Episode one of Trenchies TV opens with Logan Ludwig, lead singer of Chicago indie-rock five-piece the Trenchies, playing a letter game with puppet Tuggy the Tiger. The background music is playful, reminiscent of a children’s show. The letter game involves picking up paper letters and singing words that start with each letter, causing those objects to magically appear.
Ludwig encourages Tuggy to play, demonstrating with his own examples.
“I don’t think very good under pressure,” Tuggy says nervously, but Ludwig ignores this and launches into “The Letter Song.”
“‘L’ is for love, the greatest word there is. ‘B’ is for birds in the sky.” A garland of hearts floats onto the screen as Ludwig cheerfully runs his fingers through it, smiling up at fake birds dangling from fishing lines.
“Tuggy, come on, it’s your turn!” The pressure mounts in this seemingly innocent game. Ludwig’s cheerful demeanor turns annoyed and forceful while Tuggy struggles to find a word starting with “G.”
“Tuggy, it’s not that hard!”
“OK, ‘G,’ uh—grenade!” Ludwig turns toward the camera and freezes in shock as the whole room explodes.
The scene transforms dramatically, though the playful tune continues in the background. The room erupts in flames. Tuggy, trapped beneath a table, screams in panic. Ludwig appears to be dead from the grenade blast. In what resembles a dramatized TV crime scene, Tuggy swears and frantically searches through the letters. “I knew I shouldn’t have played this game! . . . ‘A’ is for an ambulance that comes really fast!” The sequence ends with Tuggy’s desperate cries for help.
Hard cut to band member Andrew Pridmore in the shower; he dons a robe and holds a pipe and a glass of whiskey: “It’s Trenchies TV, baby!”
In Chicago’s vibrant music scene, the Trenchies stand out with their unique approach: They’re a band that includes puppets as members. The group—which consists of Ludwig, Pridmore, Hayden Marth, Sydney Cramer, Robby Kuntz, and a couple of puppets—has a genre-defying sound, which they describe as “Muppet core,” with “some jangle, some knee-slapping.” In 2023, Reader writer Leor Galil wrote that “their brain-sticky tunes . . . balance sincerity and whimsy,” and “make you feel like your day is filled with unforeseen possibilities.” The addition of puppetry creates an unexpected yet engaging musical experience, especially in their new webseries.
The Trenchies didn’t always have puppets, but it was the plan for Ludwig from the beginning.
“When the band first started three years ago, we wanted to initially never show humans onstage, like Gorillaz, but for puppets,” Ludwig says. “Then we just started to do gigs on our own, and what we learned was that our chemistry onstage was not worth hiding, so we kind of brought the puppets out with us.”
Credit: Amber Stoutenborough
The band’s journey with puppets began about two years ago with Fletcher Pierson, a professional puppeteer who moved to Chicago in 2016. Puppetry combines his love for physical theater and sculpture.
“Chicago, puppets, and music very much go hand in hand,” Pierson says. “Live music does so much for puppetry. Even just having live music during a more traditional puppet show really makes it come alive. . . . I don’t think anyone else is doing the same kind of storytelling that we’re doing, and I always want to push the story a little bit more.” Pierson has contributed to the creation of the Trenchies puppets and helps operate them onstage during live performances.
“The puppet scene in Chicago is really alive and well; people are doing really exciting stuff all over the city,” Pierson adds.
Credit: Andrew Pridmore
The band’s approach to performance is refreshingly self-aware, as they embrace their playful nature while maintaining serious musicianship. This balance has earned them respect in Chicago’s music scene, with venue staff and audiences often commenting that they’ve “never seen something like that before.”
“We play with puppets. It’s like a bonus. It sets us apart,” Cramer says. “If someone doesn’t rock with that, that’s fine, but I think it’s also been cool to see other artists come to our shows, because I think it’s an attraction that resonates for other creative people.”
“I feel like it’s OK to laugh at us onstage, because we’re being silly—we’re in on our own joke,” Ludwig says.
As the band’s audience grew and they performed at venues across Chicago—including a residency at Burlington Bar in Logan Square—Ludwig sought to expand the Trenchies’ creative horizons by venturing into acting.
“I was just getting bored of the album cycle, show, repeat,” Ludwig says. “We’re gonna make music videos anyway, so we might as well create a little narrative—even though it’s all very random, but in a good way—to test our chops in that department. I want to see what happens if we do something bigger, and I know [the webseries] is a good opportunity to figure it out.”
Trenchies TV
youtube.com/@thetrenchies
The first episode of Trenchies TV, titled “Pie Lit,” premiered on YouTube on August 31, 2024, and it now has more than ten thousand views. The show combines music, comedy, and puppetry in a format similar to a mash-up of Sesame Street and Seinfeld.
“I definitely feel like the [show] is for adults, but for adults that still want to seek out nostalgia and to tap into their inner child,” Marth says. “We want everyone to be silly with us. Just because we’re grown-ups doesn’t mean we have to be serious all the time.”
Credit: Andrew Pridmore
Evan Hansen, a previous collaborator on the Trenchies’ music videos, joined the production team to handle filming and editing the show. Pierson also expanded his role from the live shows to assist with the TV series. Each skit is written by Ludwig, with ideas developed with the band. Using green screens, toy figurines, and of course puppets, the scenes take place in Ludwig’s apartment living room and on the streets of Andersonville.
Though the show rarely has any overarching plotlines (besides a lawyer meeting with Tuggy the Tiger after the grenade mishap), each scene features comedic twists on everyday experiences—and some not-so-everyday experiences, like being beamed up by aliens for a casual hangout.
“[Trenchies TV] is all fun and games, and the music is kind of the same, but our approach is not silly,” Kuntz says. “Behind the scenes, we take this stuff seriously. We want to be a good band that sounds good.”
With a small-scale production, the Trenchies have had to work hard to create a show with minimal help and experience. Between lighting, filming, and writing, each band member contributes to the creative process.
“Just because we’re grown-ups doesn’t mean we have to be serious all the time.”
On their first day of shooting the webseries, what was meant to be just a couple of hours of work before band practice turned into a full day of filming on one of Chicago’s hottest days of the year.
“It was just a miserably hot day, and we all started with high spirits. By the end of the day, we were sweeping fake blood and cleaning concrete,” Cramer says. “Almost everyone was covered in fake blood, and Andrew was dry heaving—probably having a heat stroke. It was awesome. I look back on that day fondly. We put literal blood, sweat, and tears into that day.”
Though not every day has been as bloody and grueling since then, the Trenchies have released three episodes of Trenchies TV and are now hard at work putting the final touches on their second album, planned for release this summer. Three songs from the webseries—“Tacoma,” “Dust,” and “Picking Up the Pieces”—will be featured on the 12-track album.
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