Localized: Trauma Blönde

With melting ice cream cones and dressed like the rockstars from their favorite albums, it was clear Trauma Blönde wore their hearts on their sleeves. Skylar Johnson (guitar/vocals) was the first to speak his love of Exile On Main St. by The Rolling Stones. Talon Roberts (drums) kept it with classic rock by claiming Physical Graffiti by Led Zeppelin. Andrew Patterson (bass) leapt forward a bit and got heavier with Overkill by Motörhead, before Mia Johns (vocals) went the most modern and vintage with Lioness: Hidden Treasures by Amy Winehouse. 

“I grew up listening to late ‘70s, early ‘80s country music with my dad,” Patterson shares. “As I got older, I got more attracted to metal and rock ’n’ roll, but I started playing music in the sixth grade with the clarinet.” Roberts’ start came from the childhood classic video game Rockband: “My stepdad got Rockband, and we put on Weezer on expert. I never played drums before in my life, but I did pretty well, and he went, ‘Oh, you’re a drummer!’”

“Good things are meant to be shared; it’s infectious and contagious.”

“Dude, that’s like your sword from the stone moment,” Johnson joked. He grew up in a musical household, at first banging on pots and pans before eventually grabbing hold of his dad’s Ovation guitar before getting his own at age thirteen.

Johns recalled her earliest memory singing Leonard Cohen’s “So Long, Marianne” in the backseat. “I sang at my brother’s wedding when I was 12, and that was maybe the closest that I ever got into what we are doing now.” “It wasn’t until I roped her into it!” Johnson said before the band divulged their history.

Johnson and Patterson knew each other previously and would jam out frequently in Johnson’s living room. Roberts caught wind and poked his way into jamming in early 2025. Johnson recounts that first playing sesh: “Talon shows up with this big Pearl drumset, sets it all up high like Dave Grohl and starts shuffling like John Bonham.” He recruited Johns after she wished to be a singer in a band. “She killed it. She keeps up with us and we have to keep up with her half the time. If you are really lucky, you can find a few people where everything falls into place.” 

“If you are really lucky, you can find a few people where everything falls into place.”

It’s that kind of serendipity and good energy that the band wants to bring to their shows — whether it’s Johnson believing that good things are meant to be shared in the pursuit of emotion and good times, Patterson wanting to bring relief to others from their lives and the broader situation at large, Johns wanting to kill it as she goes, or Roberts wanting to make people headbang and shake their ass. While The Hives, Jett, Queens of the Stone Age, Bikini Kill, and Motörhead musically inspire their descriptor of “demolition site meets disco”, everyone brings their own inspiration, like Roberts’ love of basketball with coordination and swagger, Patterson’s and Johns’ energy and confidence from fashion or Johnson’s love of Ernest Hemingway influencing his writing.

As they plan for the future, the dichotomy between each of them shows up again as they give advice. Johns wants everyone to “use your voice, even if it is shaking, and go for the things you want.” Patterson urges everyone to “get busy creating, and do it because people are trying to take it away from you with AI, so do not use it! Or else!” Roberts actually advises to slow down: “It’s healthy to step back, slow down, take a deep breath and ask ‘Am I good? Are things okay?’” Johnson takes it back to an earlier moment with “Good things are meant to be shared; it’s infectious and contagious, so just keep moving through love and share it with those around you.”

Read more Localized features on your friendly neighborhood bands:
Localized: Wicked Temple
Localized: Lab Animals

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