Travis Tritt
(Q)- Do you think the audience for your style of ‘outlaw country” has actually disappeared’ or stopped supporting country music entirely? Or is that just another marketing statistic.
Travis Tritt (TT)- I don’t know if I’ve ever got, as the artist we are the kind of attention being the artist that I am, I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten the spotlight like the more pop-type (within the country genre) as artists have in the last,well certainly since I’ve been doing it. The fact is, my fan base is never gone away. That’s a fact. I found that out full fledged in the past year. My fans have been waiting and they’ve been patient and now that I’m out on the road performing again, they’re letting me know that they’re glad I’m back and that feels really good.
(Q)- Who is a typical Travis Tritt fan?
(TT)- I know who my fans are not. They’re not fourteen or fifteen year old girls. That’s never been the audience I’ve hung my hat on. I really don’t think that has everreall been the true country music audience really when you get right down to it. If you go back through the years of people like Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, George Jones, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, The fourteen and fifteen year old girls were not the audience who supported those legendary country artists careers. And I’ve never been one to have them as fans either. I think Travis Tritt fans are people who were not born with a silver spoon in their mouth. They have a strong work ethic. They come from hard working backgrounds and they are probably 25 years of age an older. They’re old enough to have gone through a relationship And understood what true heartbreak is and what true love is and what true affection is for someone who is in love. And those are the kin of people who I sing about because those are the same kind of experiences I’ve had myself.
(Q) A lot of artists who made a mark for themselves with the “Class of 1989″ in the country genre are a still maintaining successful career and they haven’t lost momentum. However there’s a whole lot who have and disappeared from the charts and country radio.
(TT)- Well I have had a lot of people, even radio people tell me,’ We really missed you.” Because I feel like a not a lot of music that sounds like I do.
(Q)- Is Travis Tritt music too rock for the country genre? I cannot imagine you being told down to the note and the letter what to do in regards to your music in the studio.
(TT)- I take all of that stuff and throw it out of the window. During the two years that I had off, I did not listen to any country music at all. I did not want to be influenced by any music that is out there. I just wanted to do the same music that I’ve always done. Which is really pure, honest, Travis Tritt music. Whatever moves me hopefully it will move somebody else.
(Q)- You’ve never been one to,” chase trends” anyway.
(TT)- I will not try and chase after the current trend might be out there (on radio) at the current moment. And I think by having that attitude, that’s what brought me to the point I’m at in m career in the first place. When I made the music that became the tracks on this album I was totally uninfluenced by anything (musically) other then what turned me on personally. The only music that I listened to was what made me happy. I got re-aquatinted with what turns Travis Tritt on.
(Q)- So your point is?
(TT)- Once again, understanding who I am as an artist and what I like and what I don’t like and what fits me and hat doesn’t fit me, having that understanding, suits me and strengthens me. Because I think that right now in country music, there’s a lot of people out there who don’t really know who they are yet. When you go into the country music section in your local record store and you look at what is in the section marked,”country”, most of it is not the real gritty back to the roots kind of feel to it music that myself and a handful of other, a few others have had over the past few years. I mean, that’s me, that’s who I am and where I come from. I listened to down to earth basic country music as well as basic blues and rock and roll. And that’s the music that influenced me as a child when I was growing up. So now those are obviously songs that I still love. And to get the opportunity to go out (on-stage) and play those songs live in front of an audience is really cool. I’ll tell you what makes it even ore social live for me. The fact that I can see it in the faces of the audience members who are out there. When we come to town there are a lot of people who love the kind of stuff that I’m doing. I have fans telling me after shows, ”You’re playing music that speaks to my soul.’ So for me, that’s really cool. When you know that you can bring water into a desert, that really is a good feeling.
(Q)-Your ‘outlaw” style of country music is about good, hard working blue collar and white collar folks who are proud of America and want to hear that pride and their lives expressed throughout your songs. Does any of this make sense to you? Do you agree with this outlook?
(TT)- Yes. I truly feel that one of the reasons people come to us and the fans say things like, “We really missed you.’, is because there’s not really a lot of music out there in the country genre that sounds like I do. I think that there are a big group of people who are not getting ‘fed’. Maybe it’s because of the type of artist who are out there right now and the type of music that seems to be prominent at radio, right now. I personally am just not sure what the right reason is. But I do know that my audience has always been there for us and I’ve know as an artist who I was from day one. My fans have to, I know what they expect from me. And, I just try and give it to them every night. As long as we can do that. We’ve got sort of a one up on the people who don’t have that.