FULL CHAT: Travis Collins - A Country Music Legend

Travis Collins, an award-winning artist with nine albums, talks about performing at CMC Rocks and his upcoming tour. He also mentions the difficulty of choosing songs for his setlist and reflects on his career. He discusses the growing popularity of country music and his experience of getting his first ARIA number one. He also talks about his song "Running the Country" and working with the Wolf Brothers. Travis expresses gratitude for his success and invites listeners to the Stock Root Music Festival. Travis Collins an award-winning artist with nine studio albums behind his name and countless sold-out shows. He joins us this morning out of his performance at the Stockbrook Music Festival. Cheers for coming on. Hey mate, thanks for having me. I've got to start it off by asking what it's like to perform in front of an audience at one of the biggest country music festivals in the country, CMC Rocks. Oh dude that that one particularly is a it's an out-of-body experience it's kind of like you know all the misfits of society come together and you know suddenly there's twenty five thirty thousand people who are the odd one out at the backyard barbecue and we're at our own backyard barbecue and there's 25,000 of us. It's absolutely crazy some of the videos are just seeing it in the pictures it is just a marvel to behold. I can't imagine what it's like being up on the stage in front of the door. I hear you're also off to Perth this weekend for the muster. What's your schedule looking like? The schedule is pretty crazy at the moment not only for the music career side of things but we've recently had our second child a little boy. You know I think as busy and difficult as the road is at the moment it's still much easier than being at home with two babies. It's on my toes no matter where I am. The Don't Get Me Started tour kicks off later this year as well. Can people expect a taste of what's to come at the Stock Group Music Festival later this month from that tour? Yeah 100% it's actually you know these first few shows we're trialing the set list as well so you know this is the first stages I mean of course we've been in rehearsal rooms but you don't really get that real reaction until you're in front of people so we're so excited to get out to Dubbo which it's been a long time since I've played out there with my band. I feel like I've been through over the years opening for much bigger artists but now to be out on the road with my own tour and my own band I'm excited so we can't wait to sort of hit them with everything we got and just see what kind of noise comes back. To take a dive into it what's the sort of thought process you've got when you put a set list together for an event like this? Well God it's a difficult one to answer because yeah you kind of sound a little bit arrogant no matter how you answer it. I'm really really fortunate to have had a career last so long now that I'm at the point that every time we release new music and put new music in the set list something's got to go and that is the most difficult thing because every song you have a different relationship with and they're in your set list for a reason and suddenly you know we'll have this this problem again next year when we release the next album and it's like okay which either these songs are going to go to make way you know because even we're on stage for 90, 100, sometimes two hours even then you can still only play 20 songs out of the 150 you've released over your career so yeah it's it's tough but yeah at the end of the day some of them got to go and we usually just let the fans decide you know which ones they gravitate to which ones they sing the loudest you know but they're the ones that come in and the ones that we're sort of not feeling as much excitement on go out. You were just saying about how long your career has been so far when you released Start The Car I think it was in the mid 2000s did you ever believe you'd actually be where you are today back when you released that first song? Not a chance mate, I couldn't believe I had a record deal back then I grew up in Southwest Sydney one of six kids in Housing Commission and country music was just such a cornerstone of our family my dad played country music live on the weekends with a band and in some ways it's kind of the family trait and I just couldn't believe at the age of 19 I had a record deal and put out an album and to still be here you know 20 years later doing it and then doing it to the to the best success we've had yet is really pinch yourself kind of stuff and then we don't take it for granted everyone around me included we are so grateful to still be doing what we what we love to do. Just to take a quick break I want to come back and get your take on how the Central West audience sort of themes country music and your music more specifically considering that it has actually become quite popular in the last few years compared to what it used to be and also what it was like for you to get your first Aria number one. Quick break mate, back in a sec. You're on Zoo's Brekkie. It's ZooFM, your home of Dubbos. Best music from the 80s for now for your Friday morning we're speaking to Travis Collins who's gonna be one of the frontrunners of the upcoming Stockgreet Music Festival he's got a bunch of awards under his belt he's got nine studio albums how did the Central West audience actually react to your music and sort of country music more generally because it's become more popular than I'm guessing it's ever been. Central West and everywhere it feels like country music's really picked up a big trend maybe the last five years and it's sort of come into a boil over at the moment you can see that with a lot of artists inside different genres now dipping their toes in country music because it's at this peak at the moment where it's got a lot of people interested in it but that's thanks to you know as far back as people like Keith Urban in the mid 2000s and bands like Rascal Flatts if you want to bring it forward to Taylor Swift started out with country I mean our first few albums were country and just last week we've got Queen Beyoncé dropping a country album so it's really exciting stuff and it's kind of you know we're no longer the hillbilly cousin with the hay bales and the chickens running around everywhere people are really switching on to country music. Well you say it's at its peak I would ask you what was it like to get your first ARIA chart number one? Oh it was it was phenomenal again I grew up watching the ARIA's on TV and it was just something that you just it was a different world it was something for me that was just you know I just never assumed I'd be part of that and then last year when we put out the album Any Less Anymore to find out it was the highest charting country album in Australia in like two and a half years was just mind-blowing with to have my management send through those those little graphics with you know all the artists in there and I'm I start from the bottom and I'm scrolling up I'm like I must be here somewhere you know maybe the top 20 and then you get to the 10 and it's like oh I'm not here where am I and you get up and you're right on the top and it's like nah this is April one or something it's just really really beautiful that I feel like my career is being built fan by fan you know small small pubs and clubs and car parks and kind of like that old Ants Go Marching thing you know and then you go somewhere like CMC and you realize over those 15 20 years you've amassed quite a quite a following. Just bringing it back to the present before I let you go running the country one of your latest releases what was it like to bring that song together and work with the Wolf Brothers? Oh to be honest man we just wrote that song so we could have a whinge. It was a Zoom session during COVID and we were all just sick of being locked in our houses and all being living in the country was just like God I feel like we just need some of our friends some of our mates to get down in the fireman house and and pull the strings and then and sort out the common sense and that's kind of that's kind of what the song started from a bit of a tongue-in-cheek thing now some people come up to us and and think it was a politically Britain charged song that had some kind of intention I guarantee you it was not. None of us, me or the Wolf Brothers are smart enough to get political. It was just a few country boys having a whinge. Has all good songs come together yes of course. Well cheers for coming up for a chat this morning Travis. Safe to say people are pumped to see you at Stock Root later this month. Thank you. Thanks mate. If you'd like to head to the Stock Root Music Festival here in Dubbo on the 20th of April see Travis Collins play live alongside Dan Davidson, Ashley Dallas, The Bushwack, Smacks Jackson, Robbie Morton it's just a huge list of brilliant artists you can head to stockroot.com.au for more information and to grab yourself tickets. You're on Zoo's Breakfast