Who ever thought they would see this?  The day when Jav has a real, legitimate conversation with a member of Atreyu? Well, here it is, and I can assure you that you won’t find any b33f, no shit talking, and just two dudes talking about music.

I spoke with Travis on the phone in November 2009, while Atreyu was in the middle of a U.S. tour with Hollywood Undead.  What you read is an almost unedited version of that conversation.  I will admit that I did take a couple of things out, but only to protect people. Read on, judge it or not, we don’t really care either way.

Ok so lets just get started! Right now, you’re on tour with Hollywood Undead. I’ve read a couple of other interviews with you guys, and you have said that this tour has been kind of mellow.. and I know that this tour is winding down a little bit, so I will ask the very generic question of “how’s tour going?”

Good, man… I mean this is our in about 10 months, and this was a good tour to come out of the gates on.  Kids have been coming out to these shows in droves, and obviously we have a new album out so it’s been good to play to new faces. It’s been all good.

How many new faces do you think are really coming to these shows?  I mean, are Hollywood Undead fans and Atreyu fans really THAT much different?

You know, we do share a lot of the same fans, but then also again, you know it’s like… HU fans may have heard OF Atreyu, but never really heard us or seen us play live, and it’s the same thing on the other side of the coin too.  So it’s like a win, win situation really.

And how is this live show different, or IS it different from previous tours for you guys?  You said you haven’t toured in a while, you have a new album out, and you have a chance to play to new people. Did you do anything special for this tour to beef it up or change things?

At the beginning of the tour, we were trying out new songs, and the order of the set list to see how it flows.  I think that at the beginning of the tour it’s kind of a trial and error type thing.  But I think we have it pretty much on lockdown now, so we’re in top shape.

Now, in the past, you guys have done some bigger tours with metal bands… maybe bands that were a little bit “harder” than yours.  Have you ever had any problems with fans of other bands?

Um… not really.  I mean, that’s kind of how we got how we are.  We can play with bands like Lamb Of God and Unearth, but we can also play with bands like Hollywood Undead and Taking Back Sunday.  We have kind of spread ourselves across the board as much as we can.  It’s more beneficial to be playing to a different crowd on every tour, and not just the same pop crowd or metal crowd or whatever.

Yeah, you guys definitely have a sound that crosses genres.  On the new album, there’s a new song called “Storm to Pass”, and that song has heavy parts, it has a lot of singing, it has metal leads, and it does touch on a lot of types of music.  There’s not one real genre that your band or the crowd fits into.  I do credit you with that, that you have a wide spectrum and can appeal to a lot of different kind of people.

Oh yeah, definitely. It’s only worked to our benefit, really.

I’ve noticed that your band has been on a few movie soundtracks.  Has that benefited you by exposing you to a newer, wider audience?

Yeah, I mean, it’s the same thing with being on a video game soundtrack.  There are a lot more people playing video games and seeing movies than there are people listening to our band, so we just try to ride the coat tails of, you know, what ever movie or video game that comes out.  Again, it just works to our benefit. Plus, we get a copy of whatever video game we are in.

You guys were on the Underworld: Evolution soundtrack.  I’m actually a huge fan of that series, personally.  Are you a fan of that movie, or any of the other movies that you guys have appeared on the soundtrack of?

I actually did like Underworld.  I only saw the first two, though.  But it’s always cool to be involved in something on that scale, because we’re just five guys from Orange County who never even thought we would get this far to begin with.  So that’s just another cool thing to mark off on our “cool things to do before we die” list.

And how involved are you in getting your music onto stuff like that?  Do they approach your band, or your label… how much of a decision do you actually get?

Well, it’s kind of a no-brainer.  I mean, if they approach us, and offer us a song on a soundtrack, you take it without thinking about it.  It will only benefit that band.  It’s something you don’t turn down.

That’s important right now, especially with the state of music and the industry.  I was reading an interview with Dan (Jacobs) recently, and he said that your new album was sold for 3.99 on the first day, and that he was ok with that because more people would get it.

Yeah, I mean times are tough right now.  People can’t always afford to buy music, or any kind of entertainment… so it’s just kind of a cheaper and easier way for fans to get the cd.

I was watching one of your videos on YouTube, and I wondered how often those videos actually get played on TV, or seen by someone who isn’t specifically trying to watch that video.

Um… it seems to be less and less, obviously.  I mean, look at MTV, how often to they REALLY play videos.  The excitement for a band’s new video has kind of dwindled because A. video stations aren’t really playing them anymore and B. you can turn on your computer and go to YouTube and see them any time you want, whereas before you were sitting in front of your tv all day, waiting for a certain video to come on.

Or watching Head Bangers Ball and waiting for the Triple Thrash Threat?

Oh yeah, exactly. I remember in junior high, trying to stay up all night waiting for the one song I wanted to see, and it didn’t come on until like 1am.  Those days are over, now you can just watch it whenever you want.

And now, you can watch it on your phone, you can download the songs to your phone… do you think that that is both a detriment and a benefit to the music industry?

It’s definitely a double edged sword.  I mean, it’s cool because for younger bands, it’s super easy to get your music out there. You can self promote.  You can cover more ground.  Then again, it’s so accessible, that the whole scene gets super saturated.  You get all these bands coming through and kind of all get lost in the mix and it’s kind of hard to tell who stands out.

Yeah, that’s a very good point, there is SO much out there and it’s so easy to MAKE YOURSELF famous.  I mean, look at Hollywood Undead… they were famous before they had even appeared live, put a record out…they had one of the most prolific MySpace pages ever. How do you think that bands can make themselves “legitimate” and set themselves apart when there is such a flooding of the industry?

There are all sorts of different things you can do.  Self promotion, things like that.  But when it comes down to it, make good music.  That will obviously help.

Your band has been around for 10 years now.  What did you do to make yourselves last that long?  To set your band apart from the rest?  To not be a flash in the pan, and to have done all these things… what made that happen for YOUR band?

Well, I mean when we started, it was literally from the ground up, and everything we did was in steps.  You know, it was “let’s get a show this weekend at the Showcase Theatre.” Then it was “lets make a demo” and then it was like “well, now what?” Well, now we gotta find a label, now we gotta get a van, now we gotta get on a tour.  So you know, it was really tiny steps that lead us to where we are now.  We came up the traditional way, and I think that we were one of the last bands to do it that way.  We have obviously had to adjust to the way things change in the industry, but we… I dunno. We just kinda keep on truckin’.

Yeah, Atreyu, Avenged Sevenfold, and Suicide Silence all did it that way.

Yeah, especially with heavy, aggressive music you aren’t going to be launched into stardom right away, right off the bat.  You aren’t going to have two tour busses and playing arenas.  You have to start the D.I.Y. way.  Get down and dirty.  You aren’t going to make any money, you will probably lose money.  Lose friends.

In the industry that I’m in, you really have to start at the bottom.  You have to make very little money at the beginning.  And a lot of kids that are getting into this industry, and into the music industry, don’t realize that you have to work and work and work, and it doesn’t come overnight.  But also, you have to be in the right place at the right time.

Oh yeah, definitely.  That, knowing the right people, making connections… if this were easy everybody would be doing it.  And some of the younger kids may think its easy, but you’re right, it isn’t.

One of the things that is going along with technology right now is the ability to download music.  Honestly, I downloaded your new album.  I wanted to check it out before I did this interview, and maybe I didn’t have the chance or the money to go buy it.  And that is happening more and more, people downloading albums and even entire discographies for free.  It’s basically taking the money out of you and your family’s mouth.

Again, the industry kind of has adjusted to that.  There are digital sales.  There is really nothing anyone can do about it, you just have to kind of make the best out of it.

You came from humble beginnings in the Orange County hardcore scene, and you kind of grew not necessarily out of it, but away from it.  How connected do you feel now to the hardcore scene, and more specifically the OC hardcore scene?

You know… when we were coming up there was an awesome scene.  You had the staple bands like Adamantium, Throwdown, 18 Visions, Wrench… and it kind of seems that once those bands kinda went somewhere… I don’t want to say the scene died…

But it changed?

Yeah, and I dunno if that’s just me being an old man and playing the whole “back in my day” card, but I dunno.  Things have changed in the past couple of years.  Whether it’s the scene or the industry or technology, they all kind of affect each other.  They all kind of go hand in hand.

But how connected to it do you feel right now?  Do you know what’s going on, do you know what bands are “hot”, do you know anything about it right now?

We still have our ear to the ground.  If you’re in this industry, you are aware, whether you are trying to be or not… but that’s just because we love music.  Suicide Silence, they are a southern California band. They’re killing it right now.  Job For A Cowboy has that whole thing on lockdown right now.  We’re aware of what music is coming out.  I’m a big fan of Toxic Holocaust.  Bands that we came up with like Thrice, I don’t think that they could put out a bad album

I see Brandon (Saller) around at shows, taking pictures and stuff.  I know that some of the members of the band may be distanced from the scene, but some are still interested and connected.

Yeah we’re obviously not going to shows every weekend because 2 of us are married and 4 of us have mortgages, and plus we tour 9 months out of the year so sometimes we just don’t want to go to another live show.  But there’s times where there will be a cool show, and we just pop our heads in and have a good time.

A good question for bands is “what would you be doing if you weren’t doing this,” but a better question is, what are you going to be doing AFTER this?

Um… I’m sure it will have to do something with music, whether it’s actively playing music or behind the scenes.  Me, personally, I’ve always been interested in the music supervision for films.  As far as the future goes, I think I’ll be ok, as long as I’m making somewhat of a modest living.

You know, a lot of kids think that we are making millions, driving expensive cars, and living in mansions… but ask any band at our level and they will tell you that that’s not the case.

But I mean, we have made enough to live on and stay afloat.  Obviously the economy right now has gone to shit. Just the fact that we are able to do this and move forward, that’s all we can ask for, really.

What kind of advice would you give to bands who are trying to “make it” right now, or even trying to get out of their local scene? If you could go back and talk to 20 year old Travis, what advice would you give him?

It’s hard to say because, like we said before, the whole game has changed in the past 10 years… so honestly I wouldn’t even know.

I guess… write good music.  If you are writing good music, I think, you have a good chance of doing something with it.  If it’s good, people will notice.  I know that sounds like a bullshit, easy way out answer, but it’s true.  Just keep on keeping on.  But make sure it’s fun, too.  If it ain’t fun, there’s no point.

So… this is your job right now.  You have to go to work every day.  And I’m sure there’s nights where you don’t want to go to “work”.  Is there ever a time where you just say “fuck, I don’t want to do this”?

Oh yeah.  It’s not all fun and games.  I mean, all of us on this tour have been sick at some point, and the last thing you want to do when you have a 101 degree temperature is run around on stage in front of a couple thousand people under these hot lights.  Alex was puking his guts out last week, like 15 minutes before we went on stage.  Brandon’s throat went to shit… there’s no calling in sick unfortunately.

We have family and friends, we don’t get to see them as much as we’d like to because of being on the road. You miss birthdays, you miss holidays, anniversaries.  Doing this, you lean that you used to take things for granted.  I mean, being from Orange County, and having traveled, seen the world, and seen some amazing places… and Orange County will always feel like home.  And I only know that because I’ve done this.  I’m definitely not complaining, though. I could think of worse jobs to have.

When I was asked to do this interview, they wanted me to do it via email.  I turned it down because I wasn’t interested in having that kind of generic conversation. I feel that when you aren’t having a conversation with someone, it’s very flat and someone is trying to write a story for the sake of journalism, and not for the love of music.

Yeah, the email interviews seem very disconnected. It’s just like a Q&A, you don’t get the full effect

To me, that’s one of the differences between hardcore and “rock”, because there aren’t supposed to be barriers, literally and metaphorically, and people are supposed to be jumping on each other.  And, I like that sometimes we can break down those barriers, and sorta break down the walls, so to say.

We’re all human beings. We all eat, shit, sleep, fuck… I’m not some rock god. I live in Orange County, I drive a 2003 Tacoma, and I eat at Wahoo’s every day.

Have you ever had moments where there’s a rock guy that you really wanted to meet, take a picture with, whatever?

Oh yeah, at Taste Of Chaos 2006, we played and Deftones was headlining.  Deftones has always been one of my favorite bands, and I’d see them around and the fifteen year old in me would be freaking out.  Or we’d be at Ozzfest, and Kerry King would be in catering and I’d be like “oh my god, fucking Slayer” hahaha. It’s refreshing that I still have that excitement and youth left in me.

I saw the Far reunion last April, and they asked me come up and play a song with them, and I was like “fuck, this is so cool” I didn’t even want to play my own show, I just wanted to keep playing with Far.

After I turned the tape, off, we talked about The Mistake, adoring fans, and some other stuff.  The world will never read or hear that, though.

I will admit that doing this interview made me look at Atreyu in a different light.  They are real people, just five dudes who ended up together, doing what they love to do.  I respect them for that, even if I’m not into their music. Maybe age has made me soft, or just able to see things in a different light.  Either way, Atreyu is good at what they do. I’ll give them that.

Atreyu On the Web
http://www.myspace.com/atreyurock
http://www.atreyurock.com/