Words with Travis Laws

 

Hi Travis, how did you end up in Whirlpool ?

This band was started from an idea discussed between vocalist/guitarist Rodney Sellars and guitarist Travis Guichard regarding maybe recording a bunch of songs Rodney wrote that his other band (Sense Field) wasn't interested in using. I was roommates with Rodney at the time and he and I played music together casually at home all the time. One day we all got together with my brother Brandon Laws on drums and Whirlpool was born. Later we added vocalist Rachel Stolte and drummer Scott McPhearson who replaced Brandon. I was playing in at least 2 other bands right before and during this era (Final Conflict and Emission).

Was it a full time band ?
 

Yes and no. We practiced and played regularly and did two albums and one US tour in the short two years or so years we were together. Rodney and Scott's other band was getting signed by a major label at the time and we had some difficulty at actually being a full time band although we took it seriously and not really as a "side project". I have always and still am involved in as many music projects that I can handle.
 

Were you involved in the composition process ?
 

Yes. Rodney came up with most of the lyrics and chords and we all contributed to the arrangement and orchestration.

What are your greatest memories ?
 

My greatest memories are the one month van tour and the writing/recording of the second album. I really thought we were an amazingly tight and creative force during this time. It was a fun little family for a while. I still miss playing in this band and am proud of the Liquid Glass album.

 Have you got some favorite songs ?

 

I like the whole Liquid Glass album. Cult of Misjudgment is a favorite song.

Do you stay in touch with the other Whirlpool guys ?

I see Rodney once in a while, we live in the same city and his current band plays around here often. Travis G. lives in Prague. I visited him a few months ago. The first drummer, Brandon, is my brother, I see him all the time. I sort of lost touch with Rachel and Scott. I hear from them through myspace every so often.

You were in Final Conflict. Can you talk a bit about this band ?

Final Conflict is a legendary Southern California political "hardcore punk" band that started around 1980 or so and is still around, in some form, to this day. I came in late and was just the "kid bass player" for a while. When I was in high school, all the "punks" and "metal heads" were into this band and I ended up with a copy of their first album. By the time I was almost out of high school, I had a terrible part time job working at a telephone answering service. The guitarist/leader of Final Conflict ended up working there along side of me. One day he said they needed a bassist so I bought a bass and started playing with them (I was playing guitar in a couple bands at the time and had never really played bass much). I ended up playing, touring, and recording with them for 5 years or so before I got too busy playing with other projects. I quit Final Conflict right around the same time we started recording the second Whirlpool record. Since then I have filled in a few times over the years when they didn't have a bass player.


Which band you played in do you consider the most important ?

I couldn't choose.

How did you end up playing music and bass in particular ?

I inherited music from my family. I have been around my dads guitars and music collection all my life. I play many different instruments. Bass guitar is a cool, relatively new instrument with many possibilities. You can secretly lead a band as a drummer or bassist even though nobody really notices. The foundation is everything.

What music represents to you ?

I'm not sure what music represents to me. For a man of few words like myself, it is a strange yet natural way of nonverbal communication and expression among humans.

Can you talk a bit about the band you play in now ?

I have been in too many band/projects to name. I have been dividing my time practicing my various stringed instruments, collaborating on other peoples projects, and getting more and more into music recording and production and creating my own songs. My current project is just now officially forming featuring all of two musicians and a huge pile of drums and electronic gear. No name yet. I hate trying to describe music because anything good usually will not fall into a certain category. If I had to describe what we are doing now in my current main project I would say heavy/dub/tribal/drone/experimental art rock kind of thing. Like scary film soundtrack music with gigantic weird beats and bass lines over it.

Do you still listen to hc/punk ?

I listen to anything good. It is impossible for me to describe sounds and music styles anymore.

What was the meaning of hardcore for you ?

I don't think that I ever identified with the "hardcore scene" you are talking about. I'm 36 years old. Back in my day "hardcore" was just a music style description that came after "speed metal" and "punk" in the 1980"s. Bands like D.R.I., S.O.D. and even Final Conflict were called "hardcore" or "hardcore punk", meaning heavier, scarier and faster than before.

Were you straight-edge ? What is your point of view about it ?

I certainly was not. Nobody I ever hung out with or played music with ever called themselves "straightedge". I casually knew people who listened to or were formerly a part of some of the "straightedge" bands but they and all of their acquaintances eventually turned 18 or 21 and either drank, smoked, or fucked and were then officially out of the club. I can't imagine anyone thinking that Whirlpool were a straightedge band. I guess Revelation Records had some of those bands on their label. Rodney and Scotts's other band at the time, Sense Field, were not straightedge. Travis Guichard's previous band, Outspoken, may have been involved in that scene when they were young but he was not straightedge.

Have you ever been to France ? Europe ?

I just backpacked through Europe with my girlfriend a few months ago. We went to Prague, Italy, and Ireland over the course of a month. I have not been to France yet but may be passing through when we travel to Europe again later this year.

 

Words with Travis Guichard

Hi Travis, how did you end up in Whirlpool ?

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I was working with Rodney Sellars at Revelation Records in 1994 and we were putting cd’s together or something and came up with an idea for a band to work out some of the stuff he had been writing that wasn’t going to be used for Sense Field. It basically developped from that idea. Rodney and I started getting together and rehearsing a lot, soon, Rodney’s roommate Travis Laws (Final Conflict) was playing bass with us and Trav’s brother Brandon was playing drums. After playing some shows, we decided to jump right into recording an album. While recording the first album, we realized that we wanted to add another element to the music… I knew Rachel Stolte from the Orange County music scene and at the time she had just stopped singing for local band Cold Water Crane. She liked the idea of trying something new, so she and Rodney started writing vocal harmonies that would work with the existing ones on the recording. We recorded the tracks and that was that.

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First album, 1995

Was it a full time band for you ?

It wasn’t quite what you would call a “full time band” for any of us. We all had other things going on at the time. Rachel had acting, Travis had Final Conflict and some other projects, Brandon was in Emission, Rodney had Sense Field, and I had Mean Season and Outspoken.

How do you feel about it more than 10 years after ?

I guess I feel the same about it now as I always did. I'm glad we recorded the 2 records and got to spend so many good times together. Meeting other bands like Shades Apart, Engine Kid, Iceburn, etc. I always wished that we had done a little more with it, pushed it a little further, but we were all just too busy with other things at the time. Not to mention, Sense Field was in the middle of signing with Warner Bros Records. Sense Field's new touring schedule made it hard to play as much as we would have liked, and it wasn’t just Rodney … by this time Scott Mcpherson from Sense Field was playing drums for us as well. This is when it REALLY became a side project! Haha! Anyway, I still feel great about it more than ten years later.

Did Rodney write all the songs ? How were you involved in the composition process ? Is that you singing on "Suppositions" ?

Yeah, Rod wrote almost all of the lyrics and music. On the first record he wrote everything and Travis, Brandon and I just added our own personal parts. I think that all of the lyrics that Rachel sung on that were written by Rod. On the second record, Rodney came up with most of the music ideas, but the rest of the band had a lot more to do with the writing process. It was more like…we all created them together, and I definitely think it shows. Travis Laws wrote the lyrics to “Suppositions”. If I remember correctly, Rod and Trav Laws came up with the weird timing and chords, then Scott added his part, then me. Travis Laws sung on that one (you can hear my faint backup vocal on the chorus). Rachel and Bob Stolte (her Dad) wrote the lyrics to "Insecurity" (Rod, Trav, Scott, and I did the shouting backup vocals), that’s a good one! I will add a story… "Cindy Crawford Pumpkin". Rachel was going to UCLA and had these 2 Hawaiian Tropic model roommates (I’m not kidding) and on Halloween they actually carved a Cindy Crawford pumpkin. Ridiculous. So that is where that song idea came from. Haha.

What were the bands you tour with ? Did you play outside the US ?

Well, we didn’t really officially tour “with” anyone per say, but we played a lot of shows on that tour with Shades Apart, Engine Kid, Deadguy, Iceburn, Texas Is The Reason, Braid, and one in Florida with 108.

How was it to be on Rev ? Did you feel like a family with the other label's bands ?

It was great to be on Revelation ! Jordan was (and continues to be) a great help. I guess it did have a kind of family atmosphere, we all hung out a lot at that time, went to shows, parties, etc...

How was your public ? Hardcore people, punk people, whatever people...

Our fan base (or lack thereof haha) really seemed to vary, all of the above ! We were on the soundtrack to a surf film, so we reached that community (I actually talked with a lot of surfers who knew us from that). But yeah, all kinds of people seemed to be into it.

Do you feel you were part of the emo scene ?

Ummm. I guess so. I suppose that our music could be classified as “emo”, but then again…I have a hard time with the term “emo” ha. We played with all kinds of bands, from Smile to Deadguy to Braid to Texas Is The Reason and on and on, so I don’t really think that we were really that much a part of just the emo scene.

Greatest memories ?

Ha ha, there are a lot of those ! The first would be the tour we did in summer 95. Innertubing in Connecticut, playing in NYC at CBGB’s at the 95 CMJ festival , shooting the video out in Palm Springs with Jim Brown, recording with Jim Monroe. The list goes on and on.

What is this video you're talking about ?

We did a video in 95 for the song “Blinding light” out in the desert in Palm Springs. Jim Brown shot it. It was a lot of fun to do and the video is pretty funny. I remember we stayed at Jim’s parents house on the golf course out there, pretty cool.

What is your favorite Whirlpool record ?

I would have to say Liquid Glass. We had been together for almost a year by the time we recorded that so we were tighter, and I don’t know of many drummers who are tighter than Scott. Also, as I said before, we were all more involved in writing that one.

Liquid Glass, 1996

Do you stay in touch with all the other Whirlpool guys ?

Yeah, I am in touch with all of them, myspace, emails... Travis Laws came for a visit earlier this year and a while ago Rachel told me that Great Northern might be doing a European tour.

Any chance for a reunion ?

I wouldn’t really count on a reunion, but you never know, it’s not out of the question. I’ll talk to them about it, ha ha. Of course everyone still has something going on. Rodney is doing The Year Zero, Scott plays with so many people I can’t keep up. He played with Elliott Smith, I think he plays with Bright Eyes now, Rachel plays in Great Northern, Brandon plays in Slippers, Travis L. plays in Knives of the Official Disappointment and I am doing photography full time in Prague, Czech Republic (I do as much home recording as possible). A reunion would be fun.

Which band you played in do you consider the most important ?

I think that Mean Season would be the one. I did more with that than with anything else, wrote more of it, toured the States and Europe twice, actual fan base, haha! Can’t forget Outspoken though, that one was pretty popular in the hardcore scene too. Outspoken could never do enough. We could never really do a full length tour, never went to Europe…could have done a lot more with it, but John Coyle (our singer) lived up in San Francisco with his wife Tina and their daughter…so he was pretty busy with his family life.

Travis with Outspoken

What inspired you to play music ?

My mother was a singer and my father sings and plays guitar as well…they also played a lot of rock records while I was growing up. Beatles, Stones, Beach Boys, Doors, etc... so that had a huge influence as well. My younger brother Ben started playing drums in 6th grade, so I ALWAYS had him to practice with.

What did hardcore mean for you ? How about straight-edge ?

To me it meant hanging out with my friends and having a good time. Listening to and playing music…just good times! I think that straight edge is a positive thing if it is kept in perspective, but extremism can be dangerous. Some of my friends (from the old days) are still Edge. Many (like myself) aren’t anymore. It was good for me at the time and I’m glad to have been involved.

Do you feel "out of step with the world" ?

I suppose I was always kind of a black sheep haha! But I still fit in pretty well.

How did you end up being a photographer in Prague ?

My Dad is a professional photographer, so I grew up around it, hung out at his studio as a kid (when I wasn’t BMX-ing!) and learned from him. I never took it that seriously until I moved to Prague as an English teacher and realized that I hated teaching English. I had some connections here, so I started assisting a guy and shooting as well. There are quite a few models to shoot in central-eastern Europe, so I stay busy enough.

"Guichard", isn't that a french name ? What do you feel about France in general ? Have you ever been there ?

Yes, it’s a french name. My ancestors came over from Holland though. I’ve actually never been to France, so I don’t’ really have any experience with the place. It’s one of the few countries in Europe I haven’t been to and I want to see it. I’m not really that far away… maybe I will make a road trip soon.