New interview and live performance: Travis Mitchell

by Erin Rice

How many times have you met someone new and asked them what type of music they listen to (right after their sign, of course) and they respond, “Oh, I’ll listen to anything. Except for country.” It’s a pretty popular statement. My bet is the responder doesn’t listen to a lot of Mozart or traditional Polish music either, but I digress. For many groups it’s popular to show disdain for country music. The country-hate may end up changing, however, thanks to some of the younger influences rising through the ranks.

The Eli Young Band is one example of a group that is taking the country influence and turning it on its head. Another is the Mesquite-based Travis Mitchell Band. So says TMB's frontman, “In Texas music, I love the Eli Young Band. They’re great guys. Their music is sort of eclectic… I think of them as the Cold Play of country.”

If eclecticism is the key to success for young country musicians, then Travis Mitchell is on the right track. In his show you will hear pieces from various genres, including southern rock, classic rock, a little honky tonk to keeps it country-real, and finally some random covers from out of left field thrown in for good measure. This mix of genres comes from his own upbringing listening to all different types of music.

“My mom has always listened to all kinds of music - everything. And when I say everything, I mean everything. So I sort of drew some things from her. I remember the classic rock era with Bad Company and Boston and bands like that. And even R&B like Al Green and Marvin Gay. Then, of course, country is my background.”

“Trying to take all those things and put them together is what I like to do. When I make an album I like to be extremely diverse. The more diverse the better for the listeners.”

And maybe the better for the genre as well. Back when country was taking root the message was one of the hard-working American, the toils of daily life, and coming up in the world. In what some consider the Golden-Age of country, spanning from pre-WWII to the late 60’s, you had greats like Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, and Hank Williams. From an outside perspective, it seems some of the things that made those people legendary may have been lost recently. I asked Travis about the current stereotypes and trends in popular country music:

“There’s some country music out there that is really good and most of it I like. I even like some of the stuff that is more over the top. But it seems like now, in mainstream country music, it’s getting to the point where corny is cool. And I’m just… I really don’t dig that stuff. It makes people who don’t listen to country music think, ‘oh, well it’s all hoe downs and rollin’ in the hay”… when it’s really just… songs about life.”

“Of course there are the songs about the hay, and the barn, and stuff like that, which I love and I grew up listening to. I would say you have to… focus on the other stuff to draw in more [people] who don’t listen to country, to just explore it.”

Not only do Travis’ views of the music stray a little from some people's perceptions of country, he himself might not fit the mold many of us, myself included, are guilty of attributing to the genre’s artists. Looking more laid-back surfer (he apparently rarely wears shoes on stage, much less boots) than Western Wearhouse, he also may be a little more politically liberal that some of his fan base (again, I’m generalizing, but bear with me). How does that mesh?

“In this genre, that’s something that is really, really tough. That’s why I’ve always said that you keep politics and religion out of it.”

PegNews: Yeah, but I would think that music is one of the ways you talk about those things.

Travis: Sort of, yeah, in a way. You can kind of hear it in the songs. But I don’t have anything wrong with people that have conservative views. My personal opinion is that people should just think about the issues before they decide on them. That’s kind of stolen from a Chris Rock stand-up, but…

PegNews: It’s a very politician-safe answer.

Travis: It was. That was good, huh?

PegNews: It was, you could run someday.

Travis: Yeah, I might have a future in it.

But, enough about politics and stereotypes.

Travis graduated from UT Austin with a degree and minor in Sociology and Psychology, respectively, and claims that he would likely be back in school getting a masters were this music thing to falter. Signs of falter aren’t showing however, as his schedule is bursting with concerts all over Texas, and the TM Band are expecting their second album, Waiting On Tomorrow, September 25.

“Waiting On Tomorrow is an album we made in the winter in Mississippi. Chris Henderson of Three Doors Down produced the album, so we were excited about that. It took us 20 days to do it, and I have no friggin’ idea how we did it, but we did it. That’s including writing and everything.”

Compared to the band’s previous effort, Forget What’s Wrong, the upcoming album had a lot more thought, time, and money put into it. “You can tell a lot [of difference] from the old album, it was just sort of thrown together. Straight-forward, didn’t know what we were doing, broke.”

For recording Waiting… Travis describes the experience as “interesting… the music was… sort of taken to a different level, you know? I liked it a lot, but it was just something I hadn’t heard before. So that made it fun even going into the studio and singing the songs, because I was like ‘this is familiar, but it’s different’… I developed my sound finally, and so all the pieces sort of just started coming together in this album.”

So, who knows? Maybe in the next few years as groups like The Travis Mitchell Band and The Eli Young Band continue to make their way to the top and set new precedents in country music, your friends won’t feel the need to say, “anything but country.” I wonder how they will qualify their musical preferences next? Maybe, “anything but Polka.” Although, Brave Combo might have something to say about that.

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