We were lucky to catch up with Travis Price recently and have shared our conversation below.
Travis, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
No one could hurt my feelings more than me. It’s been this way throughout my career. I’m extremely critical regarding my production and my lyrics. It’s at the point that I’m comfortable calling it an obsession.
My confidence and self esteem come from two places. First, my progress. It’s very easy to get stuck in the same behaviors, same sounds, same source material. I have actively resisted becoming one dimensional with the intention of expanding my perspective and becoming a dynamic artist. The more I develop new skills, experiment with different genres and take risks, the easier it is to bypass those inevitable creative blocks – because there’s always another path you can take. As I look back at my older material, I realize how much that mentality has benefitted me and how much progress I’ve made. That encourages me to take this as far as I can.
Second, but most importantly, my peers. As I said before, I can be very critical towards myself. My friends and collaborators always give me honest feedback and have encouraged me to put myself out there beyond making beats. I always say, I’m a producer first. But when my friends insist that I drop more music as a vocalist, it reminds me that I have more to offer than just beat making. Sometimes I need that extra push. I wouldn’t be anywhere without my friends.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I go by the stage name Travis Price, but you can call me Trav. I am a producer, artist, engineer and rhythm coordinator. Being born and raised in rural Indiana, my access to modern music was very limited. We had no venues for hip hop in my humble hometown of Crawfordsville. So throughout my childhood, I put my desire to become a musician on hold to pursue athletics. My high school team was bad. Like really bad. That’s where I learned a million lessons on resilience and humility. However, with the help of my coaches, teammates and the 21st Century Scholar Program, I was blessed enough to have the opportunity to play football at the University of Indianapolis.
In college, athletics were a full time job and classes were another. I was putting in 60 hour weeks. I studied Entrepreneurship. The further I dove into my major, the more I realized that this does not require a degree. I learned that above all else, you need a relentless desire to create something that brings value to other people’s lives. That’s when I started shifting my focus from athletics to the sleeping giant within me, my passion for music. I quit the football team and dropped out shortly after.
Growing up in my neighborhood, I was always the youngest out of everyone. So when it came to music, I always felt a few steps ahead of my age group. My father was, and still is, a classic rock enthusiast so a lot of my early role models were ripping the guitar, traveling the world, and having an unapologetic disrespect for authority. Due to the slower pace of where I’m from, my introduction to real hip hop was a tad delayed, but when I found her I fell in love immediately. The story telling made the world feel so big, even though my home town only had 10,000 people in it. The freedom of expression, the anti-establishment sentiments, the pursuit of a dream, all comes at the tail end of a potentially catastrophic risk to become bigger than yourself. That feeling woke something up in me. I give a lot of that credit to my best friend Logan, who put me onto nearly every artist I associate my adolescence with. He laid out the Blueprint, and from that point I ran with it.
After college, I moved to LA and started taking music much more seriously. I moved out here with nothing and have established myself in just a few years. My goal is to do what it takes to extract the best out of everyone around me. I want to be the artist/producer that elevates everything and everyone I encounter. I would just focus on myself if I wanted to accomplish everything as soon as possible. On the other hand, when you chase that dream with people you care about, you have the potential to go much further because you have that foundation in place.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1. When you create music, don’t be your own worst enemy. As artists, we often face a lot of frustration because the music we make doesn’t match our taste level yet. It can be a long winding road to get to that point, but don’t make it longer by saying you can’t do this or that. When I create music, I remind myself that there should never be any walls, floors or ceilings. That comes later when you put the finishing touches on your song. For example, I never thought I would make dance music, but the few that I have are some of my favorite songs I’ve ever made. You just have to keep an open mind, that’s what all the greats do.
2. Art is made to make you feel something. When you break it down, music is just a mood in a time capsule. If you can capture a vibe, it will resonate with people before they even hear a word of what you’re saying. I used to get very ‘lyrical miracle’, trying to impress people by bar’ing them to death. But none of that will translate if you don’t have a solid groove, a melody that paints the picture, and a flow that matches that feeling. It has to be cohesive to properly translate that mood. This was one of the most important lessons I’ve learned so far.
3. My advice for new artists has two parts. First, be as self sufficient as you can as early as possible. I’ve been making beats for years now and I’ve been engineering for a short time. The process of making a song has zero overhead cost. Free 99. That’s crucial for the volume of work I intend to make. I can create a full song from scratch in as little as an hour. I don’t have to search for youtube beats all day, I don’t have to pay for studio time. It’s all right here. Second, building your brand and image is just as important as music. Learn how to create content and don’t ever be afraid to try other things to drive traffic to your music. My most viral video had nothing to do with music, but I gained a lot of fans that otherwise wouldn’t have found me if I didn’t post it. Keep that in mind.
What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
I believe you should always play to your strengths. However, I would not advise neglecting the other aspects of your artistry. It’s important to be well rounded, especially if you want to find work in a city like LA. You need to be able to wear several hats in a studio setting so don’t forget that most everyone out here is good at something, but if you’re a Swiss army knife in the studio you will stand out from the rest. This leads to your strengths being better recognized.
Contact Info:
- Other: You can find me everywhere @heyyytrav
