Hit The Floor went down to Clwb Ifor Bach to meet We The Kings frontman Travis Clark ahead of their sold out show in Cardiff…
How has touring been going? You’ve been on the road for awhile now.
Amazing! We just went to Europe for the first time with Simple Plan. For whatever reason, Germany was just incredible for us. We never even knew we had that many fans anywhere outside of the UK as far as Europe goes.
Before we went to mainland Europe we would have people come to London from Paris or Barcelona or Madrid, so when we went over there it was so cool because we got to go to them. There were some people who were following the entire tour for dozens of shows and it was crazy because that’s a lot of money. It’s not cheap to do that stuff.
How have the Simple Plan dates been going?
They’ve been amazing. We just did our last show two nights ago in Glasgow and they’re doing some other shows. We’re staying in the UK for a little while to do some headlining shows. The only problem was when we were support we had a very short amount of time to play so the fans were really upset with us. That wasn’t our choice so I thought it would be cool for us to stick around for another week and play headline shows where we can play for over an hour because I don’t know the next time we’re gonna be able to come over here.
Hopefully we’ll come back by the end of the year, but you never know how busy touring will be. Simple Plan have been really great. When we finish here we go back home to do some college shows for about two weeks and then we go back to Australia to meet back up with Simple Plan. Before we do that we’re headlining some shows in the Philippines: Manila and Kuala Lumpur.
It’s amazing. The Manila show is already sold out and we’re the only band playing and there’s 11,000 people coming! It’s insane. This is only our second time in the Philippines so hopefully it continues to go up and up. It was really funny because when we got the email we thought it was 1100 and they were like ‘No no no, that’s not a misprint, it’s 11,000’. After that we do Australia and then we come back to the States and we have two days off and then we start the Vans Warped Tour until August 5th or 6th and then back home to record another record. It’s nuts.
Do you get homesick?
I actually just texted my mom today to say ‘I’m so homesick right now’ but we get to go home for three days so I’m excited. We’ve been non stop since right after Christmas. We did an acoustic tour and radio promotion and then we went to Brazil, Argentina and Chile with Taking Back Sunday and then we did our own United States tour for about two months and then we went out to Europe with Simple Plan and then we went back to Brazil for Lolapolooza and then finished the second leg of Europe and now we’re in the UK. When we’re done it will have been eight months of nonstop crazy touring.
I’m extremely tired! But you know what? It’s cool. Unfortunately what happens is you kind of forget the beauty of what you’re doing. You’re so busy and it just kind of turns into auto mode and you almost forget what it was like to be the kid playing in a garage and wanting to get signed by a record company. It’s nice though because every once in awhile it hits you and it’s like, ‘Damn! We have the best life ever!’
Last night was really fun because it was our tour manager’s birthday. He turned 23 and we were in London. We played the Scala, it was this thing called Facedown. It happens once a month and we went on at 1am and it was an absolutely wild and crazy party. There were people getting naked and blowing fire and drinks everywhere. It was such a different show to what we’re used to playing and it was one of those times that I was like, ‘Oh my god, if this isn’t what being quote unquote a ‘rockstar’ is then I have no idea what is’, because everything under the sun was happening, so it was pretty cool.
Where is your favourite place to play?
I have a favourite venue. It’s in Washington State. It’s right outside of Seattle and it’s called the Gorge and it’s pretty much like the Grand Canyon. It has this river that runs through and it seats 25,000 people up a hill and you can look at the band and honestly behind the band is like looking at a postcard. You look down at this gorge and there’s cliffs and it goes miles and miles down to the river and it’s so beautiful that people will go out there and camp for weekends to go and see bands. It’s just a really amazing place to play and we’ve played there two or three times and it’s just awesome. It’s my favourite place. It honestly feels like you just threw away your phone and you’re living off nature and it’s just awesome. You should go! If there was any venue I’d say you should visit it’s that.
What should we expect from tonight’s set?
You just walked in on me writing the setlist. I’ve always hated when bands put out a new record and forget all their old stuff and all the songs that made people become fans in the first place so I never wanted to be that. Luckily we get longer to play tonight so we’re gonna take all of the favourite songs off the first record, all the favourite songs off ‘Smile Kid’ and the favourite songs off ‘Sunshine State Of Mind’, which just came out. This is the first time we’ve played it in Wales so I think it’s important for us to give it a good debut.
How many times have you played Warped Tour now?
The first year we did it we did the full year and the next two years we did half years. We did the first half on the second year we played and the second half on the third year we played and this will be our fourth and we’re doing the whole thing. I heard it’s coming to London but they haven’t done the bill for it yet and they haven’t decided which American bands they’re bringing over yet because it’s expensive. I really want to because we’re not doing the festivals this year because we’re busy.
Bring Me The Horizon are headlining it – I was just talking to Oli (Sykes) about it. We went to watch the Thrice finale show because they played the night before us at the same venue we played so the promoter hooked us up with tickets and Oli and some of the dudes from You Me At Six were there. It’s so funny because Bring Me The Horizon are way different musically than us and they like our music and we like their music and I don’t know how that works. When we’re on Warped Tour they’ll come watch our set and we’ll go watch their set and it’s really funny because kids and fans will be looking and they’re like, ‘Why is Oli from Bring Me The Horizon watching We The Kings?!’
Interviewer: Lais MW
