Travis Bigwood and the Lonesome Doves is (l to r): Aubrey Mullins, Travis Bigwood and Cord Johnson, and they release “Bad Conditions” on June 28. Photo Courtesy Joel Richard.
“Ok, one more story, man. You get one more!”
Travis Bigwood is charmingly patient, grinning in a humorous back-and-forth with an eccentric older gentleman who just ambled over to our table in the breezy outdoor beer garden at Hops and Hollers shortly after we started the interview, immediately commencing to weighing in with his own aphorisms, heckles, and rambling anecdotes after almost every question.
If the encounter is getting under Bigwood’s skin, he isn’t showing it.
“I have been exposed to that type of mentality my whole life!” the 26-year-old bass player-turned band-leader laughs later when recounting the event.
“Paw’s Place,” the sparse, elegant harmony-driven first single of the Travis Bigwood and the Lonesome Doves’ debut EP “Bad Conditions” poignantly documents Bigwood’s time growing up in a trailer park off Rifle Range Road in the Halls Crossroads area of Knox County (Bigwood went to Halls High School and cut his musical teeth playing in garage bands). His dad worked for Sea Ray and his mom for the Knox County Sheriff’s Office.
“I really believe you’ve got to start with the roughest sandpaper before you get to the finest,” Bigwood says. “I felt the world was encapsulated right there,” Bigwood says, reminiscing about playing with his brother in the charred remnants of a burned-down house nearby and learning various life lessons from the diverse tenants of the park. “There was a community to it,” he says. “Of course, there were some bad times too…” Bigwood goes on to describe a time they ran in to tell his mom “‘they’re playing with real guns out there!’”
“How can people live this way?” He says he sometimes thought. “I don’t think my father ever wanted us to.” Bigwood describes learning lessons from this father, like when he was laid off from Sea Ray (“do it, get through it”) and watching him help the older resident out of the aforementioned burning house. Also, Bigwood says his father instilled the love of American country and rock at an early age: he was an Elvis impersonator and some of Travis’ earliest memories are riding around the car with his father in costume, playing Elvis and other early classic rock like Buddy Holly in the family car.
“I really didn’t know any modern bands until my junior, senior year in high school,” he says.
The music in “Bad Conditions” definitely reveals these influences, with doo-wop sections, crooning, country swing sections, shuffle drums, twangy reverb guitars and plenty of other vintage country and retro rock touches. But songs like “Put Me in Tonight” also remind the listener that the songwriter and music is youthful and vital, the soundtrack for living bold and free while there’s opportunities to be taken (“put me in tonight/while I’m feeling young and wild”).
On the “Marry Sue” and “Paw’s Place” music videos, Neil Ervin’s gorgeous live takes on the EP songs, Bigwood first showcased harmonies from Aubrey Mullins and Skylan Bracey and steel licks from frequent Guy Marshall collaborator Jonathan Keeney, presenting the songs in simple, quiet, shadowy rooms in an historic home he was renting in Parkridge at the time, adorned with vintage furniture and linens. The striking visual and audio made and impression. The videos’ hit numbers climbed to the thousands quickly and became favorites of the Knoxville Music Warehouse blog and other local critics.
Bigwood replicated the video experience on several more songs, taking the setup to places like Maple Hall and St. James Cathedral for the striking cover of Bob Dylan’s “Oh, Sister.” They’ve continued to be a big hit and helped expand his fan-base around town.
“I really love the videos,” Mullins says. She met Bigwood at a party and started to harmonize with a song he was playing and the musical chemistry, she says, was instant. “Travis told me from the beginning that he felt videos would be the most effective way to get the music out to people. Having those videos to send out has been so crucial for us in not only booking shows, but also establishing a connection with folks through social media. I think anyone would agree that having to play the social media game is frustrating and sometimes exhausting, but I wouldn’t hesitate in saying that at the end of the day doing these videos has been one of the most rewarding things for us.”
Along the way, Skylan Bracey moved on to focus on other things and Bigwood and Mullins picked up local musicians Cord Johnson (Valley Opera, Brit Lit), who’s been playing upright bass, sometimes a secondary guitar, and offering a third vocal part to the harmony.
“Where has Cord been this entire time?” Bigwood says. “He just understands the music. “I got lucky with Cord. He met him when he saw his group with local songwriter/producer Tanner Rutherford, Brit Lit, performer at a Sofar Sounds show at Geo Hair Labs just outside of downtown one evening a few months ago, and told him jokingly, “I’m going to steal your bass player.”
Sofar shows have become an important part of the game for emerging indie acts like Bigwood’s in that it offers a chance to play to their ideal target market–with full attention, in multiple markets. The way it works (for those uninitiated), is that Sofar is an international community of secret show organizers that book shows small business or other unique spaces and people sign up for the shows trusting the series as a tastemaker (not knowing who is playing that particular night). That alone is a huge benefit because it is a whole new room ripe for the picking-potential new fans. Away from the crowded bar atmosphere, the fans are seated facing the performers and encouraged to give their full attention to the performances, much like at a house show. May artists have begun to book their tours almost exclusively through Sofar to replicate that warm, intimate show experience from city to city. Bigwood has taken advantage of the Sofar network locally and as far away as New York City. He helped Knoxville Sofar coordinator Kayln Denniston with some of the logistics of sound setup and other aspects at the Knoxville shows.
“I love the Sofar shows because they’re almost perfectly catered to the acoustic thing,” he says.
“We are huge Sofar sounds fans!” Mullins adds “One of the biggest struggles for bands booking themselves is knowing the good venues out of town. Sofars have given us the opportunity to play in places like DC, New York, and Atlanta to a totally full and engaged room- and that is something really special.”
Another thing Bigwood seems to have done extremely well at this young age is find great mentors, take notes and apply those things quickly to his own career–with a discerning knack for which strategies others use might fit his style and which might not.
“Being exposed to the way other people handle their [thing]…seeing the way they carry themselves,” Bigwood says, “Getting a little into the layers of what they’re doing has been crazy eye-opening for me.”
In the few short years he’s been a young active adult on the scene, for example, he’s played hundreds of gigs on bass around town, backing the McNultys in Guy Marshall, Dakota Smith in Sweet Years, some one-offs for Erick Baker at the Bijou, Roger Alan Wade at the Lawn Chair Concert Series and many times with Will Carter at various events, like the Eleanor Studios Country-Rock-Revue themed Midnight Merry-Go-Round at Rhyhtmn ‘N’ Blooms this year– more and more opportunities seem to present themselves as his feet as people see what he is capable of.
“Will’s brought a lot of goodness into my life,” Bigwood admits, citing his chance to play with Glen Campbell’s daughter Ashley, meet Jackson Browne in NYC when Carter played with him, and just the quality Carter has added to the sound of the record.
While Bigwood talks often about his songs as his babies and being a perfectionist, he also seems very willing to be a player-coach, lead by consensus and get everyone involved in the creative process.
“I believe in letting [the songs] breathe a little,” he says. His band is great with creative edits, he says. “She’ll say ‘you’re being too wordy,’” Bigwood says of Mullins. “She’s got a great Southern voice and she’s been exposed to music for a long time.” He trusts her instincts, citing her childhood growing up with professional Nashville songwriter dad Sam Mullins. “Cord’s been a huge help, immediately brought more life to it…fine tuning, that’s what a team is for.”
As the Lonesome Doves continue to progress, so have the opportunities–they recently won a local part of a statewide songwriting competition and had the opportunity to play at the legendary Bluebird Cafe.
“It’s cool to say that we played somewhere historic like this. In my eyes, with the EP, it’s trying to get the most out of it that we can.”
Bigwood has a steady career in financial planning with a local firm, something he weighs against his burgeoning success in music all the time. What would it take for him to go completely full time with music?
“We’re trying to play as much as we can,” he says. “It would take a lot for me to walk away, because I want things we’re doing three years from now for us to be proud of them. There’s a lot of things in music that can help you but at the end of the take care of yourself.” But you never know, he seems to say, cryptically, maybe talking about himself: “Tomorrow, some band could come up out of nowhere and be popular.”
