You seem to have done it all — husband, dad, actor, musician … and Trampoline Master?
Yes, I am. Someone’s read Twitter. (laughs) I wouldn’t say I’m a master, it just gets people’s attention. You don’t say, “I’m okay at a trampoline.”
Oh the skills of a trampoline. Well, it’s usually about preventing injury. If you can successfully bounce children without hurting them. (laughs) I have two boys and much like me and my brothers, we had a trampoline growing up, and we settled many fights on a trampoline, we got our energy out, and my guys do the same thing. My little guy will just sit out there all day if he could. In fact, the other day because he hurt his ankle — not on a trampoline — but he couldn’t jump and it made him so sad he just cried and cried because he had this desire to jump because it’s something that he and I do together, but he just couldn’t. So he just had to sit there with his legs folded, crying as I bounced him. He was very sad.
So I was wondering if you would be down to play a little word association game?
Sure! I’ll try to keep it clean, because usually I’m not.
Superhero?
Nite Owl. I have to.
Harrison Ford?
I’d say Indiana.
Chimney Sweep?
Christian Borle, my buddy who was in Mary Poppins and won a Tony.
I know your brother Mark is an anchorman here because I see him all the time, and your brother Paul, he’s a singer?
He is a singer, but not professionally. He runs Wilson Media, an advertising company in St. Pete. He was always the one who, when Mark and I plugged in, would come in and start screaming. He also sings sometimes with my parents too; he’s got a Frank Sinatra bit that he’s probably done for 15 years. So he’s got a pretty wide range of musical taste as well.
Has it been nice to have your family as a musical influence?
We all took piano, my mom’s a big proponent of that even though I slogged through it and didn’t like it. I started playing drums when I was 11 or 12, Mark played violin and then moved into guitar. So playing and singing haven’t always been passion, it’s just what we do. Yes we’re very passionate about it, but playing the drums became, for me, a feeling I missed while living in New York. I try to play everyday when I’m at home, and it’s my way of vegging out, music has always been an outlet – listening to it, playing to it, singing to it, it keeps me musically sharp. I don’t get to sing a lot so it keeps me on top of my game.
So did you listen to any Genesis, Phil Collins?
Oh my God, I love Phil Collins, I’m a huge Phil fan. I actually got to know him. He is one of the most foremost Alamo historians in the world. The first movie I did was The Alamo, which, unless you’re an Alamo fan you don’t know it, because it didn’t do very well at all. I was doing a show and got a note at my stage door from his girlfriend, Dana Tyler, an anchor at CBS who I knew from interviews. She said, “My boyfriend, Phil Collins, is coming into town and is a huge fan and would love to take you to dinner.” And I was like, “Phil Collins? Like Phil Collins, Phil Collins?” I’m also weirdly a Def Leppard fan and the guitarist for Def Leppard is Phil Collen, so I was like “Phil Collen, Phil Collins? What’s happening here? Or is this just some dude who’s like a banker who wants to take me to dinner?” So then I did my little recon and sure enough, it was Phil Collins.
So me and Dag and Phil Collins and Dana Tyler go out to dinner and he had just stepped off a plane. He was a die-hard Alamo historian, only would refer to me as Col. Travis. Then I actually ran into about six months later I was at the counter at a Café Pacific in Vancouver, flying home from a movie, and I hear, “Colonel Travis!” so naturally I turned around. Mind you this was like 8 years after doing The Alamo so it’s not like it’s in people’s memory. So I hear “Colonel Travis?” in this British accent and I turn around and it’s Phil Collins and I’m like “Hey how are you?” And then we ended up spending the whole flight together talking coming back from New York from Vancouver. So, I got to know him a bit. I love all Genesis stuff, I love all the weird proggy rock stuff, I became a Dream Theater fan, too, I love all that weird stuff like 9-minute songs and tempo changes. And I really, really love his solo stuff in the 80s too, it’s hard to dispute. So of course when I think of drummers there’s only a handful of them, really him. My other huge influence is Levon Helm, Don Henley, Kelly Keagy of Night Ranger, he’s another one. That was actually my first concert that I went to, Night Ranger [in Lakeland], to see that drummer sit there and sing was part of it, too.
