Drew Arriola-Sands is the founder and frontwoman of Trap Girl, a self defined glamorous hardcore punk band with a dark edge. The group consists of Drew Arriola-Sands on vocals, drummer Jorge Reveles, guitarist Esteban Moreno, and Ibette Oritz on bass.
Drew started playing instruments when she was a preteen moving into singing “professionally” in her mid-twenties. She played and sang folk music first and then decided to form a punk band after watching two documentaries, The Gits Movie and The Amazing Adventures of Betty Blowtorch. Two true films capturing the femme DIY punk band experience. By her early twenties, she started her first band, The Glitter Path; Sands describes it as something like Daniel Johnston, the schizophrenic outsider musician, mixed with Patsy Cline. Sands started Trap Girl in 2014 and throughout 2015, the band built their following Downtown and on the Eastside, with Sands finally out as a trans artist.
Trap Girl were embraced and found sisterhood in bands like Sister Mantos and Yaawn. In 2016, Sands took it a step further and organized the first annual Transgress Fest (at the Santa Ana LGBT Center), for trans performers. The band released their first EP "From Diamonds TO Dust" in 2015. Their second EP, "The Black Market" came out in 2017 and it is centered on transgender issues: the experience of “going through the motions of life” before coming out, as well as the process of ultimately coming out, and the realities of a world that is dangerous, both socially and medically, for trans people. Their latest work, "TransAmerican Chokehold" was released in 2019.
