Before War & Treaty’s Michael Trotter Jr. was a touring musician, he was a soldier in Iraq. There among the brutalities of war, in a dictator’s palace, Trotter taught himself to play on a piano believed to have belonged to Saddam Hussein. It was in this extraordinary setting that he wrote his first song, which he played at the funeral of his captain, and went on to play it at military funerals for the next three years. Upon leaving the service, Trotter met performer Tanya Blount, fell in love, got married and began a musical collaboration that’s resulted in the release of the duo’s first EP, Down to the River.