Austen Travis

I began playing drums when I was 12 years old. I wrote a song the first day I set up my kit. I think I started playing in New Orleans and around Louisiana when I was a freshman in High School. I have been playing and studying music in various genres voraciously since then. I have studied drums with Mark DiFlorio, Charles Brewer, and I had one lesson with Johnny Vidacovich, during which he asked me: "Why are you here?, What do want me to teach you?", and ultimately he told me that I "didn't need a teacher." In January of 2007 I attended a week-long winter intensive session at the School of Improvised Music in Brooklyn, during which I had to confront, and still confront daily the reality of being a violently passionate and expressive musician without any formal training. At the moment I play regularly with Fernando Braxton and the Eathrmovers, Bryan Killingsworth and Charlie Engstrom, pick up jazz gigs whenever I can. On occassion I perform solo drum compostions.After many years of improvisation, composition, rehearsal, recording, performance, and theorizing I have come to realize that music is expression. And for those special minds who see it as such, all sound can be expression. The coherency and success of your expression depends upon the depth of your sensitivity and the amount of time you devote to the cultivation of a unique voice. Though I hate the way the drums sound, I try my best to make them beautiful--to make them sing. I've also come to realize that technology will change our conception of music in ways that we don't yet understand. I believe I will make music for the rest of my life.