CD presentation & lesson in music: haring & the trouts 

HARING & THE TROUTS

haring & the trouts is a queer feminist alternative country rock band founded in 2010 by sol haring and kordula knaus. Brushing country against the grain their original songs about rebels, tough women, transgender, ageism or queer love are a manifest for empowerment and joyful pride. In 2016 they published their first album “enjoy the swim“, in 2023 their second album “She don’t care“. haring & the trouts communicate via facebook, the music is available via soundcloud, youtube or spotify.

“She don’t care” contains hymns to courageous pioneers, visionary utopians and cowgirls without horses – in the usual crisp and self-deprecating alternative country rock sound.

Sol Haring founded this country rock project together with Kordula Knaus in 2010.
Haring &; the Trouts are often referred to as a queer-feminist country rock band. The lyrics of the almost exclusively self-composed songs deal with women’s love, transgender, ageism, rebels and murderers. Haring & the Trouts recorded their first songs in the recording studio in July 2011.
Since 2014, Jenny K. has been supporting the trouts with violin and also a few guitars and bass riffs!

Now the band is made up like this: Sol Haring (vox, western guitar, blues harp), Kordula Knaus (guitar, banjo), Anita Peter Mörth (bass, backing vox), Irma Servatius (fiddle, backing vox), Jenny Kremsner (drums/cajon, fiddle) – (Stefanie Egger, vox, fiddle)

SOL HARING: I always wanted a side project “Country Band” to my band “supernachmittag” (with Anita Peter Mörth), and I wanted a band name that continued my surname with an “and the XYZ”. Since my name is Haring (in High German it means herring), the trout goes with the fish, so we became “haring & the trouts” (trouts are extremely musical fish).

This ironic note in our band name is also reflected in our appropriation of the country genre. Country is historically the music of the US working class. Today, the genre is strongly perceived as white, conservative, heteronormative, etc. Kordula says it’s interesting to brush it against the grain.

We are feminists, and the themes of our songs arise from our lived experiences. Our version of “sex, drugs & rock’n’roll” goes further: it becomes “sex & gender bender.” We are academics (Dr. Sol and Prof. Dr. Kordula, Dr. Jenny, Dr. Anita, and Dr.-Ing. Steffi), in other words, a group of “Dr. Feel Goods” with a creative twist. We come from diverse educational and musical backgrounds—both theoretical and practical. My own knowledge of music theory is rudimentary, but the others are highly proficient. While songwriting does not necessarily require theoretical knowledge, it can be quite useful for arranging and for establishing a shared language within the band. It is the combination that matters. We sing about topics such as shoe size 42, which is considered rather large for women. Anything that falls outside the norm or deviates from stereotypical gender images immediately attracts our attention and often becomes the subject of a song. Our themes include: the subversion of gender roles, trans and lesbian love, prostitution, poverty, murder, aging, sport, faith, mansplaining, human rights—and doughnuts.