Trapt

About

Trapt is a hard rock band from Los Gatos, California best known for their 2002 hit "Headstrong." The band consists of Chris Taylor Brown on lead vocals and rhythm guitar and Pete Charell on bass guitar and backing vocals and a rotating cast of drummers and lead guitarists. The group remained active until well after their peak in musical success but didn't re-enter public consciousness until 2020, when singer Chris Taylor Brown engaged in several controversial rants on social media that ultimately got his band's accounts suspended from Facebook and Twitter.

History

Trapt formed in Los Gatos, California in 1995.^[1] They built up a following in the hard rock scene for the following six years until signing with Warner Bros. in 2001.^[2] On November 5th, 2002, they released their self-titled album, which contained their highest-charting song, "Headstrong" (shown below). "Headstrong" hit number 1 on the US Billboard Mainstream Rock and Modern Rock Tracks charts and peaked at number 4 on Billboard's Mainstream Top 40 charts.

The band remained active after the height of their success and put out Shadow Work, their eighth studio record, in July of 2020, though the album only sold 600 copies.^[3]

Online Presence

Trapt maintained an infamously combative social media presence for years, due largely to Chris Taylor Brown's conservative political leanings and penchant for arguing with fans in comment sections. In 2015, Brown used the band's Facebook account to rant against Keeping Up With The Kardashians, which then devolved into making homophobic insults to Rob Scallon, a musician whom they had feuded with over unauthorized use of his music.^[4] In 2017, he fought with Facebook commenters about Donald Trump firing James Comey^[5] and later that year argued with fans after asserting institutional racism doesn't exist.^[6]

MAGA Twitter Controversy

In March of 2020, Brown spent days arguing on Twitter with commenters after claiming black people had a "victim mentality" and arguing with actor Chris Evans about Trump's handling of the coronavirus to that point. The AV Club^[7] reported that Trapt had used many conservative buzzwords while arguing with commenters, called women fat, and repeated their streaming statistics in a copypasta that read, "Sorry 2 million Spotify and 2.6 million Pandora listeners give us a great career doing what we love! Very thankful I get to do this for a living! Your pathetic meaningless fat ass waste of space will never amount to anything and you know it."

Statutory Rape Defense Controversy

In December of 2020, Brown began arguing with a podcaster who criticized the band and Brown's social media presence. In the ensuing thread, he got in an argument with a commenter, devolving into him arguing a 15-year-old boy having sex with a 25-year-old female teacher is not pedophilia.^[8]

Account Bannings

In November of 2020, Facebook banned Trapt's page for hate speech.^[8] According to Brown, this was because of his sharing a Proud Boys meme on the page. He threatened legal action towards Facebook for the ban. In December of 2020, Brown's days-long defense of statutory rape got his band's account suspended from Twitter.

Search Interest

External References