This week Lakeside Entertainment sat down with Travis Clark from We The Kings, one of the most successful pop-rock touring bands of the past fifteen years. From headlining Vans Warped Tour and The Bamboozle Roadshow Tour, to sharing the stage with Simple Plan, All American Rejects, Boys Like Girls, All Time Low, and countless others, We The Kings has logged thousands of miles and played to fans all over the world.
The band has had five consecutive hits at POP Radio including “Check Yes Juliet” which is certified platinum, “Secret Valentine”, “Heaven Can Wait”, “We’ll Be A Dream” featuring Demi Lovato, and “Say You Like Me” which won the MTV Video Music Award for Most Innovative Music Video of the Year in 2011.
Friends since childhood, the four bandmates (lead singer/guitarist Travis Clark, guitarist Hunter Thomsen, his bassist brother Drew Thomsen, and drummer Danny Duncan) formed the group while attending high school. The band got its name from the middle school that they all attended called Martha B. King Middle School in Bradenton, Florida.
The current members of We The Kings include Hunter Thomsen, Danny Duncan, Coley O’Toole, Charles Trippy, and Travis Clark who took the time to speak with us about life on the road, overcoming challenges, and becoming a working parent in the music business today.
LEG: We The Kings started out as four friends in high school with the idea of starting a band. Can you take us through how you go from playing in a band in school, to finding a manager, getting discovered, signing a label deal, and having hits on the radio?
TC: To be honest, that list of events really felt and still feels like a whirlwind. I don’t think there is any solid formula for making it happen and more times than not, it doesn’t even happen in that order. We started the band in middle/high school in order to try and get girlfriends. Plain and simple. I don’t think any of us ever ACTUALLY believed that anything which happened afterwards would have ever been possible. We were all working jobs at world class restaurants ie. Subway, Dominos Pizza, and Freedom Village (a retirement home where we could legally work as servers at the age of 15) and saved up enough money to put our music online at PureVolume.com. At the time, PV hosted music and you could pay $350 to have your band featured on the front page. This is how we met our manager. An email came in during our week-long promo that read, “Yo, dig the shit. Hit me back. -Bret.” We found our manager. From then, Bret, who was the first person outside our parents to really support the band and launch us forward, booked 10 meetings of “friends” and had me play our most popular song, ‘Secret Valentine’ acoustically 10 times for each of his friends. I later found out that they were all heads of literally every record label out there. I guess he didn’t want to freak me out that my entire future rode on me playing that song well and selling the idea that I could be a star along with the rest of We The Kings. A couple weeks later we received 10 different record deals from each of the 10 label execs that I had played for. With Bret, we chose the best fitting label and went into the studio to record our first official album. After that, things get blurry. We had a song that seemed to be everyone’s favorite, so we took that song to this thing called THE RADIO. I got in a rented SUV with the label’s radio representative and drove all over the country playing our song, “Check Yes Juliet”. I must have played that song every day 7 to 8 times in 7 to 8 different cities, all on about an hour of sleep up against the window of our rented SUV. This went on for about 5 months. Until we reached Top 40 radio with our first radio hit. Then, the real work started.
LEG: What advice would you give to a young band starting out in middle school or high school today with the dream of touring, writing hits, and having a successful music career?
TC: The advice is simple. Don’t accept “no” as an answer from friends who don’t think you have what it takes to make it, or from family members who think they know what’s best for you, or from people in the crowd who tell you that your music is the worst thing they’ve ever heard. We’ve heard it all. It didn’t matter. We knew who we were and that what we were doing was going to make a difference. Practice hard, study songs you love, write a new song every day even if you think it sucks, and most importantly, be patient. Success of others may have seemed that it came overnight, but it did not.
LEG: Who are some of the people that believed in you and gave you a shot early on and what has that meant to you personally and professionally?
Our parents have always been incredible supporters for us, they’ve stood their ground when others told them that we were crazy for trying to do this. They stood their ground when we failed time after time. They are one of the reasons we made it and that still stands true to this very day.
LEG: Here are a few “road life” questions: What’s something you would never go on the road without? What are some of the best stops on the road? Favorites cities to visit? Can you tell us about one of your most memorable shows? What is your favorite song to perform for fans?
TC: Something on the road we can’t live without is easily our phones to stay connected with our loved ones, but in this day-in-age that seems to be the easy answer. The obscure thing that we can’t live without is surely our Nintendo 64 with Smash Bros and Mario Kart games. Don’t ask, just trust that it’s a necessity.
We’ve really been able to say that we’ve seen so many incredible cities all over the world. However the sad truth is that I can tell you just about everything you would need to know about the venues, the hotels, the airports, and the truck stops that we pulled over to get midnight snacks. We’ve spent so much time on the road that rarely do we ever get to truly visit the city that we are playing. The best thing we get to do is meet the fans and from them get an idea of cultures, accents, and excitement about their cities. There have been plenty of times however when we fly in early to a venue and spend a few days there... in Colorado we’ve been skiing and snowboarding as a band, in California we’ve spent a day on Lake Tahoe, we’ve been diving with huge sharks in Hawaii, we’ve gone through Venice on a gondola, we’ve seen the Colosseum in Rome, we’ve seen the Eiffel Tower, we’ve jumped off the tallest building in New Zealand, we’ve proposed to our wives all over the world, we’ve eaten weird birds in Japan, we’ve visited distilleries all over the world and have come out absolutely wasted, we’ve been to the Middle East and Africa to play for our military, as well as countless other amazing memories. But the one place that still holds our favorite spot in our heart is home. Being with our families makes wherever we are, our favorite.
LEG: We The Kings has had five consecutive TOP 40 Radio hits with “Check Yes Juliet” which is a certified platinum single, “Secret Valentine”, “Heaven Can Wait”, We’ll Be A Dream” featuring Demi Lovato, and “Say You Like Me”, along with many other viral hits that your fans know and love. The band has also one of the most loyal fan bases of any pop-rock band in the past fifteen years. In a time where everyone wants instant fame and results, what’s the secret to the consistent success you’ve had as a band over such a long period of time?
TC: This is an easy answer, but it’s not the easiest for every artist. The answer is, keep your fans as a top priority. Whether you have 1 or 1 million, let them know that they are important because the truth is that they are. We’ve been able to keep this band alive, not because we keep putting out albums or because we’ve had success at radio but because we continue to connect with our fans who pay their hard earned money and spend their valuable time coming to see us every time we come through town. The reason I say that it’s not the easiest for some artists, is because being in a band is more than just writing music and performing on stage, it’s sitting outside for hours talking to fans who are dying to meet you. It’s stopping at restaurants to talk to people who notice you even if you’re in a rush. It’s connecting with the fans online in countries you’ve never been to. It takes time and effort, but if you do it right your 1 fan will turn into 2 and eventually 1 million into 2 million.
LEG: Pitbull is an artist I had the opportunity to work with early on at TVT Records and he said in an interview once, “There is no failing, only learning”. I always remembered that line and was wondering if there was something you tried that didn’t work out or if there has been a low point in your career. How did you handle it, overcome it, and learn from it?
TC: Oh man, grab a pen and paper. I won’t be able to recall all of the times that I’ve tried something that hasn’t worked out but I’ve always been able to bounce back and like Bull mentioned, I’ve always learned. “There is no one right way to do things in this business or for life in general.” That can be my quote to pass on. I think everyone who has succeeded in their own quests would agree fully with that statement. In order to not avoid the question, there have been many times that we have had a huge festival tour booked and nothing in line for the months that followed. I always thought that it would have been amazing to be able to say on stage in front of thousands of people, “Hey we’ll be back in a few months or sometime next year!” So that fans can get excited and plan for when we come rather than expect the fans to always be looking out for our future touring announcements. That is one thing I changed with our band and noticed that it was much easier playing and selling out bigger rooms.
LEG: I personally have a whole new respect for working parents since I’ve become one myself. What is it like to be on the road working, writing, and touring so often and how do you balance that with having two young children and a wife now at home?
TC: Being a parent has made touring almost impossible on our emotional state of minds. The 5 of us have never wanted to see our kids grow up on FaceTime so we’ve collectively decided to cut back on touring and only do tours and shows that we really want to do. I think this is one of the reasons we’ve been able to maintain our relationships with each other over the years while so many of our friend’s bands have broken up or disbanded. We work so incredibly hard which allows us to also play incredibly hard and the play part for us involves us all being with our wives and kids. As far as writing goes, I have a studio in my house that my daughter come in and hang out with me all the time when I’m “working.” They make me want to succeed even more so that I can show them how I achieved my impossible dream. I want to teach them through action and show them that they can do the same. Yesterday my oldest daughter who just turned 3 looked at me and said “Daddy, I have a prize for you” (prize=surprise) she then looked at me and sang the first 3 lines of Check Yes Juliet. She has seen us play probably 25 times over the years, but I had no idea that she actually was absorbing the music. I was blown away. With tears in my eyes I picked her up and told her how happy that made me and then I realized that I love what I do, because my daughters love what I do.
LEG: “The Kings Carriage” are skits that you film and post on youtube which detail the band’s life on the road giving a behind the scenes access to fans. When you first started this project it was one of the most innovative marketing ideas at the time and a brilliant use of a growing social media platform. The videos have generated more than 300 million views to date. How has the use of social media changed since you’ve started and what are some of the greatest differences in the music business overall from the artists perspective?
TC: We are a band that actually started before Twitter, Instagram and YouTube became a pivotal part of marketing your band so it took some getting used to and overall adjusting. The videos we filmed were really just for fun, we didn’t even notice their views were crazy until our label owner mentioned something to us. I think that’s why it did so well. When you do something for the love of it and not for a different agenda then it tends to be more willingly accepted by the audience. The same goes for Instagram, twitter and other social media platforms. Every time we post something genuine about the band, ourselves, or our families, it gets 10x the amount of love and reaction. We continue to use social media to market WTK, but it’s also a way for us to deepen our connection with our fans, because they now know more about us than just ‘hey, I’m Travis, I write songs and sing for a band.’
LEG: You have a reputation for being incredibly generous with your time and making meaningful connections with your fans. One snowy night in Michigan I remember the band stayed after the show for two hours to meet every fan that wanted to take a picture and share a story. Is there a person music related or otherwise that you’d wait hours to speak with and share a story with? What would you tell them?
I actually don’t have anyone I would do that for, which is probably why I stay out there for our fans in the first place. I genuinely can’t believe that fans of our music are willing to do that, so it makes me want to stay and give them that moment. There are definitely musicians in this world that I would love to meet and talk with for a minute. I think I would probably just thank them for paving the way for me and my middle school friends to start a band and do this for real. Gratitude is always the first thing that comes to mind when I think about the fans and the musicians that I admire. It really is something that comes completely full circle.
LEG: The Lakeside brand we’ve developed represents doing what you love, working hard but playing hard, and appreciating those moments and places of relaxation and reflection life has to offer. Do you have a favorite lake, beach, or special place you go to unwind, relax, and recharge?
TC: Anna Maria Island, Florida. This place is the epitome of relaxation and recharging. I grew up in Bradenton, FL which is about 10 minutes away from the island, so I feel pretty lucky that I can frequently visit this place and that it’s never too far out of reach. Whenever I’m in a time of ‘go-go-go’ I feel like I’m not truly able to give people my best. It’s only after I take some time that I can clear my head and show people who We The Kings really is.
