Triality

9 min readApr 20, 2025

By Sam Crutcher

It’s the morning of February 15th when I arrive at Parkland Community College’s in-house music studio to shoot with Triality, reveling in the irony of the current situation. I’ve just asked a punk band of college students to haul ass to their school at 9 in the morning on a Saturday (and not just any Saturday, the Saturday after Valentine’s Day) for a photo shoot and interview. Miraculously, everyone has arrived with smiles on their faces in a timely manner for us to begin the morning’s activities. Well, maybe “miraculously” isn’t fair. After all, Triality is way more than just a punk band, and they’re damn passionate about what they do.

This passion has caught the attention of many local partygoers, including myself, both eyes and ears. I was introduced to Triality through an electrifying set at The Cosmo for the Circular Fashion Expo afterparty. A then relatively unknown Triality took to the stage with a presence like no other. Donning a vandalized MAGA hat, the lead singer’s infectious rebellious energy spoke well to the crowd, delivering a one-of-a-kind performance culminating in shoes caked in mud and vomit on the floor. It was then that Triality cemented themselves as a group to watch.

They followed up this momentum with subsequent shows, an excellent studio-produced single, and plans for a debut album on the horizon, but behind the hype, Triality is a group of friends who love music. Their lineup consists of lead singer Jaden Campbell, lead guitarist Isaac Carley, rhythm guitarist Tim Dager, and bassist/drummer Zachary Hay. The boys have a lot in common, with ¾ of the group being Parkland Students (Tim being the UIUC exception), ¾ of the group being townies (Zach hails all the way from Tampa, Florida), and all sharing a deep love for music, albeit through different means.

The musicians describe their musical journeys in vivid detail. Dager tells me how his dad handed him a guitar in high school, leading him to put some strings on it and go to town. “I just started learning riffs from songs that I liked, and I got to the point where eventually I could steal things from different genres and put them together to make my own stuff,” stuff which would eventually become the basis for many Triality originals. Hay and Carley were both similarly gifted instruments by family members. Hay started on Trumpet, but after being gifted a pricy Fender bass guitar by his uncle, he slowly found himself gravitating away from his orchestral aspirations and more towards the bass riffs of Sublime and the fast-paced drumming of Green Day. Inspired by his brother, Carley began to pick up the guitar and was eventually gifted one from his father. Then, the pandemic hit, and “my no social life having ass decided to sit in my room for 4–5 hours a day during quarantine and play guitar” and the rest is history. “Shoutout Ultimate Guitar tabs.”

Campbell got his start through musical theater, describing performing as where he feels most at home. This background in theater certainly accounts for his powerhouse of a voice, allowing him to deliver ear-curdling screams at one moment, and serenade the audience with some smooth indie and jazz-tinged vocals the next, giving Triality a very unique voice within the scene. However, Campbell found collegiate musical theatre very intimidating, and that’s where the idea of a band sprouted following some photography work he’d done for a show at Red’s. After the idea was planted, Campbell sprang into action, recruiting friends and strangers through Snapchat.

Once the band was formed, it was time to define their sound. “I definitely did have a direction,” Campbell tells me, “but it’s hard having a vision and then you’ve got other people. You kinda have to compromise.” He tells me how he initially favored a more indie direction, “stuff that requires not only great instrumentals, but a great singing voice as well. It matched what I wanted to sing and the feeling of the originals I wanted to make”. However, the band wanted to go a little harder, and while Campbell may have had to learn how to “destroy [his] voice”, they’ve more than made do.

Having access to Parkland’s music studio significantly helped the band shape its sound as well. As Carley says, “This is our home, this is where it all happened.” The room functions as a practice space, recording studio, production space, and overall home base. On top of performing with the band, Hay serves as the band’s producer, a skill he was able to hone after taking Parkland’s music production class. Hay’s interest in production came at an early age, “I was like 11 years old, and I was like ‘I wanna be a Soundcloud rapper’, so I started making beats. My friend and I decided to make a little rap group where we did sus raps.” These days, when Hay steps into the studio, he’s not laying down humorous homosexual harmonies; rather, the goal is elevated indie rock with the help of Parkland Faculty, Adam Porter. “We wouldn’t be a band without this place.”

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Parkland offers its students the opportunity to fully produce one song completely for free. It’s this process that spawned Triality’s late 2024 debut single, Lovestruck. Described by the group as the most unique song in their repertoire, they didn’t see it fitting snug in a full-length project, making the track the perfect candidate for the single. The band describes locking in for hours to nail the sound of each instrument, working up to the day before release. Carley’s solo, in particular, was recorded at 9:30 pm in just 10 minutes before being released the following morning. The band reminisces fondly on this experience and seems eager to continue recording their feature-length debut project.

When it comes to creating a new Triality original, everything is intentional. With Campbell’s sharp lyricism, “all the songs have a meaning.” Dager serves as another potent fountain of creativity within the group, crafting complex riffs at home and bringing them to the studio the following day for Hay, Carley, and Campbell to all build upon beautifully. It’s a very fun collaborative process that brings the boys together, challenging them to play to each other’s strengths while incorporating their unique styles into each instrumental component. This process has given rise to the construction of an album, which the band hopes to wrap up before Hay leaves for Florida this semester. The goal of the Triality album is to capture the dynamic energy of the band with songs playing to both their smoother indie side and their brutal punk side, similar to how the band can tailor their sound to adapt to different house venues around the CU area. The album will have a little bit for everybody.

This rose, however, comes with a thorn, as the band seems uncertain of their future. Triality may not survive past this album. Campbell is a transfer student who hopes to remain in the area, but who knows where life will take him. Dager will remain on campus, and Carely would make the drive from Rantoul, but with Hay back home in Tampa, the band, as it stands today, will most likely not be around much longer. However, it would be a shame to let the uncertainty blind us from Triality’s fantastic current run of performances. Campbell is a one-of-a-kind frontman who knows how to cater to the crowd, although he does confess, “I’m always nervous.” Despite this, he goes into each gig intending to have a good time first and foremost. This attitude connects the band as they feed off each other’s collective energy, making each performance a treat.

And it’s not just me who recognizes this. “Someone told me in the audience one time, ‘Hey, not only are you a good singer, but that song is really amazing, that really made me feel something.’ That means the world to me, being able to create music that has meaning and evokes feeling. That means I’m doing a good job, we’re all in it, we’re all passionate about it, and people can feel that passion in the words I’m saying,” Campbell shares. “That’s the best compliment a band can get,” Carley adds. They cite this as one of their favorite parts of being in a band, outside of the friendship, of course. “These are the best years of my life,” Hay professes, “Jaden took me into his friend group, and I met some really cool people. This scene has basically given me my life at this point, it’s amazing!”

It’s this connection and community that makes the Champaign-Urbana music scene so special. Triality is one of many examples of a posse of talented musicians and community members who love what they do and love the people who make it possible. When it comes to community, there are few as dedicated as Jaden Campbell. He serves as a Student Representative on the Board of Trustees for Parkland Community College, allowing him to advocate for students not only to the school board but to state and federal legislators. Given the current political climate and being a political science student myself, I am more than happy to indulge in conversation surrounding his policy work.

Campbell begins by discussing the Trump administration’s recent retraction of financial aid. “We’re expected to see a shortfall in our financial aid, we’re talking about Pell Grants. A third of Parkland students rely on financial aid. 65% of our students are part-time; we’re talking about single mothers who have full-time jobs, and whose financial aid gives them a leg to stand on. Financial aid is everything.” All of this to cut back on waste? “There are talks of getting rid of things that may be deemed ‘wasteful and unnecessary, such as DEI initiatives that have built Parkland by catering to minorities to get them through the door. Now we want to shut that down? It’s been years of building these programs, so now it’s either we don’t receive funding, or we make alterations that actively harm the student body.”

Discussing these topics and the political regression steps we’re currently witnessing can become extremely mentally burdensome, however, Campbell puts his role in perspective in order to keep his head up. “Being that student voice, I’m here, and 6000 students aren’t. They sent me out here to do this job, and that’s everything to me. My sole purpose is to be an advocate for the people, to be able to pave a way for the next ones to come in line after me, to cultivate something that will leave an impact when I’m gone by allowing them to prosper and enrich themselves.” Campbell has been a prominent voice for reform from Champaign-Urbana, to Springfield, all the way to Washington, and while things may seem incredibly bleak, it’s inspiring to see such a bright young leader just beginning what is sure to be a very fruitful career in service.

Triality is a voice for the community, a voice for the students. They can deliver politically-charged Rage Against the Machine thrash covers one day and serenade us with sweet indie the next, providing a brief escape from a world where the rich are getting richer while the rest suffer the consequences. These guys are truly something special, and while the album may be highly anticipated, we hope that it will not be the last that we’ll be hearing from Triality.