CLAIRE O’REILLY
Staff Writer
For college students, wondering about what they are going to do when they get out of the safe bubble of the Fredonia campus seems to be a common source of anxiety. “Can I really go after my dreams?” is a big question most students may have asked themselves at some point or another.
Travis Smith is not only an alumnus of the Fredonia Class of 2012 and singer/songwriter of the recently released “Wildness” album — he is a testament to taking a leap of faith and going after your dreams.
About three weeks ago, The Leader received notice of both “Wildness” and Travis’ story by one of his college buddies, also from the Class of 2012, Kyle Sackett.
Sackett, Smith and yet another Class of 2012 alumnus, Jordan Kinne, were all best friends during their time spent in Fredonia. Their friendship didn’t diminish once the tassels on their graduation caps were moved to the left. Both Smith and Kinne were invited to Sackett’s wedding, with Smith as the best man.
Sackett came to the newspaper out of pride for both of his best friends and to make the successes of our Fredonia graduates known.
“I share all of this with you, well, because Travis and Jordan never would,” said Sackett. “They did this project for themselves, but I believe it needs to be shared with others. Fredonia is what made this art possible, and I think we should all share in it.”
Kinne has his degree in sound recording technology, but Smith was actually never a music major.
“I was a business major, so I had no business making songs and playing them for my music-major friends,” Smith said. “But for me, it was just kinda like, ‘I’m gonna write these songs, and if people want to listen, they will.’”
Smith said he never would have had the experience he has had with “Wildness” if he had been timid.
“It’s a huge part of my life now, and I never would have stumbled across it if I didn’t dive right into it,” he said. Smith put his advice for current students looking to follow a similar path pretty bluntly:
“Do it.”
Kinne has similar views.
“Don’t be [too] intimidated to accomplish what you want, especially with the environment that Fredonia sets up,” he said. “There are so many opportunities and great people in a community that doesn’t really delegate which harbor you have to stay in.”
While a senior, Smith wrote one of the songs featured on the album, “St. Patrick’s Day.”
“Over spring break, I stayed in Fredonia working on that song all week. I was pretty homesick by the tail-end of that week off and wanted to be home by St. Patrick’s Day,” he said.
Another song, “No Time for Leaving,” is one of Smith’s favorites off the album for a couple of reasons.
“It’s the most meaningful for me, with what it’s trying to say,” he said. “And then we did the song, and I wasn’t too sure of how good it was gonna be, but with the writing session in New York with Tracy and Mario, we turned this song into this really beautiful thing that stemmed from something I was unsure of.”
Tracy Roberston and Mario Rubano, along with Mitch Sumner and Eric Fahey, also belong to the group of Fredonians that worked on the album.
The meaning of the album name came from Smith’s passion for the outdoors, as well as a decision to change what he was doing in life.
“I spend a lot of time outdoors,” he said. “I didn’t like my job or what I was doing, and wildness was one thing that I knew was always there.”
September 2014 marked the Fredonians’ first major writing session in New York City. All together, they spent about a year writing and working on the songs, two months on production and then released the album.
A particular song featured on the album, “Already Gone,” is one of Kinne’s favorites.
“It’s one of the first songs that Travis had really written that we had recorded,” he said. “We weren’t originally planning on having it on the album, but we re-recorded it and loved how it turned out.”
“Already Gone” has a lyric in it about going to the Finger Lakes.
“When I wrote the song, I was on vacation in the Finger Lakes,” said Smith. “I was going through this weird time in my life — I kind of always feel like I’m going through a weird time, trying to work some things out. It’s one of those songs that happens in five minutes, and that doesn’t happen too often for me.”
The Finger Lakes seems to be an important region for Smith.
“The album cover is in the Finger Lakes,” he said. “It’s a picture of my grandpa and my older sister. It’s probably my favorite picture and my family’s favorite picture … There’s things that are constantly changing, but one thing that has stayed true has been my family. Seeing my grandpa getting older was inspiration to get this done sooner rather than later. [The cover] started meaning more as the project moved on.”
The picture was chosen well before the recordings were ever done. His cousin, Kris Sambor, helped Smith design the cover.
Smith discovered a major theme of “Wildness,” that came out after he listened to the whole thing.
“A big theme is pushing through whatever hard times you might be going through and finding the silver lining in a situation,” he said. “A lot of songs are sad, but there’s always a positive light at the end of the tunnel. I didn’t do it intentionally, but I realized later on it was there.”
Currently, Smith is living in Portland, Oregon, and Kinne is living in Los Angeles. They both left the Rochester, New York, area and the East Coast behind them in order to find their new homes in the West.
“I left Rochester because I couldn’t keep up with the garbage plate diet,” joked Kinne. “But really, I figured ‘go big or go home,’ and I wanted to work with major studios.”
“Portland was an exciting move for me,” said Smith, “[being] in [my] early ‘20s and moving across the country and having so many new experiences in life.”
Kinne commented on the success that a SUNY school can bring its students.
“They think that a SUNY school doesn’t really carry across the borders of New York State, but it can.”
And for both Smith and Kinne, it already has.