Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to [email protected].

Here's the one thing we knew about rock rocking rockers The True Value before looking them up, and it came courtesy of an email from drummer Hayden Hamilton:

"We are a true independent band."

Believe it or not, but that seemingly innocuous, dismissible statement, that absolutely empty description, bore a hole into our head as soon as we read it. We were overcome with a series of burning questions:

What does that mean? What is a true independent band? Are there fake independent bands? What separates the two? Does it have something to do Joseph Fiennes or Josh Hartnett?

So on and so on.

Naturally, after we visited them online, a definitive answer could not be found. The bio page on their site is frustratingly empty. There was nothing to be had.

But in the middle of all of this, we realized that their music, a mix of brash and mellow and mostly contemporary rock, was the perfect soundtrack to the "What Is A True Independent Band?" online research project. So we reached out for an interview to talk about Kid Cudi, hardware stores and the life of a band member.

(Somehow, we neglected to ask about the "true independent band" thing. Suck, suck, suck.)

Rocks Off: Standard Artist of the Week opener: Tell everyone everything they need to know about you all in exactly six words.

The True Value: Life's about finding the true value [laughs]. Okay, that was deep, let's get started.

RO: Couldn't help but notice that you all have covered Kid Cudi's "Ghost," and decidely well at that. One question: Why?

TTV: Ah, you saw the video. Awesome. Well, everyone in the band listens to rap and hip-hop, I (Hayden) probably listen to rap more than any other genre. We were bored one day, surfing Youtube, and saw some pretty laughable covers of rap/hip-hop songs on there.

It kind of struck us like, "these people are just doing a half-hearted attempt at these songs, why not put all that you can into a cover?" In a way, we wanted to give people a cover with some real thought put into it, treating it like a song of our own.