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It's a 'Great Day' for Travis Tritt
The country singer was away from the music business for several years but made a comeback with Down the Road I Go, released a year ago.
By PAMELA DAVIS
© St. Petersburg Times,
published November 1, 2001
[Photo: Columbia]
“I can say, in all honesty, I’m having more fun now because I’ve seen both ends of the spectrum,’’ says Travis Tritt. “I know what it’s like to be on top. I know what it’s like to be out of it for a few years, and I have to say I’m having more fun now than I’ve ever had.”
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After a two-year, self-imposed break, country singer Travis Tritt was apprehensive about returning to the stage.
"I seriously had concerns about being able to go out and put rear ends in seats again," he says.
Turns out he has had no trouble selling tickets for his current tour promoting Down the Road I Go, released in October 2000. The album has spawned three hit singles, giving Tritt the kind of success he hasn't seen since 1990 when he first appeared on the music scene with Country Club.
"It's especially gratifying after being off for almost two years to come back and see the crowds, extremely enthusiastic crowds," Tritt says on the phone from his home in Hiram, Ga. "That's been one of the most pleasant surprises."
While he was away from the music business, Tritt, 38, spent much of his time connecting with his family -- wife Theresa, 3-year-old daughter Tyler and 2-year-old son Tristan. After years of skirt chasing and experimenting with drugs, Tritt saw his life change when he met Theresa at a party in Nashville the day before his birthday. His career has made a turnaround, too.
"I can say, in all honesty, I'm having more fun now because I've seen both ends of the spectrum. I know what it's like to be on top. I know what it's like to be out of it for a few years, and I have to say I'm having more fun now than I've ever had."
With his long hair, cherub face and bad boy attitude, Tritt didn't fit in with the squeaky clean hat acts (Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks, Clint Black) who appeared on the scene the same time he did in the early 90s.
So Tritt forged a career being what those men weren't: a rabble rouser. He enlisted his friend, country composer and accomplished musician Marty Stuart, to help him.
The two men went out together on the No Hat Tour in 1992 and ended up winning a Grammy and a Country Music Association Award for their collaboration.
Though the two best friends haven't recorded together in years, they've recently been talking about it.
"On my next album, the good Lord willing, we will probably end up reviving Travis and Marty and do a duet. It's time for it, I think."
For now, Tritt is focused on the final phase of his tour, which began in February and ends Nov. 17.
His stage show, Tritt says, is the same as it's always been: high energy.
"Not so much with smoke and swinging from ropes or anything," he says.
"I try to get a ball of energy bouncing back and forth like a beach ball between the audience and the stage. You're going to get revved up. There's going to be some part of that show, I don't care if you're 68 years old or 16, you're going to like."
Tritt takes pride in appealing to a diverse audience.
"I try to write and sing about things that are in my life. If I can do that, hopefully, I can keep my finger on the pulse of the average, ordinary American. That's one of the things that makes country music so great is it's the only type of music form out there that describes what everybody goes through on a day-to-day basis regardless of whether they're male or female, old or young, wealthy or on the low end of the financial totem pole," Tritt says.
One of Tritt's current hits, It's a Great Day to Be Alive, is a feel-good romp about his current state of mind. But it took him awhile to get there.
"I've had all of these ups and downs and struggles and fights to try to be successful in my career and try to prove people wrong about me and the music I'm doing. Now I'm in a place where I can be at home with my family and look back down the road and sigh with relief and go, you know, it's just a great day to be alive."
Tritt couldn't bring himself to sing the song in the days after the terrorist attacks. He canceled four shows that were booked for the weekend after Sept. 11.
"I could not bring myself to go out on stage and sing It's a Great Day to Be Alive when they were pulling bodies from the World Trade Center and Pentagon," he says. "When we went back out on tour I would do God Bless America and talk a little bit in the concert about the attack. It was therapeutic for me as well as the audience."
When he resumed singing It's A Great Day to Be Alive, "It had taken on a whole new meaning, and it truly became a celebration of life, and I think the audience is embracing that as well," Tritt says.
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PREVIEW: Travis Tritt performs at 8 p.m. Friday at Ruth Eckerd Hall, 1111 McMullen-Booth Rd., Clearwater. Tickets are $35 and $32; (727) 791-7400.
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