HTF caught up with the busy man that is Travis Clark, the lead singer of We The Kings the other day. Hailing from Florida the guys of We The Kings released their 4th album at the end of last year and have been non stop touring the US.
They’ll be landing over here in the UK for Slam Dunk festival and then off to Japan, Singapore and playing Warped Tour in America. In this interview you’ll find out more personal information on their latest album as well as who takes the most selfies, who’d like to be able to pull of an afro and a bunch of other awesome content. Check it out!
HTF: Hey! How have you been?
T: I am fantastic. It’s like 100 degrees outside and I’m a redhead so it’s a battle. Everyone else in LA is enjoying the sun and I’m cowering inside haha.
HTF: Are you prepared for coming to the UK soon?
T: I’m not at all prepared. I always save my packing and stuff like that for the very last minute because I know I’m going to forget something anyways, so I might as well do it last minute.
HTF: So soon we’ll be welcoming you back on UK soil. It’s been a year since you were last here. Where have you been hiding?
T: So we ended up getting off our record label which is a really big thing for us. It gave us the power to put out music that we wanted. Unfortunately with that you lose that piggy bank that helps with touring. But we were always told that it’s really difficult to tour too much in the UK. Especially when you’re an American band, if you were to play and then come back the next month it would kind of decline the amount of fans that come see you, so you try and spread it out a little bit. We have taken way to long to come back to the UK, so we’re excited that we’re coming back now.
HTF: It’ll be 5 years since you last played Slam Dunk, you have a different line up, what can fans expect?
T: The Slam Dunk we played was in Leeds and it was our very first time that we had ever played overseas. It was an amazing show for us. We went over there with no idea of what to expect. We were so excited that we were able to play music in a totally different country. For whatever reason we were given main stage to play and they were all singing back to us. It was the coolest experience ever. That was the first time like not only do I love festivals but I love England.
HTF: Has that experience set pretty high expectations for coming back and playing main stage again?
T: Well now it’s totally different. We have four albums out. Instead of trying to fill 35/40 minutes with one record we now have four. We can almost play a greatest hits concert.
HTF: Will the setlist be influenced by your new material or will it be a surprise?
T: It’ll definitely be a mix of everything; we’ve never been the type of band to discredit any songs that have become big. We do want to give our new songs a chance for people to hear them but it’s really hard to tell what to play. Sometimes we ask the fans on twitter or on our Facebook page what they want to hear. Sometimes they tell us songs we didn’t expect to play; but we’ll play them just because they wanted us to. It will definitely be a mix.
HTF: Having released your new album Somewhere Somehow in December last year what’s the reception been like?
T: So the best way to explain it would be to give everyone the idea of what the first three albums did. Our first album ever which had “Check Yes Juliet” and ‘Skyway Avenue’ sold 1837 copies in the first week and we were stoked. Our second album that came out in 2009 which had “Heaven Can Wait” and “We’ll Be A Dream” which featured Demi Lovato. That sold 8921 copies in it’s first week. Then our third one which had ‘Say You Like Me’ on it, Sunshine State of Mind, that came out 2011 and sold 15,668. Our fourth album that we just released in December 2013, Somewhere Somehow, sold 48,203 copies in it’s first week.
HTF: I’m impressed you remember the exact numbers!
T: It’s one of those things that you kinda are amazed that it ever really happened to you. Each one of those sales, each fan or person that was giving our music a shot, who spent money on our album to just support us. That’s just an amazing thing for us. I want to include every single one of those album sales. If we didn’t know exact figures or didn’t care about them, to me it would eliminate that passion of somebody going out and literally buying our album. With that being said, our fourth album did better in its first week than all three previously did combined. It’s amazing! We didn’t have a record label; we did it by ourselves and with help from our fans through indiegogo. I think there’s a ton of heart and passion that just came into this album. I think that’s really what people are receptive too.
HTF: What is your favourite song that you’ve written off of the album?
T: I would say personally, they all mean so much, they all have their own really special place in my heart but ‘Just Keep Breathing’ is the one that just rings the bell for the most passionate. It was a song about getting bullied. I was bullied my entire life as a kid. I still get bullied over the Internet or whatever. I’ve always wanted something to listen to growing up that I know that everything would just be ok and everything was going to work out, but I didn’t really have that. I wanted to write a song that could help people, which could be that escape for people that needed it at a time like I did. It’s kind of a song to me that proves “Hey don’t worry it gets better.” As a human right now that’s in a band, with everything that I’ve achieved, I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. I love everything that happened to all the good, all the bad, it made me who I am today.
HTF: Who has the worst taste in music out of the band, name and shame!
T: I think we all have pretty good taste. I’ll say our drummer Danny, and only because he’s the worst by comparison to the rest of us. It’s the worst because he only likes stuff that has really intricate drums. The song doesn’t have to be good but if the drums are amazing then Danny will love the music.
HTF: If you had to cut your hair and only a band member was allowed to do it who would you trust to do it? What style do you reckon you’d try out?
T: It would definitely be Coley, he cuts his own hair which looks good so I would assume it’s easier to cut someone else’s hair than your own. As for the style, oh man I don’t know. I haven’t had short hair since I was 12 years old, so I’d try short hair but not too short. If I could rock the ginger afro I would totally do it. If I don’t wash my hair for long enough it will turn into a giffro (ginger afro).
HTF: Who takes the most selfies?
T: Charles. His instagram has like five selfies a day. It’s funny because we were doing a lot of shows where we would get on a plane and fly to a different city each day. He would post a picture in the sky club we all sit in, then he would post a picture on the plane of him pretending to be asleep. He’ll then take a selfies before the show. It’s a whole day of selfies, it’s like a day in the life of Charles. It then happens the next day and it’ll all be the same pictures just a different place. It’s really funny.
HTF: So out of the band 3 of you are all “vloggers”, do you see this as a way of connecting to your fans or would you consider it something completely separate to We The Kings?
T: It’s something for us that we’ll have when we want to look back. I want to remember everything, I want to remember all the amazing things we’ve accomplished as a band and that I’ve achieved personally. There are a lot of things I wish I could of seen. Like a video of how my parents met or how they got engaged. I would love to go back and see that. Technology is a little different now than it was then. I just want document my life so one day when I do have kids they can ask me questions about my life and I have something to show them. There’s nothing more explanative than actually seeing somebody do it. Also I feel really cool being in a band. I want my kids to think I’m cool one day The YouTube world is a totally different world to the music world. We’ve had fans come to the shows that have never seen us before but have been watching the videos. We’re able to give them a new experience in a new world.
HTF: Can you tell us your go to bad joke?
T: Oh man I have a lot of really awful jokes. Ok I’ll say the first joke I ever heard. I was in 6th grade and it was and 8th grader that told me. This is the joke “This girl on the beach with no arms and no legs and this guy walks by and she say’s sir can you come hug me I’ve never been hugged. He hugs her and then carries on and then she says sir I’ve never been kissed, could you kiss me. So he goes over and gives her a kiss. She says wait, this is really embarrassing but I’ve never been fucked could you fuck me? He picks her up and throws her in the water and says “now you’re fucked”. I was in 6th grade when I heard that joke, it was traumatising!
Thanks for your time and I’ll see you at Slam Dunk!
