What was your main
inspiration for the new EP?
It started as a couple of friends just wanting to do
something different. We’ve been on the carousel now for so long going
make-solo-album/tour, repeat. We finally reached a point in our careers where
we thought we could finally do something a little different this time, and
we’ve probably got a little more freedom to try it. We toured together many
years ago, before we were established, and we had a good time doing that. We
thought, Let’s get together and tour
again, and that was actually the first seed that the whole thing was based
on. It was always a tour first. Then our managers chipped in and said, ‘Why
don’t you record some new music around it, just for something different?’ That
took it to another level. And we thought if we do it we should write all the
songs and make music that people haven’t heard yet – explore some new ground
between her sound and mine, and I think we’ve really effectively done it.
There’s stuff on this EP that’s not really fair and square in my usual sound
and not really fair and square in Amber’s either, but we’ve kind of bridged the
gap between the two.
When I first heard
the song ‘Our Backyard’ I thought a lot of people would respond to it – have
you had a good response to it?
The response has been mind-blowing, actually, especially
because we weren’t so sure. We did this [as a] little bit of a self-indulgent
project and then we wrote – one of the first songwriting sessions we did we
went fishing for ideas and started talking about touring. Organically we got to
chatting about how lucky we are to go to some of these places that we’ve got
coming up on the tour. The conversation flowed into places we’ve been and seen
around Australia through our touring. That’s where the line came up: ‘You don’t
need to travel the world to find paradise’. We thought that’s something to
build a song around. Amber had just come back from Silverton – she met people
out there, on the edge of Broken Hill, who have packed everything up from the
city and moved out there just for the sunsets. And I thought if there’s not a
basis for a song around that … this’ll be the test, if we can’t write a song
about that then we can’t write a song about anything.
You have very
successfully written a song about that and other things. In terms of your
songwriting and your music in general – I read a line in an article in which
you said you had three parents: your mum, your dad and country music. And there
were some songs that had raised you. Who have the most influential artists been
in your life?
First and foremost my dad – he never had a record deal, he’s
just a guy who went out and sang on weekends with the band. He has to be the number
one influence because if it wasn’t for him I would never have discovered music
and I certainly would never have discovered further influences – stuff that he
was listening to that he put me onto. Those were the first seeds I had for
music and he was into guys like Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson –
all of those outlaw honkytonk country artists. But it led me enough into it
that I fell in love with it, and eventually when I was older and able enough to
seek out my own music – pre-Spotify and all those kinds of things, you
literally had to jump on a bus and go to a record shop and wait to see what was
new. That led me to guys like Garth Brooks and Vince Gill – those guys were
something different to what my dad was listening to and they really switched me
on to new country music back then. It’s kind of relic stuff now but back then,
as a sixteen-year-old kid picking up that latest Brooks & Dunn record,
suddenly I had a bit of a clear idea of music. It wasn’t just something to do –
it could actually be someone to be.
I can hear a bit of
that in your music but I think you’ve developed your own sound – has that come
naturally or have you made an effort to carve out your own sound?
I kind of make small efforts here and there. I’ve never been
super focused on developing or designing a sound. I think when the songs come
out, they naturally come out in keys and arrangements that feel right to me. I
just try to keep that organic feel all the way through. When we go to the
studio, the last couple of albums I’ve produced myself, and as far as I know
producing a record is picking the musicians and really just throwing all those
dominoes in a room and seeing how they fall, and that’s the sound I come up
with. I nurse it here or there, or I make decisions in the studio and say, ‘That’s
not working or that is’, but I don’t really tailor it as much as some people think.
I just really focus on the personalities that are together making it, and just
see what really comes together in the blend.
I’m interested in how
big a role your guitar playing has in your sound – when you play live it’s
clear you love guitar, and it’s obvious you’re very skilled technically but
also you really feel it.
It’s huge. Especially in the creating of music. Lately
almost everything’s come from a guitar in my hands. I suppose it’s a hippie
thing to say but sometimes I feel like I don’t write a song – I just hold the guitar
and the song channels through and tells me to write it down. But at the same
time I’ve sort of felt a little slack lately, in that when we’re on stage and
touring, the guitar has kind of taken a bit of a back seat at gigs. I’m trying
to make some changes to get my hands back around the guitar and play it a bit more
live, but definitely in a creative space – in a studio, writing, anywhere the
creation of music is happening – it’s never far from my hands.
I guess that’s part
of the challenge as you become more prominent and you’re seen as a front man,
not as a singer-guitarist – being out the front means that the guitar might
have to be put aside.
Absolutely, and it’ll come and go but right now I feel a lot
more comfortable in my ability to entertain a crowd when I’ve got the guitar sitting
in the stand. I still pull it up and play it every now and again. There are
certain songs where I just don’t feel right [without it]. That song ‘Call Me
Crazy’ from the Golden Guitar awards, that’s a song that it doesn’t feel right
without a guitar in my hands. But there are other songs on that record – the more
fun and high-energy stuff – I just enjoy the show more when I’m out the front
without it. I’m surrounded by guitar players constantly. I’ve got two great
guitar players in my band – much better players than I am. These guys are
always egging me on to pull my guitar out on stage and play, but I constantly
tell the crowd, ‘There’s no point flying the Cessna when you’ve got the jet
fighters either side of you.’
I’m sure that’s not
true, but they’re your guitarists so I’ll let you say it. To change tack: I’m
sure there are artists who’ve played an important role in your life and career.
There’s a handful of people who have all equally influenced
me. I really started to pay attention to the music industry, more than just the
music itself, around about 2013 when I was really, really fortunate when Adam
Brand took me out on the road and gave me my first co-headline tour with him.
We forged a great friendship and we’re still the best of mates now. He took a
real gamble on me back then. Relatively unknown, out on the road, and he put me
up there on the poster and my name was the same size as his. He took me around
for twelve months and really showed Australia who I was. I learned a lot about
music; I learned a lot about performing. It’s not so ironic that that was
around the time I started to put the guitar down a little bit more. Spending
time on the road with someone like Brandy, who’s such a macro person – everything
that he’s doing on stage is all about the people in front of him, and he’s just
responding to them a hundred per cent of the time and not having to worry about
what chords are coming up next. I started to see that, and not long after that
tour I started dabbling in it myself, and I sort of found this whole new
creative licence on stage to not have to stand at the microphone and have your
guitar plugged in. You could put it down and wander the whole stage and really
get in everyone’s faces, and really make sure everyone’s getting that personal
reach-out and slap in their hands, things like that. Making sure that everybody
who’s down there, who’s made the effort to be at the front of the stage, is
acknowledged.
To circle back to
your project with Amber and to ‘Our Backyard’ – it’s a song that’s proud of
What I’m most proud of is the sense of community. I don’t
know another genre that is so keen to put their hand up when a local kids footy
club needs to raise money or someone’s fighting cancer and needs to raise
money. It seems to be that the country music community are always there for their
community. I’m really, really proud of that. And it doesn’t matter if it’s all
the way up the top end – like Lee Kernaghan is probably the biggest star we’ve
got here. That guy gives his time up every [Tamworth] festival, in January, to
raise money for hay runs and people in hardships in Australia. Troy Cassar-Daley,
Adam Brand, and right down to the people we don’t know – the buskers on Peel
Street in Tamworth, a lot of them donate their money to charities. That’s probably
the most poignant thing about country music: the mateship and the willingness
to roll up your sleeves for a stranger, and use your talents and use your time
to try make a difference for them.
And the reason why
that’s so effective is that you can connect with the audience and bring them
into the community. Going out on tour is a big way of doing that – so what are
you most looking forward to about your tour?
I’m going back to a few places I haven’t been to in a long,
long time – towns like D’Aguilar, Dalby in Queensland. There’s a few places
that for whatever reason in the last few years I just haven’t been able to get
to. So I’m really looking forward to the energy of those places and measuring ourselves
against those crowds again. And, of course, being able to get on the road and
play some shows with a good friend. It’s usually the whole responsibility of
everything weighs on me when I tour around by myself, but this time it’s going
to be good to have a little bit more of a relaxed feeling knowing that I only
have to worry about half of it and Amber’s got the other half sorted out. To
get out there and have some fun – it’s going to half feel like work when we’re
not on stage, but when we’re on stage I just want it to be a hundred per cent
fun, and so far that’s what everything about this project has been, from the
studio to the writing, we’re just really trying our best to speak honestly and
have a good time.
You’ve had a very big
year thus far: Golden Guitar wins and CMC awards. How are you going to top it
next year?
I have this metaphor called my songwriting antenna, which is
something that just goes up and, to put it politely, I sort of eavesdrop a lot
more on conversations around me. I’m just now starting to look for things for
the next record, and I’ve got a fair idea of where it will go and I will be
starting to write that in September. At the moment there’s no real plans – whether
it’s going to be 2018 or 2019 – but I do know one thing about the next record:
I’ll head to the studio when the songs are ready and we won’t be working to a
particular time line and writing songs for the sake of it. When we’ve got the
ten best songs that I think I can possibly come up with, then we’ll go into the
studio. I’m feeling really good at the moment. I’m feeling like there’s a lot
of inspiration in the well to draw from, and I just really want to get out and
meet people all over Australia, particularly in regional Australia. I want to
sing the stories of these people and I want to give people battling out in the
bush a bit more of a voice to mainstream Australia and everyone living on the
coast, and tell their stories and get out there and sing country music for
country people.
Our Backyard by Travis Collins and Amber Lawrence is out now through
ABC Music/Universal.
or Google Play.
Travis and Amber on tour:
Thursday 26 October Warwick
RSL Memorial Club
Friday 27 October Dag
Pub & Motel – D’Aguilar
Saturday 28 October Hamilton
Hotel
Sunday 29 October Mary’s
Commercial Hotel – Dalby
Friday 3 November Young
Services Club
Sunday 5 November The
Oaks Hotel – Illawarra
Friday 24 November Windsor
RSL
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