‘He picked music’: Basalt High School student Tristan Trincado turns brain injury into a blossoming music career

Tristan Trincado wasn’t musical — until one too many crashes on his mountain bike left him with a traumatic brain injury.

“I’ve tried picking (the guitar) up before, but I got a TBI, which altered my brain chemistry and I was able to do some stuff I couldn’t do before,” he said. “One of those was play guitar.”

Trincado doesn’t know how many concussions led to the injury, but he estimates he crashed once or twice a summer for seven years. 

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“I used to be really into mountain biking and I would go all over to go racing and practice a lot,” he said. “With that sport comes a lot of crashes, which comes with a lot of concussions.”

Trincado was diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome in 2023, near the end of his sophomore year of high school. Common symptoms of post-concussion syndrome include headaches, dizziness and problems with concentration and memory.

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“I have issues with comprehension, organization and tracking,” said Trincado, now a 18-year-old senior at Basalt High School. “So if I’m reading for a certain amount of time, it can give me pretty bad migraines. It’s hard to read and keep up with reading and taking notes and understanding what we’re learning about.”

Although his injury creates additional hurdles at school, Trincado’s post-concussion syndrome doesn’t hinder his guitar playing. His 2023 New Year’s Resolution was to learn the guitar, and he hasn’t stopped playing since.

“I just dove in headfirst,” he said. “I would spend around four to six hours a day practicing and just trying to learn every song that I wanted to learn.”

Playing the guitar was easier than it had been before.

“It gave me a huge boost in confidence to keep trying it and keep trying to progress,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to be able to play the guitar and then being able to understand it and do it with somewhat ease was very, very fun and almost euphoric.”

Determined to perform, Trincado began busking midvalley.

“Suddenly I started to go to open mic nights up at the Tipsy Trout in Basalt, and that got me to be able to do an event there as a featured artist,” he said. “I was able to do that and play for like 25 people.”

Then he attended the Rock and Roll Academy in Aspen.

“Our instructor entered the band we had into this competition called Aspen Rocks. So we ended up playing for, I don’t even know how many people, but definitely the biggest place I’ve played at,” he said. “It was at the (Wheeler) Opera House in Aspen. And that kind of kick started everything. I started getting more and more gigs after that.”

Trincado, whose group placed third in the 2024 Aspen Rocks competition hosted by the Inspire Aspen Foundation, also won recording time at Mad Dog Ranch + Studios. He has since released two singles, “Sinner” and “Ghost That Follows Me,” on all major streaming platforms.

The foundation continues to shape his music career.

“They’re helping me figure out how to compose songs and helping me get different gigs and kind of getting my name out there,” Trincado said. “It’s promotion, teaching about the whole music industry and giving us connections. It’s awesome.”

Inspired by the lyricism of musicians like Zach Bryan, Charles Wesley Godwin and Tyler Childers, Trincado composes descriptive country and folk tunes. His dulcet melodies earned him a spot as a solo artist at the inaugural GlenWOODSTOCK in July.

“He’s gifted,” said Cath Adams, creator of GlenWOODSTOCK and teen programmer at Glenwood Springs Park and Recreation. “He has a beautiful voice, and his talent for creative music and writing songs kind of blew me away.”

His first show was at Belly Up Aspen less than a month after GlenWOODSTOCK.

“(Performing) feels pretty awesome,” Trincado said. “It’s definitely nerve-wracking, but it’s a good nervous feeling, and it just gets you excited and kind of gets the adrenaline going, even though it’s nothing too extreme, but it’s super fun.”

Trincado has big plans for the next few months: he’s organizing a show at the Gibson Garage in Nashville, Tennessee and recording his first EP. 

“For me, (Gibson Garage) is a huge deal venue. A lot of really good guys have played there,” Trincado said. “I’m very proud that I can call myself a Gibson artist as well.”

While he hasn’t decided on his plans after high school, one thing is certain — Trincado is poised to go far.

“It’s really inspiring, when you look at Tristan,” Adams said. “I mean, he didn’t sit down and say, ‘What am I going to do now?’ He picked music. He made it into his sense of purpose and meaning.”