E.C. Native Trevor Hagen’s Latest Project Featured on ‘Tonight Show’
trumpeter and Bon Iver collaborator is part of improvisational trio Heavy MakeUp
If you happened to tune in to The Tonight Show on Thanksgiving Eve (or, more likely, caught the clip later online) you may have been enchanted by the dreamy vibe of Heavy MakeUp, who performed the song “Under Construction” for an appreciative Jimmy Fallon.
The trio is composed of singer Edie Brickell – a.k.a. vocalist for rock veterans the New Bohemians, a.k.a. musical collaborator with Steve Martin, a.k.a. Mrs. Paul Simon – alongside Trever Hagen and CJ Camerieri on brass and synth. In fact, the latter sometimes played both instruments at once – no small feat, especially on national television.
If Hagen’s name rings a bell, it’s because he’s an Eau Claire native and onetime Memorial High School classmate of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. Both he and Camerieri have contributed to Bon Iver.
In the clip, Brickel sings ethereally while Hagen and Camerieri provide musical accompaniment. “Under Construction” is a track from the band’s second album, Here It Comes, which was released earlier this year.
The trio began as an improvisational project, Hagen told NPR’s Scott Simon in July. “Whenever we'd play, Edie would have fully conceived lyrics and a form of a song, a melody and harmonies,” he said. “And we had thought she’d maybe prepared these before. And it turns out she was improvising along with us the whole time.”
In the same interview, Camerieri (found of classical ensemble and Eaux Claires festival staple yMusic) described the process as “kind of like a constant musical trust fall.”
The band improvised more than 100 – yes, one-hundred! – songs, 13 of which made it onto Here It Comes. You can watch the Tonight Show clip below, find Heavy MakeUp on Facebook, and catch Hagen performing with fellow Eau Claire native Joe Westerlund around Wisconsin and Minnesota later this month.
