Medium Troy band members Yonaton “Jojo” Ferraira and Jesse Ferraira recall the time when they were one of the opening bands for Lil Wayne at McArthur Court on October 6, 2007. News erupted all over the web that the rapper had been arrested the day before. During Medium Troy’s performance, many audience members received the news via cell phone during the concert, which initiated an outburst of upset fans, according to Jojo. Lil Wayne wasn’t going to show up.@@http://bestnewbands.com/interviews/item/745-medium-troy-toppling-the-west-coasts-indie-scene?tmpl=component&print=1  It’s Jojo according to Facebook — not JoJo@@@@http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=22185@@
“Thank you. You’re the worst audience we’ve ever seen,” Jojo remembered saying onstage. In response, the audience started throwing glow sticks@@http://www.glowstickfactory.com/@@ at them in outrage for the rapper’s absence. “The rest of the show was just a meltdown.”
Audience members flooded out of the court, almost starting a riot, according to Jojo. “It was the biggest fiasco in concert history in Eugene.”
Vocalist and guitarist Jojo and bassist and vocalist Jesse are core members of Medium Troy, along with guitarist Corey Hatcher, drummer Parker Koehn, keyboardist Leif Burton and Connor Sullivan working the turntables. They had been a rising band for about a year before the Lil Wayne catastrophe.@@http://www.facebook.com/MediumTroy?sk=info@@
Medium Troy formed in the fall of 2006 and quickly rose to fame in Eugene. Now, however, they want to branch out and inject their music to other cities.
It started with a few bar gigs with an estimated 30 friends showing up. Word spread, and more people appeared. Releasing “Bohemian Dub” in 2007 as their first self-produced and recorded album, they titled it after their mish-mash genre of hip-hop, reggae and dance hall with fat base lines.
Later, they started playing shows at WOW Hall for approximately 400 strangers. The band has also performed at festivals like the OC Fair in Orange County as well as at the University’s EMU Ballroom at no charge.@@http://www.ocfair.com/ocf/@@
“It was really great to be able to experience their energy through their fusions of music and their awesome stage presence,” said University sophomore Esteban Vollenweider, who has seen the band perform.@@http://www.linkedin.com/pub/steven-%22esteban%22-vollenweider/30/b85/b98@@
Quickly scaling up, the band opened for artists, bands and national touring acts — twice for the Vans Warped Tour. Recently, Medium Troy was named “High Times” magazine’s “Unsigned Band of the Week” in April 2011.@@CQ’d@@
“What’s been successful is how we’ve been trying to make our events fun for the people,” Jojo said.
The band has also won many local awards, such as “Favorite Local Band” in 2009 in the WOW Hall Awards balloting three out of the past four years.@@http://www.wowhall.org/@@
“Medium Troy performances are always a big party,” WOW Hall publicist Bob Fennessy said. “There are core players and special guests, so shows are never the same.”
For their upcoming album, Medium Troy plans to have a variety of musical guests playing various instruments, ranging from woodwinds to full symphonic backing and from marimba to “any interesting rare instrument that we can throw through a moogerfooger,” (musical effects pedals) states the Medium Troy website. “So if you are interested, hit us up!”@@http://www.mediumtroy.com/content/medium-troy-creating-second-album-help-us-out@@@@What do I do with this parenthetical?@@
Ironic, cynical and not-too-serious is the mesh of music they play, as described by Jesse.
The way the band performs and the music they play are perhaps just a couple reasons why their fan base has grown quickly.
“You never know what to expect,” Jojo said. “It could be a total shit show, or it could be really sweet.”
Jesse and Jojo said their fan base@@two words@@ ranges from all types of people: hippies, college students and older ladies. Basically, anyone who loves music of all genres and is “open-minded and likes phatty music,” Jesse explained. “Which is a lot of people these days.” The band doesn’t target one group of listeners specifically, but both Jesse and Jojo agree that individuals who take themselves too seriously, or who don’t get the irony in the lyrics, don’t like Medium Troy. “They’re just too blunt to get it,” Jesse said.
The members of Medium Troy are ready to expand their range of audiences outside the Willamette Valley, now that they have reached maximum fame.
“We can’t really get any bigger (here),” Jesse said.@@Okay, well, I disagree, but he said it.@@
There is a last big show at WOW Hall on Oct. 29 before the band tours with Collie Buddz in November and tour Hawaii in the winter. Another thing to look forward to this winter is their second album. They’ll keep playing in Eugene, but not as frequently as in the past.@@http://www.colliebuddz.com/@@
“To see them expand outside and make it in the U.S. or maybe around the world … would be amazing to see something like that — boom — coming out of Eugene,” Vollenweider said.
As for what lies ahead for Medium Troy, they’re keeping their sense of humor.
“We are going to be playing for thousands of people all around the world. It’s going to work out beautifully,” Jojo and Jesse laughed.