Local band The Matt Truman Ego Trip will be performing tonight at Howard’s Club H. Other scheduled bands to perform include This is a Shakedown and New Machines. The Matt Truman Ego Trip features Matt Truman on vocals and guitar, Derek Wright on drums, Eric Barton on piano, Miguel Oria on guitar and Zak Durst on bass guitar, all from the Bowling Green/Toledo area. The band has been together for three years and has a CD out called ‘Everybody’s Got One,’ which is available for purchase it at shows or on iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody and any other online retailers. The Matt Truman Ego Trip is influenced by music from the ’70s and has been picking up on the funk, acoustic and psychedelic sounds. ‘Our influences span the decade,’ Truman said. ‘I love all kinds of music especially the old school punk such as New York Dolls, The Stooges, David Bowie and the Rolling Stones. Recently, I’ve been listening to MGMT and Of Montreal. They have a lot of imagination in their songs; it’s almost impossible to put them into a certain genre.’ The band also doesn’t fit into a specific genre. Truman writes most of the songs himself and then the other band members add in their parts. ‘With the new stuff, we’re just trying to make accessible rock and roll music,’ Truman said. The band is trying to get a new record together and will also start touring again this summer. ‘A couple years back we were doing a lot of shows,’ Truman said. ‘We toured in Chicago, Detroit, New York and Cincinnati. This summer we want to hit more cities in Ohio that we haven’t played before.’ In the fall, The Matt Truman Ego Trip plan to go back to New York to play the College Media Journal Festival. ‘We played there in 2007 and it was awesome,’ Truman said. ‘We played really great shows and sold records and had fans asking us when we were coming back. It’s pretty extensive to pick up and go especially when people have jobs and school and real life, but we want to be established outside of town and become more regional.’ The Matt Truman Ego Trip isn’t only trying to help themselves out; The members have also been helping other bands by pulling them onto their lineup. ‘We’ve started doing this thing on a monthly basis where we’ll play Howard’s or something and invite two or three bands from out of town so they can get some exposure. We’re trying to do the grass roots thing as far as helping bands around the state and out of town,’ he said. So make sure you come out tonight not only to hear The Matt Truman Ego Trip but to also support the other performing bands from neighboring towns. The show starts at 9 p.m. Tickets are $5 at the door.