We The Kings are headed back to Australia in early 2016 to celebrate their new album Strange Love. We caught up with vocalist and soon to be dad Travis Clark about the new album and tour.

First up how’s married life going and care you share any baby news?

Married life is great. My wife and I just flew from Los Angeles to Orlando Florida it’s nice to finally be back home.

The reason we flew to Orlando is we bought a house here so we can have the baby here in Florida where our families live. The baby is coming in two weeks. We are not sure if it’ll be a boy or girl it’s gunna be a surprise for us.

I guess that’s gunna be a pretty cool Christmas present?

That is the best Christmas present I could ever imagine.

We’ve been lucky enough to hear your new album Strange Love. It’s sounding great. Are you happy with how it turned out?

It’s always really nerve racking spending so much time on an album and wondering what people will think of it.

I love the way that it came out. It’s different in all the right ways that I wanted it to be. I’ve never wanted to release the same album twice. It will always be me singing and sound like We The Kings but I like the idea of changing.

Trying new things and testing the boundaries to spice up our relationship with our fans to keep them excited about what we are doing.

I get the feeling overall the album is really positive. Was that a subconscious thing coming through since you are really happy at the moment?

Yeah absolutely. I guess I right songs based on personal experience and at the moment I’m really happy and really inspired. I think it comes across when I’m writing the lyrics and the sound of the album. I wasn’t even really subconsciously I wanted it on the top of my mind. I wanted to right an album that people could listen to and it kind of just makes their day. Sometimes maybe they’ll hear a lyric that makes them go life is awesome and they have a lot to live for. Everything might not work out exactly as they had planned but there’s positives in everything. If you turn on the news and listen o the radio in the first five seconds you here so much negativity but there is a lot of positive stuff in the world. That’s really why I started playing music. I used to listen to Blink 182 & Green Day when I would get bullied in school. I would listen to their songs and I would feel like everything is going to be ok. All that mattered was that I had my music and my means of escaping. So I wanted to write music that people could feel the same way about.

It was definitely on my mind when I wrote Strange Love and I’m glad it came off that way. The album is really intimate to me it has my wedding song on it. I wrote a song for my wife called “Jenny’s Song” and at the very last minute we decided to put it on the album. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep that between just her and I. But I love the song so much and asked her about it and she said yeah it’ll make people happy so put it on the album. So the album is very sentimental to me it has the upbeat stuff we are known for but also very touching moments throughout.

Were there many tracks that didn’t make it onto the album?

To be honest with you every song that we finished ended up going on the album. The songs that didn’t end up making it were just incomplete. It’s funny because a lot of times those songs will see the light of day but just on a different album.

The song “Love Again” has a real summer jam vibe to it. Was that any easy choice to choose to open the album?

Travis Clark

Yeah that song kind of came about organically. We just wanted a song that people could dance to and feel alive.

Exactly what you said we wanted it to be a summer song. Ironically we are putting our album out in the States in the winter. Another thing about is it sounded different from every other song on the album so we wanted to make a statement with it by putting it first. The sequencing of the album is always the hardest part because we love every song that we do. Just because something is at the end of an album a lot of people think that it’s just filler. But every song on our album is very important to us. For instance the last song “Runaway” I think is one of the most beautiful on the album.

You spoke about “Jenny’s song” earlier. Are you going to be cool with other people using that as their wedding song?

I would be absolutely honoured. After going through a wedding and understanding how important it is. How everything needs to be perfect and really you just want to make your bride the happiest girl ever. If someone choose it to have at their wedding it would be the ultimate compliment for me and Jenny. We would absolutely love that.

One thing about yourself and We The Kings is lyrically and melody wise you just seem to be spot on. Who inspires you because it seems like you don’t put a note wrong?

Man I appreciate that but I do mess up a lot (laughs) but I think mistakes help make me a better song writer or at least more knowledgeable. Like I said before Blink 182 & Green Day were my favourite bands going though high school especially. I wanted to find songs that not everybody knew and went through my rebellious stage as a music lover.

It’s interesting because their lyrics a lot of the time don’t mean to much. I used to love listening to Bright Eyes because I found myself questioning what Conor meant when writing certain lyrics. I try to write things very specific but almost in a generic way. So what I’m talking about could mean something completely different to someone else. I wanted to perfect being able to write music that means something to other people. The thing that really ring true is that I write lyrics that I would listen to and tattoo on my body. I feel like artists and bands occasionally write songs that don’t mean anything to them. I continually challenge myself an try to make every song better than the last. I don’t want to write a lyric unless it’s something that means something to me. I appreciate your compliment because it doesn’t really come easily.

A lot of your Australian fans are excited about the fact you’ll be back early next year. Are you personally excited to come back down?

Australia is actually one of the very first places that we ever played a festival at. First time we came we did soundwave. Not only was it such an amazing experience to see the country we got to meet a heap of new fans. It was awesome to play with so many different bands. We can say that we toured with Iron Maiden, Slash & 30 Seconds To Mars all these huge acts. As an American band the idea of going to a place so far away literally across the world is kind of unrealistic. You want to go there but it’s expensive. When we started we never really had money to travel outside Florida let alone outside the country. So as a band becoming successful enough to be wanted in another country across the world was something that we really valued. We were so appreciative to know that we had fans in Australia so we wanted to make it special so we would get invited back. It’s crazy that we get to call this our job because it never feels like work. This is even more special because we get to play new songs people haven’t heard before. We decided to book our first tour off this album in Australia. So these songs will be played live for the first time ever in front of our Australian fans. We did that for any reason because we want this trip to be special to us and our fans.

The song “Check Yes Juliet” is one the crowds always are going to want to hear live. Going way back in time did you have a feeling it would become as massive as it did?

With “Check Yes Juliet” it was a crazy time. To give you the short story we had the album finished and I was sitting in my hotel in New York city and I wrote this idea for a song. It started out with it would be cool to talk about middle school love notes all the notes I used to write girls when I was this dorky little red haired kid. So I wrote “Check Yes Juliet” in my hotel room once the album was already done. There was something about it and our label at the time was like no we don’t have time and it’s not even done. So I was like I’ll record it tomorrow and we recorded it in one day.

I begged our label to put it on the album because I thought there was something really special about it. Eventually they agreed and I could not have been more stoked. Had I not of done that maybe it would of never seen the light of day and our label were excited that they eventually said yes because of how massive the song became. It’s always funny to tell people because people are like how could anybody of said no to that song. Now the rest is history is.

Are you still happy to play it live?

Yeah it’s always the last song that we play live. We never do the encore thing or anything like that. Fans know we aren’t going to leave the stage without playing our biggest song ever. So the reason why we play it last is because it’s what started everything. It’s dedicated to our incredible fan base that got us to this point so it’s very special. To this day I’ve been playing it thousands of times but it still blows me away to see how important it is to our career.

We really like the cover you did of “Caught Up In You” do you ever play that live?

We are southern kids and 38 Special was a band we grew up listening to. We used to go with our parents to see them live when they were in our hometown. We played a seafood festival with 38 Special in New Orleans. We literally told them we had covered their song and they wanted to hear it. So we played it live opening for them. The guys from 38 Special were side of stage watching and when we came off they were like we’ve got to admit that was really good. Then in their set when they played it they dedicated it to us. It was a really cool thing that I never thought would happen. We’ve played it a couple of times to make life interesting.

We The Kings have a lot of beautiful acoustic versions of songs. Any chance you will bring your acoustic guitar to Australia?

Yes acoustic is a big part of our set. I like the vibe of it. Occasionally after a show I’ll bring an acoustic out and play a couple of extra songs. Especially in Australia I’d like to do that because I want it to be memorable and we don’t know how long until we will be back. So yes my acoustic will definitely be there.

Recently you uploaded a acoustic video for “Heaven So Close” explaining that it was a part two for “Heaven Can Wait” was that always the plan?

With “Heaven So Close” it just started off with a lyric. I kind of wanted to portray that feeling of life’s about to change and it’s scary. A lot of people would agree there’s something very scary about death. To me that’s what part of makes it beautiful that we don’t know. It’s kind of the same way when your entering into a relationship. The mystery behind it and not knowing what’s going to happen that’s where it came from. That same mentality is what got me to write “Heaven Can Wait”. So literally I had the chorus and thought it was cool but lyrically was similar so I thought why not make it a part two and give “Heaven Can Wait” some closure. So then a lot of the song became a tip of the hat to “Heaven Can Wait” and it was a really cool thing that I had never done before with our other songs.

Can you leave us with one last message for you Australian fans who can’t wait for the tour and are excited about the album?

Firstly I would say that I’m so sorry that it took us so long to get back. Speaking for all five of us Australia is hands down our favourite place to in the world to tour. We say it in interviews all the time it’s true. It’s such a beautiful place and the people are beautiful. Our fans are so supportive and loving it’s the reason why We The Kings are more successful in Australia than anywhere else including America. I can’t wait to come back over and play the songs live form Strange Love for the very first time. I can’t wait to hear people sing the news songs and see what they think of them. It’s going to be a very special tour for us.

(Interview by Christian Ross)