Travis Collins Breaks Down Every Track On New Album ‘Any Less Anymore’

#1 ARIA Country charting and multi award winning artist, Travis Collins has released his highly anticipated ninth studio album, Any Less Anymore. Produced by Stuart Stuart, the album came together over a twelve-month period throughout 2021-22 and features songs co-written with writers from around the globe including Brett Eldredge, Lindsay Ell and The Wolfe Brothers.

On the album, Travis explains, “Over the past couple of years, we’ve all had life changed or disrupted in some way, professionally or personally. It was both for me. Like most in the music business, it was a major sidelining and ‘time out’ for who I was, and what I do. Initially, that was terrifying. However, as we went further forward, I tried to embrace change, and I learned it wasn’t all bad.

For the first time in my adult life, I had to learn be still. Calm. In one place. Which was tough for a guy whose wife calls him ‘Jet Stream’. Turns out it was the reset and break I didn’t even know I needed. Physically, mentally, emotionally.

Until 2020, my life was dedicated to one thing only, so when I couldn’t do or ‘be’ that, I began looking within and asking myself “who am I, now?” This album is kind of my journal of that period, the thoughts I had, feelings I felt, and lessons I learned.

The following year and a half became some of the best times of my life so far. Despite losing what I’d always thought was the cornerstone of my identity, I felt like I got to see the first real glimpses of my true self. Husband, Father, Neighbour, Brother, Friend, Son. The real stuff.

There’s a lot on this record about ‘perspective’. That’s what the past two years have been about, and what my path forward is about. It’s surreal to say, but I’m grateful for the past two years, and I’m proud of these songs about that time in my life.”

We’re so delighted to bring you this exclusive track by track, as Travis Collins talks us through each individual track: the creation, sentiment, and everything in between.

------------------

1. One Of Them Nights

One of Them Nights is one of my favourite songs that I've ever recorded. It’s got an energy about it and it’s as much about the big rock and roll guitars as it is about the what the song is saying. It’s really about saying, “hey, you're here, I'm here, the night is young, what are we doing?”

Some of my favourite memories are from nights that I stayed out way later than I should have or gone somewhere that I shouldn't have. It's all about putting your foot to the floor and hitting the throttle on a good time.

2. Gettin’ Old

Gettin’ Old is a song about looking forward to the sunset years of your life. I’m really looking forward to sitting on our verandah with [my wife] Bec in a couple of rocking chairs someday, just watching the sunset and looking back on the life that we've built. I know it sounds corny but there's a beauty to it to me these days particularly and you know, I wouldn't trade her for anything.

She’s the cornerstone of all the greatest thing that have come my way in this life. We joke that one day we'll trade each other in for a younger model but the truth of the matter is in the title of the song, we’re looking forward to getting old together.

3. Good Time Found Me

Good Time Found Me is a lot of fun! This was one of the first songs on the record that we started to play on the road. I'm trying to be more mature, trying to make better decisions and be a little more sensible but I've still just got a few parts of me that are irresponsible, and it doesn't take much to twist my arm and I turn into Trappa from 10 years ago! It's about that irresponsible bone that we all have.

4. Hard On This Heartbreak

Hard on this Heartbreak is one of my favourite songs off the album. It talks about something that I think most people have experienced and that's when you break up with somebody and you have every intention of meaning to stay broken up, to split up and move on, and you know you both should move on…

But, at the same time, you live in a small town, and you’ve got the same mutual friends and you know that on Friday night you're gonna bump into each other each other at the same places that you both go. Before too long you can end up sitting in that same corner booth where you spent so many nights as a couple and you keep falling back into that on-again, off-again trap, something that’s happened to most of us.

5. Any Less Anymore

Any Less Anymore is the title track of the album because it encapsulates best what this whole album is about. It’s about self-growth, it's about looking inwards and holding yourself to a higher standard in a lot of aspects of your life. Not just your career and your goals but also in your responsibilities within your family, within your relationship and in your community.

The last couple of years has taught me to look for growth in lots of different areas of my life and I'm really proud that I feel like I've got a really good balance now. I've been paying attention and finding some of the greatest things in my life have been right in front of me the whole time, I was just too busy to see them. It’s about waking up each day and appreciating where you’re at and making the most of it.

6. Raise Me

Raise Me is maybe the most vulnerable thing that I've ever written in my life. It came from a place of absolute desperate insecurity. About a month before my daughter was born, I was so worried that I didn't feel any connection yet and I stupidly thought that might have been some kind of sign of what kind of parent I was going to be.

I started writing this letter, kind of explaining to her, to my unborn child just to say, “hey, I know you're coming soon and I'm not ready but when you get here, I'm certainly going to try my best. I know that I'm going to have some bumps and bruises and I'm going to figure this out the same way you're going to figure it out.”

Then I realised as I was writing those things down that I was going to be doing a lot of growing up myself and she wasn't the only one that was going to come and learn to do new things. I was certainly going to have to grow up a lot as well and that’s where the idea for Raise Me came from.

7. Runnin’ The Country (with The Wolfe Brothers)

Runnin’ the Country is a real highlight for me getting to share the song with The Wolfe Brothers. We wrote the song together as a bit of a tongue-in-cheek look at what it would be like if people that live in our towns, the people that we're surrounded by at home in the country, what if those people were in charge of the entire country.

It’s kind of funny when you think about growing up in the bush or regional Australia and country people just have a real no BS way of doing things and what if Parliament House was run the same way. The answers clear, we need a bunch of Farmers running the country.

8. Chill

Chill has definitely grown on me over the last couple months. When we first recorded this, I thought it was just a filler song that no one would pay too much attention to, but the more I played it it’s become one of my absolute favourites on the record. It's all about wanting to get back out in the world. I wrote this song towards the end of the pandemic, and I remember talking with my wife and saying, “hey, let's just get on the road, let's just get on a plane, let's go somewhere and just sit on a beach chair under an umbrella and drink beer or margaritas, just have a damn good time and chill.”

9. Bottle Up

Bottle Up is an interesting song for me, I wrote this one with my mates Nick and Tom Wolfe (The Wolfe Brothers) and we were talking about how sometimes we bottle up things that we may not want to talk about or don’t know how to articulate, but then when you pour a couple of beers with friends and suddenly, we can talk about everything that's going on.

It’s not about advocating drinking to access your feelings but if having a couple of beers with friends is what helps people open up and talk about what's going on in their life, then then I'm all for that.

10. Just The Way

Just the Way is kind of a funny song about nothing really. In married life, I know for sure one of the great frustrations is when we get a night off, we can tend to waste a whole night just deciding what we want to do and then, by the time we do decide, it's too late to do anything.

So, this song is really about the things most couples do every time they get a spare night off and that's just you spend all your time scrolling through Netflix or running through the list of things that you could do until you run out of time to do anything at all.

11. You Think It Will

You Think It Will is a song that came from a really confusing part of my life where I had an opportunity to move to America and sign a record deal and I decided to decline on that opportunity. The choice was there to uproot my life here and my family and pack everything we had and move overseas. Whilst the career prospects really excited me, I know I just love living near my family. I love living in the town that I live in, and I love raising a family here in regional Australia.

It became one of the toughest decisions of my life and this song is all about a conversation that I had with a friend of mine that I often go to for advice, and he was basically saying that at some point you’ve got to look around and think about what you’ve got and if you're happy, then why do you want to rock the boat. If you're happy now, then just be happy and appreciate what you’ve got.

----------------------

Keep up to date with Travis Collins, follow him on Facebook here.
Travis continues his Any Less Anymore tour – see dates here.