Travis Collins will be well known to Australian country music fans. He won Star Maker in 2004 and released three albums, then he seemed to drop out of sight for a while. I saw Travis play live once - just a short set, but enough to leave a deep impression - and became convinced that he was destined to be known far and wide. His new, fourth album, Wired, should certainly help set him on that path. Recently I had the chance to speak to Travis and found him to be a thoughtful, passionate artist whose commitment to music is clear.
I’ll
start off by saying the album is terrific. I only got it a couple of days ago,
but I’ve been listening to it on repeat.
Oh, thanks.
It’s
a really great piece of work, really well balanced. You can hear your lineages,
if that makes sense, and it also sounds like you’re having a lot of fun on it,
mostly. Obviously, the last song is an exception. But, was it a lot of fun to
make?
Yeah. I kind of threw away
the rule book when I went into the studio with this one. The biggest difference
that’s noteworthy is that this was the first time I’d produced an album, sat
behind that desk and played that role by myself. And, yeah, it was a massive
learning curve. I’ve got to tell you, producers are worth their weight in gold.
It’s hard. It’s so hard [laughs]. But, I think, I just threw away the rules,
and didn’t really try and follow any particular trends as such. I think a lot
of people are caught up in trying to guess where country music is going. And I
thought I’d just do an album that was celebrating my favourite part of where
country music has been. And that was honky tonk music, and the really big
rocking pianos, and electric guitars, and songs that mean something. So I went
back for that, and I’ve been really, really amazed with the reaction to it. The
response has been quite astounding.
Well,
as I said, it’s a fantastic album, so I’m not surprised other people are saying
that. But, just in terms of your role as a producer, I guess there’s not a
divide, necessarily, but you’ve got to, as a producer, look at the songs as how
the audience would hear them, and try to create them in that way. But as the
songwriter, sometimes, I suppose, that might come into conflict. So did you
have any of those moments of thinking, oh, God, I’ve written this song, and I’m
not sure if it’s working?
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
And that was the biggest thing about this particular record, and wanting to
produce it myself, was that if I was going to be fair dinkum and do that role
the way it was supposed to be done, then I had to be mindful and respectful to
the fact that, as a producer, I was going to have to make decisions that myself
as an artist might not have been super happy about. It sounds, kind of, just
schizophrenic to say it like that, but there’s definitely two hats, and you
can’t wear them both at the same time. When I selected the shortlist of these
songs there were a whole bunch of songs, including my own, that were on the
table, and the first thing that I had to really step up as a producer was to
admit to myself that the songs that I’d written weren’t on par with some of the
other songs that I’d found. And this album doesn’t feature a single one of my
own writings. And that was hard to do as an artist. But, as a producer, I think
the album is better for it, because I just couldn’t convince myself that the
songs I’d written were up to the standing of the ones I chose. And so I had to
be real with myself about that, and just make the greatest album that I could
with what I had. And that meant taking a few punches as an artist [laughs] from
myself as a producer.
Well,
absolutely. And I would think it would be quite a confusing process, in some ways, because, obviously, you’ve been writing songs for a long time, and you’ve
had success at it – and those songs are still there now. So what happens to
them?
I don’t know what happened
creatively, but once I made the decision to run with these 11 tracks,
subconsciously the writer part of my brain has just switched on since then. I
don’t know exactly what it is, but something happened by not choosing a single
one of my own songs for this record, that the writing side of me is absolutely
switched on now. So it’s really, really flicked a switch somewhere, and I can’t
wait for the next thing. I’ve just been writing ever since the final few
sessions of Wired, writing things on
the back of anything, whatever’s in front of me, a napkin, or a business card,
or set list, I’ve been writing songs everywhere.
It’s
something has happened to your creative flow. You’ve managed to step onto the
wave and start to ride it to the shore.
Absolutely. And I think this
album, Wired, has been a real good
direction for me. And maybe that’s what my writing was missing before. And up
until this album I didn’t really know what I was trying to be as a style, or what
my niche was within country music. And I think taking a break away from my own
songs, and just really focusing on building what I wanted ‘Travis Collins’ to
sound like, it has really helped my songwriting side go, okay, well, cool, I
see what I’m doing now. And since then all this stuff has been coming out.
And
you’re still young. So I think you won Star Maker when you were 19. And that
wasn’t that long ago. So this could be part of your maturation as an artist,
finding out what your identity is and who your audience is.
Yeah. Star Maker feels like a
lifetime ago. It’s been the greatest of ten years – ten or eleven years now –
but, yeah, you’re absolutely right. And sometimes figuring out who you are is –
as a person, and who you are musically are so tied together that you don’t even
realise how close they are. But this whole process of Wired – the metaphor of Wired
is me coming out of my independent days, and plugging back into a label, and
plugging into a manager, and really just having the biggest throw of the dice
that we’ve had yet. And that was this album. And so Wired became more than a concept about me and the people that
support my music, and being connected. It became me and the industry getting
back into being connected. So the last couple of years have all been about that
metaphor of getting wired, and feeling connected to things, and having a team
around me. And I’m really looking forward to not only the release of this
record but where these relationships go in the next few years.
I
have to say, and I will be frank, that it seems like you’ve been quiet the last
little while. I saw you play at a Warner Bros party at Tamworth a few years ago
– I’m trying to remember which year it was – and I just thought you were
amazing live. This was before McAlister Kemp but that kind of big audience that
McAlister Kemp gets, and the big performance you had even at The Pub. And I
thought you had a sound that could really fill a huge space. Then you seemed to
go a bit quiet. And I was thinking, Where
has he gone? This guy should be
hugely famous. So, obviously, it has been a bit quiet.
Yeah. And thanks for that
compliment. I remember the gig you’re talking about too. That was – it was an
ABC Warner night. But you’re absolutely right. I did my first two albums at ABC
Music. And then I had a management deal fall apart around that time. And I lost
a lot of faith in not only the people around me, I lost a lot of faith in what
I was doing. And I started questioning if it’s the right road for me. I spent
the first couple of albums recording songs and doing things the way that I
thought people wanted me to do them, and not the way that I actually wanted to
do them to make a difference. So the third record, which was a self-titled
thing, was really just me stepping away, and really doing a bit of soul
searching. And that album I wrote a lot of the songs, and it was a process of
me trying to find out, frankly, if I loved it, if I wanted to do it forever. So
I thought, let’s just cut all the trims off. So for three years there I was
without a manager, I was without a label. And I recorded an album completely
independent, and just toured around, and sold it, literally, out of the back of
the car. And that really reconnected me with no other distractions but music.
All I had was music. I didn’t have big deals going on. I didn’t having touring
going on. I just had music and different people responding to it. And it really
taught me to love it again. So when I went into the studio with Wired, at the very start it was the same
sort of idea. I didn’t have a label. I didn’t have a manager at the start of
this. I went into the studio and recorded these songs, and then I made a few
calls to certain people, and got told ‘No’ a few times. But I was standing in
the right room at the right time, and chatting to a guy who gave me his
business card, which led to another person. Then it’s – we’re ready now to
release, and I’ve got this great team around me, and I’m feeling better about
my music, and feeling better about where I’m positioned that I ever have
before. And just so much more in love with music, and country music
particularly, than I’ve ever been.
And
that definitely comes through on the album. It’s related to you sounding like
you’re having fun, but it also sounds like you’re in command. And those two
things sometimes don’t go together. Someone’s who’s having too much fun can
sometimes [laughs] be a little loose on the recordings. But this one definitely
sounds like you know your own mind, and, I guess, that comes back to you being
the producer as well.
I guess, it comes down to the
song selection. And you’re dead right, because I’ve found a lot of songs, and
some of these I’ve been sitting on for quite a while, and the songs on here
like ‘Million Dollar View’, if you’d asked me when I recorded my first two
albums what a ‘million dollar view’ was I would have said, ‘A big mansion with
a couple of Ferraris sitting on the driveway, and looking over the French
Riviera’, or something like that. But now I’m older, I’m married, and I’ve got
a little house in the country, and it’s a life that I just love, a life that
I’d die for and it’s basically, it’s a little house, it’s a Mazda and a Ford
sitting on the pebble driveway, a couple of dogs running around and a beautiful
wife. I look around, and that’s the kind of stuff that country music is about.
And that’s what this whole process, and this album, have been about. It’s
growing up and realising that – it’s singing about the universals of everyday
man and woman. And the ‘Million Dollar View’ is one example on the album that –
I think I’m more connected to country ideals, and what country music is now. I
don’t think – I don’t think anyone really – I know what I’m trying to say here –
No,
no. I understand what you’re saying [laughs].
It’s a hard one to explain,
but I feel a little more qualified to sing about it now that I’ve – the last
six years I’ve been out of Sydney, and living a small country life, and I feel
like I get the people, and [I’m] somewhat qualified a bit more than I used to be
about it.
And
it’s a huge part of the genre, I think, understanding that relationship with
the audience, because it is such a loyal audience. I like to think of
Australian country music as our national storytelling in song. I think it’s
really important. It’s culturally important, and I think country songs and
country artists have so much meaning for so many members of the audience. And
you only have to be in Tamworth and see the looks on people’s faces to
understand that – what that means to them. So to be able to feel that yourself
as an artist is critical to your career longevity, but also, I think, for it to
have meaning for you.
Definitely. And you’ll hear a
lot of artists say it, but it’s such truth that all we ever want to do is get
on stage and sing, even better if we write. But all we want to do is get up on
stage and sing a song that the person down in the crowd can say, ‘Man, it feels
like they wrote my life.’ And with Wired all
I wanted to do was not try and analyse it or be too tricky with it. Like I
said, I sort of threw the rules out the window, and instead of going, ‘Okay,
well let me study country people and write about country people –’ six years
ago I moved out of Sydney, I thought, you know what? I’m going to live the life
of a country person. And that was nothing to do with my music, it was just
where I was in my life. I made that change. And then suddenly it’s time for
this album. I went into the studio and thought, I’m going to write a song about my life, and maybe it will relate to country
people, and it has, which I’m just so blown away by, because one of the
greatest gifts you can get is when people contact you and tell you what one of
these songs meant.
Now,
the next question you don’t have to answer, but it has just occurred to me
while you’re talking to ask it of you, which is: do you think you won Star
Maker too young?
It’s a tough one – it’s a
tough one because, I don’t know, everything sort of happens at the right time
in one way or another. But I wish I knew about recording and more about myself
stylistically before I’d won it. So yes and no in a way. I see a lot of people
come along and walk away with that fantastic opportunity and really don’t know
what to do with it. And I was the case that I didn’t know what to do with it,
had no idea, but pretty quickly was surrounded by a label, and a management,
and agents, and all that sort of stuff. But I look at everything up until now
in my career as an apprenticeship, and Wired
being my first commission as a serious work. And I don’t know if that’s
disrespectful for the previous stuff that I’d done, because at the time, when I
was learning and going through those previous albums, they were the greatest
works, at the time, that I could have made, but you get to the age of 30 and
you look back with a bit more of a level head, and a bit more of an
understanding of who you are as a person. And suddenly it feels like you’re
holding the greatest thing that you’ve achieved yet. I don’t know, maybe we’ll
talk in another 10 years and I’ll tell you what a rubbish album Wired was [laughs].
[Laughs].
Oh, no. I don’t think that’s the case. I’m a pretty hard marker and I wouldn’t
have covered this if I didn’t think I could say lovely things about it, because
I feel like I want to be in the business of encouraging people to buy music,
not discouraging them.
Oh, now that’s so great to
hear you say that, because one of my big [things] lately is –on my personal
Facebook account I scroll around, and obviously I’ve got a lot of media
friends, and industry friends on there, and the amount of people that I see
just bitching about what’s bad out there. I constantly call them or text them
and say, ‘You’ve just wasted an opportunity to talk about what’s good out
there.’ So thanks for that.
The
more I learn about Australian country music, and the more albums I hear, and
people I talk to, the calibre of material we have here is so high – or the
calibre of not material, but the songs and the artists is really extraordinary.
And I think that’s an important part of, as I said, our national culture that
the people need to know about. And I have actually found that at least half my
readers now are in the US, so there’s obviously something about Australian
country music that’s appealing overseas, or that people want to know about. And
I think it is that the standard is just incredibly high.
I agree. Some of the stuff
that’s coming through our ranch here is, one, exciting and, two, scary for me,
because I know there’s a just a matter of a few years before they rise up through
the ranks and drive my career into the footpath [laughs], but it’s really
exciting. And I think worldwide, as a trend, a lot of music is becoming
stagnant at the moment, and it’s not just country. A lot of different genres
are getting a little too stuck in what they’re doing, and everyone is following
the same herd. And I don’t find that Australian country music is. I think we’ve
still got that genuine culture about us, and I think that’s really important to
hang onto. And it has been forged and etched by so many legends before us just
to keep – while we can be influenced by American music trends we’ve really got
to keep that Australian dream alive. Like I said, one example, with ‘Million
Dollar View’, and that comes from an American songwriter, but I think it really
adapts here, and it sits well on this record because it’s talking about what
everyone just wants to find, and it’s home, and it’s family, and it’s love.
And, at the end of the day, that’s country music.
Yes.
But just to go back to your comment about your career being driven into the
footpath, I think another good thing about country music is that there is room
for everyone, if you’re great at what you’re doing. Now, you’re already great
at what you’re doing. So if you hold this path steady then there really is room
for everyone, and also it doesn’t matter how old you are. So I think that’s the
other thing. You can be 60 and starting your career in country, and the
audience is quite happy to have you. Or you can be 60 and still playing, and
they’re happy to have you.
Yeah. You know what I think?
It’s also because one thing with country music is we’re so lucky that we end up
in a scenario where we’re blessed enough to pick up a couple of new fans,
country fans, they won’t stay with you for an album, or a single, or a tour,
they’ll quite literally grow with you. They’ll get old with you, and they’ll
follow your music into their later years. And it’s also a form of music that’s
about feeling something and, like you say, it’s storytelling. And country music
is about characters. Some of us are pretty rough looking. And some of us
probably aren’t as thin as what some of the pop star counterparts are, but we
get onstage, and the whole thing is really just about trying to make the person
listening feel something. And I think that’s why we are so fortunate to have
longevity with our fans, and our careers. I try not to overthink it too much,
but that’s as far as I can attribute it to.
Speaking
of Australian legends within the genre, and also longevity, you went on the
Brian Young tour, and that’s, kind of, an arduous experience from the sound of
it. You’re travelling around to a lot of places. Sometimes they’re not easy to
get to. Was that a formative experience for you?
Oh, yeah. I’ve got to give
credit to Troy Cassar-Daley, because the best line I’ve ever heard explain what
a Brian Young tour does came from the mouth of Troy Cassar-Daley, and that was
he said he went out on the tour as a young boy and came back as a young man.
And I think that really, really ties it up. Because it’s – you’re not only out
there learning about the music industry, and the dos and don’ts, and how to
make money, and how to stick to a routine, and logistics, and all that sort of
stuff. You’re really learning about life. And it’s tough days out there, but
you have really good days as well. Being beside Youngy, he’s always constantly
trying to make you a better gentleman. He could swear like a sailor when there
were no ladies around but the minute there was he’d just as quickly clip you
around the ear for dropping a rude word in front of a woman.
[Laughs].
It was probably the best
three months that I’ve ever had on the road in hindsight. And it’s crazy to say
that now, because as the time I was just out there thinking, Oh, man, we’ve got to drive 800 ks today and
play to 14 people in the middle of nowhere. But I didn’t realise at the
time what I was learning. And what we were doing for those people out there in
the bigger picture. And people would come in from cattle stations and farms
that were 600 kilometres away. Some of them would drive as far as we did that
day. Because for that one night, or the couple of nights that we were playing
at that rodeo, or wherever it was, they could come in, and they could forget
about their stock dying because they didn’t have enough feed – they didn’t have
to worry about something for a couple of days. They could just come out and
have a few rums, and listen to country music, and just be around other people
for a change instead of being isolated, working, stressing, worrying. And I
thought, You know what? That’s probably
the most important lesson I’ve learnt in my career. And it holds to date.
And that is it’s not just music, it’s an escape for people. People can come.
And if you can sing something that hits them in the heart that they relate to,
like I said, if you can have them stand there and go, ‘That guy’s singing my
life.’ I remember the times that I hear a song and I think, That guy’s singing my life, or that woman’s
singing my life, and it’s an unexplainable feeling. But when you can do
that it’s quite affecting, and it’s something that just keeps me inspired to be
out there doing it year after year, and it’s why I’m still here doing it now.
It
is a really important job. Storytellers have an important role in the culture,
and country music artists have a way of delivering stories, and providing
escape, and providing reassurance to their audience in a far more direct way
than other people, because you are willing to go to places that not a lot of
other storytellers go. And it is a critically important role, I think.
Yeah, absolutely. And, I
mean, country music – we’ll talk about the things that probably aren’t cool to
talk about. And there’s a song on Wired,
the last track is a track called ‘Lost and Uninspired’, and that was the one
take in the studio – and I don’t say that as a brag, I say that because that’s
all I could literally do. I heard this song on the 2nd of June, 2013
for the first time. And it was a song just about heartbreak – it was a male
singer talking about a woman that left him. But, tragically, two days later I
accepted a phone call, and I had to sit my wife down and tell her that her
father had given up to depression and had taken his own life. And I didn’t
listen to the song, or hear the song, for maybe another four weeks. But I tell
you what, when I did put it back on and heard it again it spoke to me on a
whole another level. And I just can’t help every time a get onstage now but
come from that place now, because that was my experience with the song. And as
you say, we go to some dark places, but I sing the song, and I tell that story,
as hard as it is, when we tour, because I think suicide and depression are at
just staggering rates in Australia, and we need to start talking about it.
Particularly
in rural Australia.
Especially rural Australia.
Like, where I’m talking about – places like out where I was with Youngy, and a
lot of the places you don’t even have to go that far out. I mean, I’m an hour
from the coastline here in the Hunter Valley, and it’s happening everywhere.
It’s happening right beneath our noses, and we don’t see the signs, because,
for some reason, Aussie blokes are told men don’t cry, and we grow up not
sharing emotions. And it’s just absolute bullshit. So a part of the
responsibility of being in front of people, and singing songs, and trying to
touch their heart is to teach them that it’s okay to talk about things. This is
my experience, and I want someone else to be better off for it, so this is why
I’m sharing.
Speaking
of going on the road, are you – no doubt you are planning a tour in support of
this album. I don’t have dates in front of me, so this is your opportunity to
say where you’re going to be and when.
Well, at the moment we’re
focusing on just the few key festivals. I don’t really see us doing the road
touring with this one until the last half of the year, maybe August onwards.
But, to be completely honest, I’m having a meeting with my manager and agent
next Thursday and we’re going to discuss our mud map and figure it out then.
But as of right now everything has been about releasing the music, and getting
it out on radio, and getting it talked about before we even look at getting on
the road.
The
conventional wisdom would probably be that you’ve got to promote on the road as
soon as the thing’s released, but with country music people will turn up
whenever you’re there, I think. So you’ve got time to do that.
I guess so. And we’re so
fortunate to have a network of touring, and a network of festivals that we
have. We’ve got our own Foxtel channel, which really helps, and there are
hundreds of community radio presenters across Australia that do country music.
There’s a few commercial stations as well. So we’ve got that infrastructure.
And I don’t think we need to go out right at the time of release. Just play
those few key events, and try and reach new fans. But I’d like to think we
could probably get two, or the third single out of this album before we try and
hit the road.
So
the first single is ‘Curves’, and you could probably choose any one of the
other 10 songs on there to release.
Oh, thanks, mate. I really
appreciate that.
It’s
true. It’s a really great album. I’m still exploring the nooks and crannies of
it because that happens, I think, with albums. You put it on the first few
times and there’s certain impressions of certain songs. And then the longer
it’s on the more you find in it. But I think there is a lot more to find, which
is always great for a listener to have multiple layers of meaning in the song.
Absolutely. Even though the
production process was a couple of months long, it feels like it was a flash in
the pan in the whole context of it. And so I came out of it a little bit
scratched, and a little bit tired, and then when I get the master in my hand,
go home and listen to it fresh and ready to hear it, I hear things for the
first time as well each time that I listen to it. And it depends on what stereo
I listen to it on, or where I’m listening to it, but I’m really glad it has got
that aspect to it. But it’s such a credit to the engineers and the musicians
that I had on it too. But I’m really, really happy, and so proud of this work.
Wired is out now through ABC Music/Universal.
