Erasmo Viera
Audio By Carbonatix
Trauma Ray is bringing the carnival to town.
After more than a year of touring behind their 2024 debut album Chameleon, the Fort Worth band will return home for a free show at Fire Station Skate Plaza to celebrate their new EP, Carnival.
Trauma Ray, formed in 2017, blends shoegaze, alternative rock and heavier guitar textures into a sound that refuses to sit in one lane.
“We started off with stuff that sounds nothing like the new songs,” vocalist and guitarist Uriel ‘Uri’ Avila says. “We’ll touch on slowcore or doom and then flip into something more upbeat or hardcore. We don’t really care what style of song we’re writing as long as we enjoy it.”
Now, they’re ready to share that exploration of sounds at the Trauma Ray Carnival show. Presented by Magnolia Skate Shop, the show will feature Trauma Ray performing the new EP in full alongside sets from local bands Empty Shell Casing, Ozone, Defcon 1 and Spurred. The event will also include a skate contest, carnival-style games and prizes.
Avila says the idea came from wanting to celebrate the EP while giving something back to Fort Worth fans.
“I just wanted to have an EP release show,” Avila tells us. “A lot of the shows we’ve played lately have had higher ticket prices, so I wanted to do something cheaper so younger fans could come out. Doing a free event at the skate park just made sense.”
Avila and the group are leaning fully into the theme, with the band running carnival games throughout the day and a dunk tank, giving fans a chance to splash its members.
Trauma Ray began nearly a decade ago after Avila started playing open mic nights around Fort Worth and began searching for musicians interested in starting a new project. Through a connection with Dreamy Life Records, Avila reached out to guitarist Jonathan Perez about forming a band, but never heard back. Later on, the two eventually ran into each other by chance at a karaoke night. Perez recognized the music Avila was playing between songs, which included bands like Slowdive and Cocteau Twins. When Avila realized who he was talking to, he introduced himself and mentioned he had previously reached out about starting a band. Perez admitted he had ignored the message at first because he did not know who Avila was. That chance encounter sparked the band’s formation. Bassist Darren Baun, drummer Nicholas Bobotas and guitarist Coleman Pruitt, a friend of Bobotas, soon joined the lineup.
Between tours supporting various bands such as Deafhaven, Loathe and Panhchiko, the band found time to write their new EP during a short break last summer.
“We had about five months of free time between tours and tried to take that as an opportunity to write something,” Avila says. “We probably wrote that EP in a couple of weeks total.”
The writing process was different this time, though. Perez had recently moved to San Diego, meaning the group relied heavily on voice memos and remote collaboration while developing the songs.
“He was like, ‘What is this? I don’t know what you guys are writing,’” Avila recalls. “We were just like, ‘No, trust us.’”
Much like the serendipitous encounter that led to the band’s formation, the title for the new EP came together organically. After the songs were written, the band sorted through photos they had taken during an earlier European tour and settled on an image of a Ferris wheel, which inspired the project’s visual identity. Avila said the image stuck with him as he finished the lyrics, and the carnival imagery naturally began to shape the song titles.
Avila says the EP is not meant to reinvent Trauma Ray, but to expand what the band can do. The goal, he says, is to avoid creating a “blueprint” for what a Trauma Ray song should sound like.
For now, the band plans to focus on touring and enjoying time at home between stretches on the road. They’re expected to hit the road again later this year, including a co-headlining run with Los Angeles shoegaze outfit Glixen. However, first comes the hometown celebration.
“I wanted to do something to give back to my city,” Avila says. “Doing a free show at the skate park with a bunch of my friends just made sense.”
The free Trauma Ray Carnival runs from noon to 6 p.m. on March 14 at Fire Station Skate Plaza.