Behind the Tricks & Riddles: Up and Coming Grunge Band in NYC
By: So It Goes...
Tags: Emo, Grunge, Live Music, Music, NYC

Only a 15-minute walk from my Brooklyn apartment is a bar called Pete’s Candy Store, which, in fact, does not sell candy. Instead, the bar has a great deal for a shot and a beer and frozen hibiscus margaritas from a machine. Outside, I met my friend Malcolm Sales, a photographer, and inside, I met with Luke Vichnis, the lead singer of the emop-grunge band Trick the Riddle. We met a month earlier before his last show in the East Village at Arlene’s Grocery. Ever since I heard them play, I’ve been listening to their music non-stop. They have an hard punk sound that reminds me of my middle school days listening to My Chemical Romance and Green Day. They are a band born from three guys with a passion for making music and performing in NYC. Trick the Riddle is all about having fun and rocking out, and they want to share their unique sound with more people.

We caught up, exchanged introductions, ordered chilled drinks, and walked around the venue. Inside was a long room with a bar lined with booths, and behind that, an even longer and narrower room with small circle tables. The round bulb lights covered the perimeter of the ceiling and converged into a small stage where the band was set to do a sound check around 9pm. To the right of the room was a stretched hallway lit by old fashioned bulb lights.

“There’s a little patio in the back. We could sit back there.” Luke said.

We walked down the hallway and through a green door towards an L-shaped patio. Six of us sat at a table around the corner closest to the kitchen. Hunter Krasnow, the pianist of the band, sat next to me, Luke sat across from me Malcolm sat next to him, and, Nick Senatore, the drummer, sat with his girlfriend Tori.

“[Trick the Riddle] came about basically from the carcass of another band,” Luke stammered. “A few of us wanted to keep playing music.” Luke had met with the former drummer, and they worked on music that he wrote. Then everyone came back together around that music. “There was no official HEY WE’RE THE BAND NOW,” he shouted before tacking on, “which is for the best.”

Nick and Luke met at Hunter College in a pop combo class.

“We went our separate ways. Then my band had just gone on hiatus, and Luke hit me up on Instagram,” Nick said.

Hunter added, “So, I was in that carcass of a band,” and we all laughed.

That said, that band, at the time was missing a guitar player, so they put out an ad on Facebook in search of one.

Hunter continued and pointed at Luke, saying, “Somebody found him, and he came down to practice one day, and we didn’t get along — ”

“We were just opposites,” Luke interjected. “We got along just fine. You hung out along your side of it, and I hung out with mine.” After hanging out, making music together, and recording over the last year, they’ve become good friends.

Photo By: Malcolm Sales Left to right: Nick Senatore, Hunter Krasnow, Luke Vichnis

They Have Tricks Up Their Sleeve

Luke, Hunter, and Nick formed not only a friendship, but a small fan base during the pandemic with local NYC shows and livestreams.

“If we could have the funds or be invited on tour, I’m sure all three of us would love to do that like — tomorrow,” chuckled Luke.

Nick described it as a “chicken or the egg” situation. “Do you go on tour when you have a fan base, or do you go on tour, then grow your fan base?” he asked.

Luke explained that their goal is to go on tour someday, but for now, they’re focusing on making more music and doing more NYC-based shows with livestreams.

Lead singer and guitarist, Luke also writes the band’s songs. Currently, their music resembles the emo-punk sound that was popular during the ’90s and early 2000s, complete with loud guitar riffs and soft piano interludes.

Trick the Riddle often takes their time to release new music because quality is everything to them.

When writing songs, Luke starts with vocals on the guitar, then makes a demo. “I’ll flesh out the demo, send it to these guys, then they’ll be like ‘Cool, I wanna learn this’ or ‘Cool, I hate this.’ Then we go from there.”

Hunter explained that when they do drills in the studio, he records with Nick. “When I fuck up, he fucks up, and then when he fucks up, I fuck up.”

“It’s tough,” Nick commented.

“Sometimes we stay true to the demos we practice, and other times we just play and take it to a weird place, and it sounds completely different — which is fun,” Hunter described.

They have a new style that they have been working on. “It’s completely different from what we’ve done, and I think all of us are wanting to move toward it,” Luke said.

Nick cut in, “It definitely shifted… I don’t know if lighter is the word — ”

“It’s still heavy.” Hunter interjected.

“ — yeah, but comparatively lighter.”

Hunter mentioned, “I think it still has the emo roots. I don’t want to say synth-driven, but there are more pop elements — ”

Luke added, “Poppier? Peppier? Yeah. That’s good and that’s okay.”

“ — It still has that foundation.” Hunter concluded.

Back to Their Roots

Photo By: Malcolm Sales Left to right: Nick Senatore, Luke Vichnis, Hunter Krasnow

The three guys are completely different. Luke wears black tight jeans and has tattoos up and down his arms. Nick has curly hair and wears a white tank top. Hunter wears floral button ups and has a beard. Even their music tastes are different. Contrary to their differences, they form a cohesive sound people can rock out to.

Nick said of his music journey, “I was super obsessed with The Strokes and Interpol and this band Ambulance LTD–which was a smaller indie band. But what influenced how I play today would be Incubus. I don’t even know the name of their drummer — which is kind of fucked up — but I’m very similar to him.” He compared himself to Brian Viglione from the Boston-born rock duo The Dresden Dolls. He found himself getting into soul and R&B music in college, like Shakacon and Bobby Brown. “It’s a lot of shit — I’m all over the place,” he claimed. “I’m into a lot of ’80s black music artists.”

Hunter mentioned, “A lot of times I feel like the odd one out musically because we’re playing heavy stuff and I’m playing the piano. I function as a base player for this.”

Growing up, Hunter’s parents listened to Billy Joel, which is what first got him into piano. “It drove what I learned to play and a lot of habits I have when I play,” he shared.

He started listening to the Strokes later on. Hunter thought listening to these bands was much cooler than what he called his “grandpa music.”

Hunter explained how he found Delta Spirit, an American rock band from Cali with a sound that’s similar to The Strokes. “I found inspiration for changing from piano sounds to more synthesizer and weirder-sounding stuff, which enhances what we do,” he shared.“I try and find new ways to play songs. I find ways to change older songs a little bit so they fit with our sound.”

Hunter started playing at 7 or 8 years old when his mother bought him a light-up keyboard from Costco. “It had a setting that you could play one note, and it would play the whole song. I found that I could learn songs that way.”

His first song was “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple. He joked, “My parents wanted to stab me. They even took my keyboard once.”

Luke started playing young, too. “I got a shitty guitar at 8, and I basically gave up on it because it was really hard,” he shared. He explained that his family forced him to do other things, like gymnastics and little league. “I was like, ‘I hate all of this; can I just get guitar lessons?’ And my parents were like, ‘Yeah’, and I’ve been really playing since I was 12.”

The first song he learned to play was “Master of Puppets” by Metallica. “I still love that song, and I happy I learned it,” Luke said. The first song he would actually sing to was “War?” by System of a Down. “I had 5 songs on my iPod, and that was the first song. I downloaded it because I liked the album cover.” He held up his hand and described the cover as a hand grasping at the air. He mentioned artists like System of a Down, Nirvana, Paramore, My Chemical Romance, and All American Rejects. Like many of his generation, these were his favorites. He said, “I could be lame and be like, Well you know I’m also into classical music, but those really got me into playing music.”

Nick: Black Bears, Food Trucks, Coyotes Oh My!

If you’re a musician that isn’t playing arenas, you need a day job–or several.

“I pave streets with a paving company,” Nick shared. “I do random handy shit in general.”

Tori tapped him on the shoulder, and he muttered, “Well, I’m working on a food truck.”

“He’s opening up a food truck,” Tori announced with a smile to the group.

Nick is Italian-American, and to honor his family roots, he wants to open up a food truck that sells classic Italian sandwiches.

“I’ve cooked for a while because my dad would make me cook food for him,” he shared.

“Does your food truck have a name?” Luke asked.

Nick responded, “I wanted to honor my grandfather. He had a printing press called The Senatore Press, and I wanted to name the food truck Senatore Sandwich Press.”

Nick grew up in a Native American town in New Jersey named Towaco. “I lived on a mountain, and across the street from me was hundreds of acres of woods. So, I was used to black bears and coyotes,” he said.

“I started playing drums super early when I was 8, and my neighbors weren’t close, so I didn’t have to worry about playing late at night.”

Luke chimed in, saying, “You should name your sandwiches the Black Bear and the Coyote.”

Hunter: Caring for the Forgotten in a Cookie Cutter Town

“I am also from a Native American town, but out on Long Island, and it’s the exact opposite. It’s suburban, built in the ’50s, and everyone has the same house,” Hunter shared.

Hunter mentioned that there are two types of houses in his town: giant mansions on the bay and cookie-cutter homes in the middle of town that are “very plain and kinda boring.”

His parents built a home that houses the nomadic youth: foster kids, juvie floaters, and any lost soul trying to get back on their feet.

“I never took an interest in that as a kid because it was my parents thing. One day my dad was like ‘Come see the house, see what I do.’ We went down to the house, and I started helping him, and now I’m there every day,” said Hunter through a smile.

Hunter is the handy man for fixing things the kids break, which he said happens often.

Hunter also helps some kids with job hunting. “I was their age at one point, and I was struggling to find jobs and trying to find myself in a sense, and that’s why I want to help them. You hear some of these things these kids go through and it’s like, how are you still going? There are a lot of sad stories. It makes you look inward,” he stated.

Hunter shared that he is working on a building for mothers and their children. “We had a former resident who might be one of our first residents in the mother house because she left the program and had a kid and has been struggling.”

Luke: Secret Agent or Guitar Teacher?

Luke is from Long Island like Hunter. He now lives in the Upper East Side and teaches at an East New York high school’s afterschool guitar program. He leads a guitar ensemble and a rock class. “It’s definitely with kids that don’t have other programs similar to that,” Luke explained.

Luke moved from Long Island in 2014 after attending a community college for two years. He enrolled at Hunter College, and he stayed in the city when he got the teaching job, so he has lived in Manhattan for almost seven years.

“I love it. New York is really cool, and I love my place,” he said smiling.

“If I wasn’t doing music or something artistic or creative, I would definitely be a super undercover detective doing some crazy shit. Like you’re gonna be in this drug den for like 12 years, no communication with your family for years. I feel like I would just get lost in something like that, which would not be good, but it’s an adventure,” Luke revealed.

Jokes aside, Hunter mentioned how their day jobs allow them to do what they love — making music. “We would talk about it all the time,” he said while pointing at Luke. “Because of the shit that we had to do because of our lives, coming here [to NYC] and playing shows is great. This is what we do everything else for.”