Junkhead Meeks

Sometimes it can be so frustrating being a fan of certain bands of musicians. Since the first Days of the New album came out, I've been a fan. I first saw Travis Meeks in '98 when Days was opening for Metallica and Jerry Cantrell. What was really astonishing about that show was that both opening acts blew away Metallica by a mile. Metallica put on the same show that you could see on their home videos, live CDs or any other performance you've seen of them. While to some people that is great, there was a whole lot of nothing going on when Metallica was performing. When Days was performing there was energy, there was emotion, and it helped to win over an ambivalently drunk, middle-aged crowd (which is 90% of Metallica fans now, and has been for years).

What is hard to understand is where Days went wrong. A lot of people just didn't give them the time of day and wrote them off as grunge hangers-on because their radio songs were somewhat grungey. Whats funny is, when you move past "Touch, Peel and Stand," "Shelf in the Room" and "Down Town" you get a lot of really different music. The guitar-work demonstrated by Meeks throughout the album is just completely masterful, complex and incredible, but a lot of people wrote the guitar work off as the work of Todd Whitener. Because honestly, when the lead singer is playing guitar and there is another guitar player, the non-singer is always considered the lead guitar player. Meeks was easily the driving guitar force behind the band, but that won't be seen until much later.

When it came time to record the second album, it became increasingly clear the rest of the band just wanted to make the same album again, make more money, play arenas and that evolving musically wasn't an issue. Travis wanted to evolve and wanted the music to be different, more mature. This caused a huge rift between the band, and by the end of the Metallica tour Travis was traveling in his own bus recording his own music while the rest of the band was bitter and acting like Travis was taking over the band and destroying their 'vision.' Granted, he wrote almost the entirety of the first album on his own and all, then when the band got kicked out and formed Tantric they essentially released the same old shit, little bit more distortion, hell, they even got a singer that sounded a lot like Travis. Of course they got a little bit of chart success, but were critically a joke and its 2007 and I have no clue if they are even still a band, nor would I care.

Meeks went on to make 'Green' which in my eyes at least was his best effort and most complete album. 'Enemy' got a bit of chart success and people liked it to a degree, but it still really didn't sell albums. People thought he went in a more electronic direction now due to some samples and the electronic drum kit used for the track. Once again, just like on the first album, the single misled to the content of the album. Now, my love for concept albums might blind me to this, but I love the idea of an album with a beginning, middle, end and a fucking point as well as common themes musically and lyrically. 'Green' is an album about evolving as a person and the hardships along the way. From distrust, insanity, longing and love it is all there, 'Last One' alluding to moving on, changing colors, which segues into 'Red.' 'Red' wasn't exactly the best thing to ever happen to Meeks. Meeks had begun to dabble with meth, and his music became more muddled, he was using more distorted electric guitars and the great guitar work he was known for seemed to dwindle on some tracks, while on others it was astonishing.

Then nothing. Addiction. The next few things heard of Meeks was that he was working on 'Purple,' hell, that it was done. Then he lost his label, and reports of what was going on with him were few and fare between -- until he showed up on the A&E show 'Intervention' in a horrible state. He was living in his mother's basement, a junkie, driving around a beaten up van to score meth and keep rotting away. His wife refused to be near him, and things just looked horrible for him. But the show led to his rehab and apparently he is finally starting to pull things together.

Supposedly he is recording 'Purple' right now and looking around for record labels, and I was thrilled when some videos from a concert last week popped up on YouTube and that he looks to be as awesome as ever.

http://www.myspace.com/treecolors