Bass was never Dan Mabray’s chosen instrument. JD Brunson III teaches drums, but he doesn’t play them with rambunctious garage rockers Friday Boys. Guitarist Elday Kornberg had only ever written music solo. In forming staunchly collaborative project Team Trust in 2023, the latter surmises, “we all became beginners.”
Thus arrives the playful, kaleidoscopic art-punk of the trio’s November debut, Treat Box. Written by all three members from the ground up, the LP’s eight multi-movement tracks meld off-kilter bass and spoken word vocals, fuzzy noise interludes and delicate arpeggios, into a collage of their makers’ disparate histories and personalities. Mabray, Brunson, and Kornberg all sing on the record, but you can rarely tell them apart, just as you might think one song has ended when it’s really only shifted gears.
Treading into unfamiliar territory yields unique musical results, but it’s also an exercise in team building. As Kornberg utters in Treat Box centerpiece “Beside the Tree,” “Trust is when we extend the assumption of goodwill and care to others. And in doing so, we make ourselves vulnerable to them.”
“Everyone [is] just showing up and giving our best and being honest about what we can and can’t do,” Mabray explains. “The support and the lack of expectation that our band is founded on is why it’s fun and interesting for us.”
“Sometimes it is hard,” the bassist admits. In more conventional projects, one primary songwriter dictates ideas to the rest of the band. “Giving everyone’s opinion real consideration creates conflict, [but] conflict doesn’t need to diminish a sense of togetherness. Oftentimes it’ll bring you together more.”
The trio extends their titular twin pillars to their audience. A Team Trust live show often features literal crowd-band trust exercises, from the classic trust fall and the human knot to the writing and burning of intentions (“I definitely directly pulled that one from youth group,” Mabray shrugs).
“[We] encourage other people to try things that maybe they’re not super good at, or maybe they’re not super comfortable with, because I think that’s also where the magic happens,” Kornberg says – even if their earnest approach is jarring to the occasional cool guy scenester.
“Giving everyone’s opinion real consideration creates conflict, [but] conflict doesn’t need to diminish a sense of togetherness. Oftentimes it’ll bring you together more.”
Dan Mabray
“In a work context or a school context it might be a little bit corny, but it acknowledges the fact that everybody is showing up because they care about the scene for whatever reason,” the guitarist says. “Maybe they’re here because their friends are here, or maybe they’re coming out to a show because they like music, or maybe they work at the venue next door and they’re just popping over. But it acknowledges and creates and opens up that space where often people don’t really have a reason to engage with each other in that way.
“And I think, especially in the Austin music scene, because there’s so much music, and so many people make music in this town, it can feel a little bit like a popularity contest,” Kornberg continues. “Or you go out to a show and you see people that you kind of know, but they don’t say hi to you, so then you don’t say hi to them, and it feels hard to engage because you don’t want to be seen as uncool or you don’t want to make yourself vulnerable. And we try and do something to shake people out of that.”
So, Free Week attendees, beware: Come to Team Trust’s Free Week set, this Thursday at Mohawk, but you can’t just stand there, arms crossed, and nod your head. You need to participate.
You need to trust each other.
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This article appears in January 9 • 2026.