Coachmen: An Interview with Jeff Travis [Side 2]

  • [Interview Transcript from the book "Psychedelic Psounds". First part of interview is available at http://av.cah.utexas.edu/index.php/Vorda:Da_00106]
  • I don't think we ever thought about going west. I think we were pretty beat between being on the road for so much. We were kind of looking to put some roots in and stick around, find some club gigs, and that's how that evolved. That was kind of the end of the road for the Coachmen. Everybody felt it was just time to do other things.
  • AV: The Coachmen evolved into Alexander's Rock Time Band in 1967 and had moderate success with a single entitled "Number One Hippie On The Village Scene. How did the group get its name and how well were you received?BW: Alexander's Rock Time Band, the idea and the name, was Scott Cameron's doing. In lieu of being able to do business on the national level, Scott believed that a name change and a new record under that name might stimulate interest in a "new band" in the Midwest."Number One Hippie" was like a complete sellout to us in the band in terms of style. And the name was a complete embarrassmemt. To me, it was like General Motors changing the name of Corvette to Edsel. I hated it. In hindsight, I can't believe that I stayed in at that point instead of starting a new band.We continued to be a rock-blues band in fact and a bubblegum band via record. The combination just didn't work, although "Number One Hippie" was not a bad effort for what it was. Again, we were hurt by less than prime quality recording/ producing and extremely limited distribution capabilities.JT: In retrospect I'm thinking when the band, the basic five of us, broke up. The Coachmen, we felt, didn't have the click, didn't have the power. So we just evolved into Alexander's Rock Time Band and did "Number One Hippie." We were originally called Alexander's Rag Time Band and it evolved into Alexander's Rock Time Band, pretty quickly. It didn't really work that well and we didn't have that much success. The song was on the J&T label and only made #32 in Lincoln.
  • AV: Alexander's Rock Time Band then evolved into Professor Morrison's Lollipop. Explain the name change and how Kasenetz and Katz came into the production picture.BW: Kasenetz and Katz were New York based promoters/producers geared to the twelve year old audience with some success. Scott hooked up with them in the spring or summer of 1968. Professor Morrison's Lollipop was one of their bubblegum names which had a relationship with White Whale Records. We were given the opportunity to become Professor Morrison's Lollipop, which we did as a statement that most everything was lost anyway, so why not. The name wouldn't have mattered. It could have been Bi1ly and the Boingers (sorry, Opus). Anything would have been better than PMS (Professor Morrison's Sucker). PMS is actually a good reflection of the whole thing, symbolically.JT: That was about the time Kasenetz and Katz got into the picture. That was Scotty's doing. We just did demo tapes and he sent it out to Kasenetz and Katz. They produced a lot of old bubblegumcraze with the Ohio Express, 1910 Fruit Gum Company, and they picked us up. Actually, for a couple of years, it worked pretty good for us.
  • AV: "You Got The Love" was a great song that hit #7 locally and received considerable airplay regionally. How did this song come about, where was it recorded, and what kind of distribution did you get?BW: The song was recorded in New York. We had no direct relations with Kasenetz and Katz. We continued to work the Midwestern states under Scott Cameron's management until I bailed out in September. We were beginning to do even wider range travel--generally for the sake of publicity-- and little money. The financial and emotional hardship of this and my growing disenchantment with everything made my leaving the band inevitable.JT: I don't know how that came about. Someone was just sitting around plinking on a guitar. I think probably at that point it was Frank and I just discussing a situation that had happened where he got it and I didn't. It was pretty strange how it happened. We got fairly good distribution on it. It worked pretty good for us, but nothing did for us what "Mr. Moon" did.
  • AV: "Angela" was your follow-up which peaked at #11 locally and lyrically may have been a better record. Explain the genesis of this song as well as the flip side "Duba Duba Do" which is "Angela" in reverse.BW: I know nothing about "Angela"/"Whatever" except that it was another Kasenetz and Katz production.JT: I can't remember the guys that wrote it or actually gave us the idea for it. It was just a ballad which sounded good on recording and we didn't really have anything to put on the back at that time. With all the reversal things Hendrix had done and all the different bands who had done overdubs and reversals, we just thought we'd do that on the back side.
  • AV: The third and final release for White Whale records was "Oo-Poo-Pah-Suzie" which didn't do much. Did the band dissolve at this point and why?BW: I never heard of "Oo-Poo-Pah-Suzie." Who kept coming up with this crap? I don't know when the rest of Professor Morrison's dissolved in relation to its release. Nice title. I was also the stage emcee. I would have gagged on this one. It's a fitting title for a band to dissolve on.JT: It was just pretty much the end since nothing was happening at that time. Kelly decided he would head out for California to do some things. Several of us got involved with the actual eight-to-five jobs and that worked out pretty well. Like I said earlier, it just kind of faded away. It was just time for other things to do.
  • AV: Has there ever been any discussion to compile a Greatest Hits LP, possibly in conjunction with the Rumbles?BW: There has never been any discussion on compiling a Greatest Hits LP with or without the Rumbles or anybody else. I, for one, would be highly interested in discussing it. Would any one want it?JT: No, there has never been any discussion to compile a greatest hits LP.
  • AV: What are you and the former members doing?BW: I can only speak for Frank Elia and myself in terms of long term members of the Coachmen--and Jim Reinmuth, an original member. I also know, by word of mouth, that Kelly Kotera has had a good deal of success musically at the Record Plant in Los Angeles. I'm glad. He is very talented and a great guy.Frank Elia lives in Omaha with his wife and three children. He is an ordained Full Gospel Minister. He is also director of the Omaha Chapter of the Lighthouse, a Christian ministry oriented to young people and contemporary Christian music-- a rock and roll format and a Jesus Christ message. Frank continues to be a talented singer, guitarist and writer. He is also a close personal friend. Frank also owns a transport service.It is our intention to do some things together musically whenever our schedules can solve the logistics problem of him being in Omaha and me being in Northern California. We are very compatible in terms of writing, performing, and everything else.Jim Reinmuth, from Lincoln, lives with his wife Beverly and two children in Palm Springs, California. Jim is an architect. Jim is my only link to high school at Lincoln Southeast and the pre-Coachmen days. The two of us started the Wanderers and the Chandels. We are good friends and I expect to see him in the future.My wife Kris and I have four children--Phil, Lance, Hol1y, and Jason. Phil is the bass guitarist with 9 Red Roses, a Christian rock band. Lance is a drummer trying to organize a band. We have lived in Walnut Creek, California since 1974. We 1ived in southern California nearly four years before that.I am President of California Banksite Company, a consulting firm I founded in l98O after spending eleven years with Wells Fargo Bank in Los Angeles and San Francisco. We do marketing and financial analysis for approximately 125 Ca1ifornia Banks and S&Ls.After spending twenty-one years out of music following my exit from the Coachmen, I am again playing the drums and working on some original music as time permits. The involvement of my two oldest sons is easing me back into music.I am also a competition body builder. I train approximately two hours daily, six days a week.I am a reborn Christian and a very fortunate man in many ways. I have realized a lot of my dreams and am on the brink of realizing some of the others, Lord willing.JT: I have a souvenier business in Estes Park, Colorado. I've been doing that over ten years. When winter comes along I go back to Lincoln and play in a group called the Travis Wagner band.I haven't seen those guys in a good ten years. I have no idea where they are or what they're doing. I know they're all doing well. They all had good heads on their shoulders and were a good bunch of guys. I know with just the talent and effort they put into their music that they are doing fine.
  • AV: Do you think you could have made it nationally if you had recorded on the coast and what are your fondest memories?BW: I am sure that we could have made it nationally had the management of the Coachmen been better experienced and better connected. We had a strong stage presentation. We also had some talent for creating original music. This would have been developed had we had time, encouragement, and some financial backing to allow it. We were just so busy trying to make a living and get to the next gap in the road that there wasn't much energy left.In response to recording on the coast, the key issues are production quality and distribution capacity. We didn't have the benefit of either one. An established coast company could have provided that. Who knows, lots of things got recorded on the coast that went nowhere.It always amazed us how good our cuts would sound as we heard the raw versions in the studio and how less energetic the actual records would come across. I'm sure many other bands have had the same experience. However, you just have to realize the severe limitations of recording in the studios we uti1ized in Omaha in those years.It would be funny to see studio musicians of today being told that they would have to record their entire percussion and bass lines through one track. This is one of the things we had to deal with. Thus, if you wanted to adjust the volume or mix of any of those components, you adjusted them all identically. We would have loved to record in a bigger studio with more tracks and professional production talent-- and time. We always had to get in and out quick--no creative studio time, playing, or producing. Management's idea of a good producing job was getting through a track without an amp falling over. The electronic and other technical capabilities of recording today astound me.I guess the bottom line is that the combination of professional quality recordings, the business connections to distribute and promote, the ability to deliver a strong live performance would have made the Coachmen a national level band. We were clearly on the brink of making it for quite a while. There is no question in my mind that this is true for several other midwestern bands of the late sixties.I suppose that my responses to some of your questions reflect the frustration that once went very deep in me. This is somewhat intentional and many of your questions--what if this, what if that--are pointed that way. However, the positive clearly outweighs the frustrations. It would be very difficult to count the pleasurable memories in so many respects relative to the Coachmen. I'm sure there are thousands of things I've forgotten that, if reminded, would have a real impact on me. For starters, there are so many people that I knew so well-- other musicians, friends, fans, promoters--that I would love to see or talk to. Most of all, I'd just like to know that they are having happy, satisfying lives or to be able to give them some encouragement if needed.My fondest memories involve the earlier years, 1964 and 1965, when everything was going up and getting better. In those days, everyone in the group really pulled together and there was a tremendous anticipation of everything good.It's hard to believe that anybody could have had a happier, more fulfilling time as an eighteen year old kid than I did as drummer and business manager of the Coachmen. It was great.Believe it or not, I am happier and more fulfilled than that now at forty-three. Praise the Lord and thank you for your thoughtful questions. It has been a long time since I've thought about some of these things and the process of doing so has done me good.JT: I don't know. In all honesty, none of us had years of music under our belts and none of us had formal training. It was OJT---on the job training---although I feel we had a good, original sound. Some of our stuff did well nationally. On the coast it was another story.Fondest memories--boy, there are so many. Just riding in the bus, playing jokes on Craig (our bass player), and just having a good time. Just being totally free and being able to relate to all of those new experiences just as they came while trying to deal with them the best we could. On looking back they were all fond memories. No bad memories at all. It was such an experience to be part of that, even a small part of it, to be involved, to survive, and to just make a living from that. Gosh, there were so many I just can't pick one in particular. Good time. Would have never changed it for the world.