Combining several
different elements including country, Lil' Cap'n Travis has been playing
their music for 11 years. The group was recently featured on an episode
of "Friday Night Lights," exposing them to a new audience. Spinner
recently spoke with guitarist/singer Matt Kinsey about SXSW, the band's off kilter
name, and random tour stories.
Describe your band's sound in your own words.
We always say it's kind of like psychedelic country, sort of, but that's
just the quick one. It's mostly just weird pop rock but with a country
influence; we have a pedal steel guitar.
How did the band form?
We're from Austin and we formed about 1999, we've been around a few
years. Basically we all had other bands and we just did some home
recordings and really liked the songs so we just made a band to do these
other weird songs we couldn't do in our other banda. We started doing
these more country songs, but we do a lot of other stuff now.
How did you meet everyone?
Through playing with most of them. A couple of the guys are actually
cousins. The drummer, he and I had another noisy rock band. His cousin
Christian joined and his friend Jeff joined, and we ended up getting
Gary Newcomb, he's from Boise, Idaho.
What are your musical influences?
We like tons of stuff. We do covers in our live sets sometimes, and
those range from classic and great country song writers like
Roger Miller, to the
Zombies and
T-Rex and
Walker Brothers. I
dunno, a lot of it tends to be from 60s and 70s kind of different
forms of strange pop music, I guess.
How did your band name come about?
That was the name of this feral child that one of the guys knew that
lived out by the lake, this lake outside Austin, Lake Travis. We thought
it was funny at the time. Yeah. Basically, it's just this weird kid,
we named it after him.
What's your biggest vice?
That's a tough one, let me think about that. Probably Dr. Pepper and
bacon.
What's in your festival survival kit?
Probably just water. Gotta stay hydrated.
Who was your first celebrity crush?
Oh man, wow. I'm having trouble thinking of that one. Probably Marky
Post from the first Battlestar Galactica. The lady from the first
Battlestar Galactica, The 70s one. I think her name is Marky Post, but
I'm not sure. No, it's Erin Grey. That's her name.
Beatles or Stones?
I have to say both. Just say late
Beatles and early
Stones.
What's the craziest thing you've seen or experienced while on
tour?
(thinks aloud) Just having the booker in Hollywood, loading out and then
having the club close and having the person disappear. We just loaded
out and suddenly the club was closed and the booker disappeared. The
club was locked up within seconds. Yeah...just the usual stuff. We just
happened to rip a muffler off of the van by hand to get to Des Moines
in time to play. That's not that hilarious. I could just give you a
litany: having the club close up suddenly, waking up in a basement with
somebody's head next to a bunch of dry cat shit. Yeah, auto repairs by
hand. Christian physically had to peel the muffler off because it was
hitting the ground. Just all that kind of fun stuff.
Evan C. Jones is a contributor from Seed.com.
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