With the release of his quintessential 1979 live album, “Live! Go For What You Know,” Canadian rock guitarist Pat Travers achieved guitar hero status. His career has spanned the decades and taken him on a journey through classic rock, melodic rock, and the blues. Travers is back and better than ever with a brand new record in his classic style, “Can Do.” I had the opportunity to talk with Pat and find out about the album as well as his touring plans. Join us and find out what he had to say.
KE: Hello Pat and welcome! How are you?
PT: I’m pretty good, thank you. I’m at home in central Florida just outside of Orlando. It’s a typical summer day here. It’s hot and humid and just about to rain.
KE: Same here too. You have a brand new record out on Frontiers, “Can Do.” Can you tell us a little bit about this project and how it all came about?
PT: Well sure. The album is called “Can Do” and it was the beginning of last year, 2012, when I was put in touch with the people at Frontiers through a friend of mine. I needed a record company that was going to do some promotion and handle distribution. I’ve gotten burned a couple of times in the last few years so that was very important to me. They requested me to do an album that sounded similar in style, or whatever, as the first four or five albums that I did in England and I said I could do that but I really had no idea if I could. However, I wrote some good songs. I had a really good period there where I was creative and went into the studio, my buddy Sean Shannon’s studio here where I live in Florida, and got some great performances and the production is great and so I think that’s all you really need.
KE: Who is in the current lineup of the band now?
PT: I’ve got my co-guitar player Kirk McKim that has been playing with me for about nine years now and Rodney O’Quinn who plays bass and he’s been with me five years. And Sandy Gennaro the master on drums. He actually played with me back in the early eighties. We did a couple albums and some major tours together and then he went on to play with Cyndi Lauper and Joan Jett and even Bo Diddley. But I called him back a couple years ago and he’s been playing with us now for about three years.
KE: You mentioned that the record company wanted a classic feel for this record but it also has some melodic rock and some blues oriented tracks. What was the writing process like?
PT: You know, I think it really was just a culmination of everything I’ve been through. Prior to really getting to work on the “Can Do” album, I’d done an album of songs that were from the 1920’s. Just doing the research on that and listening to the way people wrote songs, I think that had a big influence on me. It was a totally different approach in a lot of respects so and you know I also felt like I have this record company that’s gonna do a great job so I really want to just give them the best album that I can. So I put a lot of pressure on myself.
KE: There’s an interesting cover on the new album. What made you choose the Eurythmics “Here Comes the Rain?”
PT: Yeah, the song that shouldn’t work, but does. Right?
KE: Exactly!
PT: You know it’s simple. I was driving in the car one day and it was on the radio and I was singing along and I realized that it was the same register. She sings pretty much in the same key as I do. So a friend of mine had loaned me this really beautiful Taylor classical acoustic guitar and it had this wonderful sound. So I went in and just recorded a quick track with the guitar and a drum machine and put a vocal on it and sort of forgot about it for a few weeks. And then I discovered it again by accident when I was looking for something else for the CD and I went wow, this has got something to it. So I needed a female voice on it. I’m very lucky that my wife Monica is an amazing vocalist. So I had her come into the studio and we just stood eyeball to eyeball and sang that song and it just came out great.
KE: When I saw the track listing, I wondered about it and wasn’t sure until a little bit into it.
PT: Yeah, you know, I thought it was a little bit closer to the original version than it really is. I heard it again on the radio recently and I realized wow, it’s completely different almost.
KE: Another great song from the album is “Keep Calm and Carry On.” It seems like a great showpiece for kind of everything that you do. Was it in the plan to do an instrumental like that?
PT: You know, I believe it was the last piece of music that I came up with for the album. And I did want to put an instrumental on. I had another piece of music that I was gonna use and it got near the end and it was kind of time for me to go yay or nay on this piece of music and then one morning I just came up with this other thing. This sounded much more in line with everything else that I’ve been doing and so yeah, that was pretty much the last thing that I came up with and recorded.
KE: Are you going to get a chance to tour to promote this album?
PT: Oh yeah, I’ve got a real busy schedule. As a matter of fact, this week I’m starting in Las Vegas with this tour that’s called the Rock and Blues Tour wiith Edgar Winter, Rick Derringer, Ten Years After, Canned Heat and myself. So that’s like 22 shows in a row and then after that it will be just with my band. First of all, we have to go to Europe, go to the UK, but I’m hoping in December and very soon to announce some shows in December because we want to get back and play in the U.S. and promote this music.
KE: What can we expect from the live shows when you do make it back here? Will it be a mixed bag, covering your whole career?
PT: Right! I mean we have been playing a couple of new songs and they go down great and I’m sure as we move along here we’ll add a couple more. The cool thing about the social media is people will let me know which songs that they like the best. Although at this point, it seems like everybody likes every song so far. We’ll be doing stuff from my early career and some blues stuff too because people like that as well and it’s fun. We do two or three of those songs and it just seems to really work. So it’s a good show.
KE: You’ve always been known for your live performances. What do you enjoy the most about playing live?
PT: Well, you know once you’ve done something it’s over and you can’t go back. Where in the studio, you can agonize over things forever you know. When you’re playing live, you know it’s done and you can’t go back. But when everything is working right, it’s a lot of fun and I love seeing people enjoying themselves. And I’ll admit it, I like to show off. I mean it’s fun. I’m good at what I do and I like to show off.
KE: You’ve become such an influence on other musicians over the years but tell us who were some of your musical influences?
PT: I was really lucky because I started when I was really young and saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show and that was a lifechanger, not just for me but for a lot of people. And I kind of got the bug right then when I was nine years old and then all through the sort of sixties there was such an explosion of music. There were so many different kinds of music and people really were trying to develop their own style. And then when I started to play by the time I was 12 or 13, it was the explosion of all the guitar heroes, Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Johnny Winter, Carlos Santana. I mean there were so many of them and they were all unique in the way they sounded and the guitars they played. So I was listening to all those people for the first time when they were leaping out so it was very exciting.
KE: What was the first live concert you ever saw?
PT: Yeah, I remember seeing, it’s funny because I ended up knowing the guys. But I was only about 12 or 13 maybe and I went to this like a church hall kind of dance thing and there was a band playing there. And they just played the songs on the radio you know. But they had these little Fender amps and I remember it being so loud. It was so weird because four years later I ended up knowing three of the guys that were in that band but at the time I was only like 12 or 13. But the first big concert I saw was Jimi Hendrix when I was 13 years old in Ottawa, Canada, and that was a very powerful moment.
KE: You must have an extensive collection of all types of music. What are some of your favorite or most influential albums?
PT: Wow, that’s a very hard question because I love so many types of music and so many types of artists. I really love the Beatles and I really love Howlin’ Wolf. Gosh! I love Beethoven and Stevie Wonder. It’s hard. There are so many geniuses that we’ve been lucky to hear and see in our lifetime except for Beethoven of course (laughter).
KE: Well, you’ve also had the chance to play with a lot of these legends and heroes.
PT: I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve gotten to meet and know and play with on a lot of occasions. I listened to their albums, like Jack Bruce, getting to meet and jam with Jack Bruce was just astounding you know. It was so mindboggling or Todd Rundgren who was a huge influence on me when I was about 17, 18, and getting to know him and play with him was amazing.
KE: I know you’ll be busy with the new album and the tour but what’s next?
PT: My main focus is just gonna be promoting “Can Do,” this album, and I think I really, really have a great album here and I want as many people as possible to be able to hear it and agree with me.
KE: Absolutely, best of luck with everything Pat and thank you again for taking the time to talk with us today.
PT: Thanks for taking the time today. I sure do appreciate it.
We would like to thank Dustin Hardman from Frontiers Records US for setting up the interview with Pat. For more information on Pat including his new CD “Can Do,” please go to: Pat Travers.
