album of The Year. The May 4th concert at Court Square Theater will highlight Trent’s writing and talents as a solo performer and storyteller. “I like stories. I have opinions and I like to share them, but I’d much rather tell a story. Everybody can agree on a story. You can argue with a story. It just is. And we all believe it. That’s why it brings us together.”
Eight years ago, Trent Wagler released his first album, Journal of a Barefoot Soldier, at Court Square Theater in downtown Harrisonburg. Since that time, Wagler and his band, The Steel Wheels have gained momentum traveling across the country playing their unique brew of Americana to garner radio play, awards, and stages large and small. Around the same time of that first 2005 concert, Trent started working for a non-profit then called Citizens Against Sexual Assault (now the Collins Center). “I was writing songs and playing shows, but my days were spent at The Collins Center. I was a full-time Prevention Educator, talking about healthy and unhealthy relationships and working to prevent sexual violence before it begins.”
“The Collins Center has done so much over the years to make our community safer and healthier. With the addition of their Child Advocacy Center, the highly trained staff at the Collins Center delivers the best in treatment and prevention of sexual violence and trauma. Seriously, I’m a fan.”
No More Rain, The Steel Wheels’ third album out April 16th, begins with the lyric, “I want to walk away and start over again.” The line, from Tom Waits’ “Walk Away,” fits the theme of 2013 according to Trent Wagler, the band’s principal songwriter and vocalist, “This is a year of going back to our roots. We love the Shenandoah Valley and we want to continue to invest some of the inspiration it has brought into our music back by creating opportunities for music and community to thrive together.”
To cap off the theme of getting back to their roots, the band is launching the Red Wing Roots Music Festival in the Shenandoah Valley this July. The 3-day festival will include the best of today’s neo-traditional artists, and takes its name from the old tune “Red Wing”, which Wagler learned from his grandfather and brought to the band with new lyrics. The song represents a commitment to roots, but also the propensity of The Steel Wheels to propel those musical traditions forward.
For the past three years, Wagler and The Steel Wheels have performed an annual SpokeSongs bicycle music tour, during which band members tow their instruments, equipment, and merchandise from one gig to another via bicycle and blog about their adventures.
See www.thecollinscenter.org for more information about The Collins Center
See Trent and The Steel Wheels’ touring schedule at www.thesteelwheels.com
Buy tickets at http://www.valleyarts.org/
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