PropertyOfZack is absolutely stoked to be releasing our brand new interview with Travis Clark of We The Kings. Travis and I discussed recent touring, reception to Smile Kid, many of the details on the band’s new record including a release date, number of tracks, and a possibly album title, and more. Read up and enjoy, it’s a great one!

For the record, could you state your name and role in We The Kings?
My name is Travis Clark and I sing and play guitar in We The Kings.

You guys most recently played Bamboozle. How was the show?
It was incredible. There was actually more people than I’ve really ever seen at a We The Kings show. It was truly amazing. I couldn’t see the end of the crowd, which I guess is kind of a good thing, at all times, but we got to play with some amazing bands like Bruno Mars, A Day To Remember, Lil Wayne, and Motley Crue. That was kind of like the finale. Jack’s Mannequin as well. So it was just an amazing show for us to be a part of, especially since we didn’t really have anything going on. We just kind of released like a soft single for our new record that’s coming out in the summer, but other than that we really didn’t have anything going on. It was the best time slot we’ve ever had at Bamboozle, so, it was awesome.
POZ: So, is it kind of cool to see how your fans have grown at festivals, whether it be Bamboozle on repeated years or Warped Tour?
Travis: It’s funny, because like our fans, there’s like the fans who knew about us like when we were first coming out, like the fans who had been there from the start, and then there’s the fans that are just finding out about us, and it’s so cool. Like, for once we have a solid fan base of people who aren’t worried about when people became We The King fans. Unfortunately a lot of bands have to go through that, like, all of their hardcore fans, and then something happens where they become successful off a radio thing or TV, or something, and they’re just like, “Oh, well those aren’t the true fans.” But like, our fans are so accepting of everybody loving We The Kings that it makes for like a giant family. So like, every time we play, it’s like, our fan base grows and grows and grows, and it’s just such a cool thing because it is the love of music, and they love being a part of our success. Because we couldn’t do what we do if it weren’t for them, and I’ve just got to reiterate that as much as possible.

The band recently released their new single, “Friday Is Forever,” a few weeks ago. How has the total reception to that track been?
It’s been awesome. This is the first time we actually haven’t gotten any hate from a song.  Sometimes a lot of people will be like, “Oh, this song’s really good I like it and I can’t wait for the new record”, and then there’s another group of people that’ll be like, “It doesn’t sound like We The Kings”, something like that, along those lines. There’s always people who love it at first and people who hate it at first. This is the first song that literally, I haven’t seen anybody, like the worst comment I think I saw was, “ We The Kings song is really awesome, but I bet there’s going to be better songs on the new record.” So, it’s funny that like, that wasn’t even a negative comment, but that was probably the worst one we’ve gotten. So I’m really excited. The record, it’s kind of, it’s similar to that song, so I think people are really going to dig the new CD.

Would you say most of the material off of the new album is similar sounding to that track?
It’s more on like that lyrical thing where it’s like we decided to write about different stuff. Personally, I’ve been through a lot in the past year and a half since we released Smile Kid and so it’s stuff that I’ve wanted to write about and that I haven’t been able to write about in the past. It’s kind of my chance to do something different. On top of that, this is our third record, so we have songs that, of course, sound like the first CD. We have songs that sound like the second CD. Then we have songs that sound like this totally new thing that we’re trying to do. I don’t know, it’s a very dynamic record and I think people will be able to listen to the whole thing without getting bored.
 
Can you walk us through the writing and recording process for the new record? Was most of the writing spurred on, like you spoke about, those last year and a half of personal experiences that you have gone through?
Yeah, I did a lot of writing on the road while we were on tour and doing stuff, I would write. It’s one of those things you can’t really like, say like, okay I’m going to sit down and write a song. It just happens when it happens. Luckily, I didn’t really have writers block or anything after we released Smile Kid, so I kept going and kept writing. Most of the writing went down in 2010. Then we started recording in December of 2010, and into 2011. I think we finished at the end of January right before we left for the World Tour. Then we kind of just finished things up as time went on. I would send emails back and forth on how I think the mix should go, and stuff like that. So, we finished it all pretty much within like four months of actually like recording and mixing.
POZ: Do you think that added energy to it, kind of being on the road and everything maybe being a little more chaotic?
Travis: A little bit. It definitely added a sense of urgency to the record. To me everything on this CD seems louder and faster and that’s like kind of like the music we grew up listening to. You know, like Blink 182, Jimmy Eat World, New Found Glory, and Sum 41, like all those bands you would think of them as being loud and fast music and I think that’s kind of like somewhat what we hit on this new record. So I’m really excited for people to hear it and let us know what they think.

Like you said earlier, it’s a mix of the old two records, but there’s definitely some progression musically from Smile kid?
Yeah, definitely. It’s weird, like I’ll hear a couple of songs that are on this new CD just after listening to the mixes and masters that we’ve been receiving the past couple of weeks, and I’ll say to myself, “This sounds kind of like it could be the brother or sister song of one of the songs from the first record.” There’s one that reminds me a lot of the song “All Again For You” from the first CD. And then there’s a song that reminds me a lot of “She Takes Me High” from Smile Kid. It’s really cool to have songs that connect the audience with other records and make them feel like this band is not really changing too much. We’re just, we have stuff that we’re changing in the new CD, but like everything has been pretty consistent as far as writing in a band. We’re not trying to change something or write music a certain way so that we become more famous or anything like that. We’re writing music that we love, and we’re writing music to be as consistent as possible, and I think people can tell that from the songs.

Did you guys do any co-writes for the record, or was it just you?
“Friday is Forever” was actually a co-write between me and Robert Schwartzman who is the lead singer of Rooney. He’s a real talented dude that I’ve always respected. He was actually staying in the city while we were finishing recording and writing, so we decided to go in and do a song together and it came out absolutely incredible, I’m such a fan of it, and that was “Friday is Forever”, the one co-write that we did.

Over a year later, are you happy with the reception Smile Kid got?
Yeah, absolutely. That record to me was really different from the first CD. I think it was because we waited so long to start writing for it. After I wrote the first record I was kind of like in shock of how amazing everything was, like this new life that we were living, that like, I would be too busy with playing shows, or doing interviews, or signings, or anything like that to sit down and write music, so like I waited a while before I actually started writing for Smile Kid. I think that’s the reason it sounds a little different, but I love it. I think it’s one of those records people will be able to listen to later down the road and realize how many good songs are on it. The songs and the receptions of everything we’ve ever put out has always been above and beyond what I expected. I always expect the worst and hope for the best and it’s usually just a good way to live in general

I think there might have been a little backlash from fans of the self-titled record in response to Smile Kid, did you guys see much of that?
Yeah, I think people were expecting “Check Yes Juliet 2.0”, like that type of record. It’s different. We changed with our band, we’ve changed with ourselves. My life has changed so much from 4 years ago to today. I’m still the same person that I’ve always been, and I will always be that person, but like, as far as the rollercoaster of life, everything’s sped up really fast like starting 4 years ago since we released our first CD. It’s never really been the same. I think people just weren’t ready for it, but what’s funny about Smile Kid is there are people who love that record, like even more so than the first record. Then there are people who wanted it to be a 2.0 version of our self-titled. So they might have not planned on that sounding like that, so that’s why they would have been taken back for a second. But, for the most part, everybody was like pretty excited about Smile Kid and for some people it took a couple more listens for them to really dig it.

Who was the record produced by?
We did the same producers as our first 2 CDs. We went with S*A*M and Sluggo. It’s always nice working with them because it’s really laid back and there’s no pressure ever. It’s so easy to write and be in the studio. A lot of that stuff can be super stressful when you’re in the studio with people that are just relaxed, it makes you relaxed and like it makes you feel like everything is going as planned and on time. I love being in the studio, it’s one of my favorite things to do.
POZ: And I’m sure there’s an added comfort level being with the same producers repeatedly?
Travis: Right, and the more records we do together, the more I understand how things work, the more I understand what’s involved in the process, so it just makes it easier on our end.

Are you able to reveal the album title, or at least give us a time range on when we might be seeing more details on that?
Right now, it’s funny. We always wait until the last minute to actually write the album titles out. I can give you the working title. The working title right now is Sunshine State of Mind. I don’t know, it changes day by day. Because it’s literally the last thing we do on every single record and we kind of screwed ourselves because our first record was our self-titled. That was literally a result of us forgetting that we had to name the record. And it’s not like you could do self-titled 2, or anything like that, or self titled 3, actually you could, that would be funny. But yeah, I don’t know, that’s the working title as of now.

How many tracks will be on the record?
We recorded 14 songs, so, they’ll all be out eventually, but I think we’re going to put 11 out on the normal record and the other 3 that sound a little left-of-center as bonus tracks on the deluxe CD.

Should we expect to see another song released sometime soon?
Yes, actually I think in two and a half weeks.

What about a release date?
Right now, I think the tentative date is July 5^th, but it could be, you know, records come out on Tuesdays, so Tuesday, July 5^th. If it’s not then, it could be a week after or a week before, it just kind of depends. Right now everything’s kind of out of the band’s hands. It’s all being mastered and mixed and stuff like that. The artwork is being done, we’re writing out our thank-yous, and printing out the lyrics for the lyric sheet. There’s so much stuff that actually goes into actually releasing a CD that a lot of people don’t know. So that’s what we’re into right now. The quicker we can get this stuff done, the quicker we can get the record out.

You guys will be sticking with S-Curve for this, right?
Yep, absolutely.

We The Kings recently shot a music video for “Friday Is Forever.” How was that? Can you tell us the story behind the video if there is one?
It was really fun, we got super sunburned. We actually just got the first cut of it and it’s awesome. We’re pretty much on a boat in the middle of downtown Los Angeles and we’re being pulled behind a truck. The whole video it looks like we’re going out to sea, and then you see that we’re on like a truck and we’re on like a trailer being pulled through, and we’re blasting music off of this boat and playing. We’re going down Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset and there are people that are dancing and pointing. There were fans out there that found out where we were going to be and they’re like chasing the boat. It was just like a Beatle’s moment, and there were police escorts. It was so fun. It was the first time we’ve had a video that was different from like boy meets girl, girl has conflict, girl runs away from home, meets up with boy, they run away together, like you know that type of video? So it was really fun for us, but we were out in the sun all day long and I got super sunburned.
POZ: That sounds rad. Could that be released in the next few of months as well?
Travis: I think we’re doing one more rendition of it and then we’re just going to release it. So, we’ll have that video and we’ll have the “Friday is Forever” and Rebecca Black “Friday” mash up that we did on Youtube where we put our heads on their faces.
POZ: Yeah, that’s been a pretty big hit for you guys, right?
Travis: It’s just ridiculous. It’s something funny we wanted to do, and people liked it. We never planned on it being the main video or anything like that, but people, they love it, so it’s funny.

Following this the band has a few one-off dates, but then you’ll be doing a headliner with The Summer Set, The Downtown Fiction, Hot Chelle Rae, and Acton Item this summer. How stoked are you for that tour?
I am just stoked in general to be back on a bus. Like, we haven’t been on a bus this entire year because we’ve been flying everywhere and then we were in the studio, and then we were overseas and did Europe, UK, the Philippines, and Australia. It’s just going to be so good to be back. What feels like home to us is sitting on a tour bus with our best friends and crew and driving from city to city. I’m, really excited to get back out and have a normal tour. And the bands that we are with are incredible. They are really talented and good friends of ours. It’s like a really good tour package. We just released presale for the tour and the whole presale for the tour sold out in 20 minutes. That’s something that’s never happened to us. You always hear like Kid Rock and Lady Gaga presales sold out in 13 seconds, and I’m like that’d be cool to have that happen one day, and that actually happened yesterday. So, it’s pretty amazing. The normal tickets go on sale this Saturday, so people will be able to get the regular tickets.

Will we see a lot of new songs implemented into the set?
Yeah, we’re going to try to play as much as possible. Once we release the CD, it’ll be a week or a couple days before the actual tour starts, so depending on what songs people want to hear live, we’ll play as many as we can.

Would you like to get overseas at all before the fall?
Yeah, absolutely. We’re trying to go back to Australia. “Check Yes Juliet” just went gold, and it went gold in 3 months, which is unheard of for a band of our stature. So, we really want to go back to Australia and they’re going to release the new CD as well at the same time, so we want to go back over there and support it. We’re going to do the Philippines again, the UK and Europe, and then we’re going to go down to South America, and then hopefully come back to the US for another fall tour. Either a headliner or a support tour, do something bigger. As soon as the record is released, pretty much for the next year and a half or two years, we’ll be constantly on the road.

Thanks so much for your time, is there anything else you’d like to add or that we should be on the lookout for?
Just be on the lookout for when our tour comes to your city and come hangout. I can’t wait for people to hear our new songs live, as well as the recorded versions.