Recently signed with ‘Sad For Life’ Records, local surfer, song-writer and film maker Travis Shaw is making a splash with debut EP ‘Balance’, a four track tour-de-force with a narrative about the lust for life which comes after a bout of serious illness. Damian Robinson caught up with Travis to talk about his creative process and living life one moment at a time.
There’s an interesting theme running across Balance, what prompted the concept?
Three of the tracks were written around a similar time, with ‘Wild Mind’ coming a little later, but they all had a similar theme and seemed to fit together really well. The first idea I had was to create an EP where the sound gradually grew from a gentle introduction into quiet a heavy ending and it seems to follow the basic narrative which came to me when I was unwell.
Do you mind talking about that experience?
I was out in Indonesia and Australia surfing and filming and I was struck down by an intestinal parasite which meant I had to fly home and basically become house bound for some time. It was at this time that I dug out my guitar in an attempt to channel the experience into my music. Starting the EP off with ‘Wild Mind’ is the start of an EP, which , partly, tells of my gratefulness to friends and family who were there for me when I needed them most.
And that experience grew into the EP?
That’s right, I tend to always be creative, whether making films or writing poetry or writing music, but my focus was completely on my music for some time and I’m really happy that something positive came out of the experience.
And then Sad for Life picked up the EP and signed you?
That’s right yeah, Aaron and the Sad for Life team are super cool and to think that there’s some limited edition vinyl of my music is incredible.
And you created the video for ‘Moving parts’ which comes from the EP?
That’s right. There’s a video on YouTube which I put together from surf videos I shot and old family videos which is really personal to me and I think really helps identify some of the people I had in mind when writing the EP.
And finally there’s a launch party for the EP, what can we expect?
Sad for Life are putting the show on, and I’ll be bringing some great support artists as well as my band to perform the EP as well as a few other tracks of mine which the band have been working on. The band’s on amazing form and I really can’t wait to get the EP out and build on this momentum. Life’s great at the minute and there’s so much to be thankful for including some of the ideas I have to bring my videos and songs together in the future; I see them both as great ways to tell stories and to impact people in the best way possible.
‘Balance’ is released on April 19th. Travis plays Teesside’s Base Camp on May 17th.