In late April 2011, Nick Hall and Tandi Murphy-Hall received a phone call being invited to play the annual Tompkins Square Park Riot Fest in NYC. When they mentioned that their old bands, Damnesia and Unplanned Pregnancies were no longer together, a joke was made, “Well can’t you make a new band?”
After an hour or so, Tandi thought, “Why not?”… And so they set out to make this happen, not knowing that they were about to embark on the creation of a new family.
Recruiting Daniel Hampton to play bass and Anthony Green to play drums, a name was next in order.
Tandi wanted something slightly feminist and political… Without being silly or preachy.
After MANY hours of debate and hundreds of names, Nick proposed the name Triangle Fire, in remembrance of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fires that occurred in 1911 in NYC… This seemed appropriate, since it’s fire killed well over one hundred women and children working in inhumane conditions and lead to better labor laws and wages, also
at the time, still being the largest man-made disaster in the USA, until the World Trade Center incident.
Having acquired a line-up and a name…. Music and tour dates were needed.
Nick and Tandi booked the tour while Daniel joined the two in endless hours to write a set of fourteen songs and a cover.
With Anthony’s schedule overflowing with the other projects he was part of, and tour time quickly approaching, everyone decided it would be best for all to find another drummer, after having played just one, last minute show.
Frantic, Tandi thought about a great friend of theirs, John Barber, from Orchard Of The Living and countless other bands. So she gave him a ring. John was more than happy to join the project as a fill in drummer, but there was a problem…. John lived in Greenville, SC, while everyone else lived in Athens, GA and the tour was only a couple of weeks away!
Transporting back and forth several times a week, John learned as many of the songs as humanly possible and Triangle Fire set out on an East Coast tour and to play their first official show.
The tour was a huge success.
Having had such positive feedback, so much fun, and having formed a bond from friendship to family, everyone decided that John was the perfect fit, so he stayed on as the permanent drummer… The members of Triangle Fire now drove over one hundred miles, each way, for band practice once a week!
A few months later, while the rest of the band were all getting up to speed and learning new songs that John provided, Nick and Tandi’s good friend, Tim Wheeler, from Planned Collapse, Rats In Rigor, and Rotgutt moved to GA from NJ, while on the run from the cops, and joined the family on second guitar.
After adding MANY shows to their belt and coming up on recording and the next tour, Daniel decided to leave the band, due to personal differences… Although he still remains a highly supportive friend!
At that time, Tim moved from second guitar to bass and Triangle Fire decided, out of respect to Daniel, to drop/change most of the songs that he helped write/submitted.
On April 22, 2012, Triangle Fire recorded nine songs (One of which was later dropped due to the fact that Tandi was not happy with it’s turn-out) at The Jam Room in Columbia, SC. Five of the tracks were put on a self-released seven inch, that are limited to three hundred hand-numbered copies for the public, and three hundred copies for press release.
Two days after getting the seven inches back from the pressing company, Triangle Fire ventured on their second East Coast Tour.
On July 4, 2012, while on tour, they met up with another good friend, Sam Palubniak, from Wombat In Combat and Team Spider, at JC Studios in NJ and he recorded five more tracks for them… Including a re-take of the song that was dropped from the April 22nd recording.
Once again, this tour was a huge success.
A month later, Triangle Fire returned to NY to play the 2012 Tompkins Square Park Riot Fest, but shortly after returning home, disaster struck and Tim was arrested in SC. They expedited him back to NJ to serve out his time.
After much debate on whether or not to keep the band going while Tim was locked up, Justus, from Vivisuk, lovingly joined the family, to fill in on bass for several shows that were already booked.
Once out, Tim briefly moved back to SC and Triangle Fire went on their third East Coast tour in June of 2013.
Due to personal reasons ranging from school and sickness to multiple family deaths, the rest of 2013 was quiet from the band… Until November, where old friends and previous band mates, Mackie Alexander (On bass) and Cody Zeder (On drums), joined Nick and Tandi as they immerged into the Atlanta punk scene… Hopefully 2014 will prove to be a more consistent and prosperous year for everyone involved!
Triangle Fire has been on several local and international comps and will be releasing all of the pre-recorded tracks via splits and full lengths soon.
Line-up on April 22nd & July 4th recordings:
Tandi Murphy-Hall- Vocals
Nick Hall- Guitar & Vocals
John Barber- Drums & Vocals
Tim Wheeler- Bass & Vocals
Bands/Projects members have been in:
Tandi Murphy-Hall - Triangle Fire, Damnesia, Unplanned Pregnancies, DUI Don’t Know, Ethan Ogletree
Nick Hall - Triangle Fire, Damnesia, Unplanned Pregnancies, Punk Core Hard, DUI Don’t Know,
Social Awareness, Food Clothes Shelter, Jesus Christler
John Barber - Triangle Fire, Orchard Of The Living, Food Clothes Shelter, Black Ops, Chainsaw Sex Vikings, Resent, Insurrection, Faction Paradox, Din Of Thieves, Red Sex Army, Complete Bastards, The 90 Calibers, To What End?, Clown Nation
Tim Wheeler - Triangle Fire, Rats In Rigor, Planned Collapse, Rotgutt, Rational Solution, Polemic Shock
Mackie Alexander - Triangle Fire, Social Awareness, Ethan Ogletree, Punk Core Hard
Justus - Triangle Fire, Food Clothes Shelter, Matt and Justus Best Of Friends, Vivisuk, Extinction, Babehammer, The Pints, Neon Hole, Slow Children Playing, Two Minute Hate
Cody Zeder - Triangle Fire, Social Awareness, Forsaken Profits, The Ostrasized, The Moles,
The Unacceptables
Daniel Hampton - Triangle Fire, Wrist Bandits, America Zero, Effin Epic
Anthony Green - Triangle Fire, Showtime!, Lowdive