Lil' Cap'n Travis Interview: SXSW 2010


Posted: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:32 AM - 12,781 Readers

By: Evan C. Jones


Lil Cap'n TravisCombining 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. Learn how you can contribute here.




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