MTSU has no shortage of up-and-coming artists thanks to its prestigious Recording Industry programs in the Scott Borchetta College of Media and Entertainment. One of those artists is Jackson Travis, a freshman and music major at MTSU.
“I think everyone should make art. Everybody should express themselves,” Travis said. “It’s good for your mental health. It’s good for your brain.”
Travis describes his music as “indie-rock” and “midwest emo,” and also draws inspiration from his favorite genre: jazz. His love for the genre led him to become a music major with a concentration in jazz guitar.
“I’m gonna be releasing music until I’m dead and buried,” Travis said.
Travis’s biggest musical inspirations are MacDeMarco, Pingrove and Tera Melos. His favorite jazz guitarist is Pat Martino, whom Jackson hopes to emulate through his band’s unique sound and improvised riffs.
Travis is the frontrunner in his currently unnamed band as its singer and guitarist. He said the band would need more time together before they could come up with anything concrete.
“We’ve been brainstorming Jackson Travis and the Bean Stalks,” Travis said.
He is accompanied by Parker Johnson on bass guitar and Luke Yarbrough on drums. Travis said the freshman trio officially formed over a month ago thanks to the classes they share at MTSU.
Although Travis has been playing guitar since he was 12, he said he never received classical guitar training until he attended the university. He is also proficient in drums, bass, classical guitar and classical percussion, all of which he learned how to play himself.
Johnson’s and Yarbrough’s classical training is similarly limited.
“I used to take drum lessons, but I kind of gave up on those,” Yarbrough said. “I took drum lessons for classical stuff and sheet reading, but I don’t remember how to do any of that now. Now, if you put a drum book in front of me, I wouldn’t be able to play it.”
The trio considers themselves to be largely self-taught, but their time at MTSU has helped them improve their skills on a technical level. Still, Travis stressed that not everything can be learned from classes alone.
“One of my professors said that playing and learning music is kind of like you’re mining out of a mountain, and the mountain is infinite,” Travis said. “You can dig as much as you want, and how good you are as a musician is how much you’ve dug out of the mountain, but nobody’s got the whole mountain. Nobody can mine the whole mountain.”
Travis currently teaches guitar online guitar lessons and hopes his degree will help him become an accredited music teacher in the future.
“Ideally, I wanna make music full time,” Travis said. “That’s the dream for any musician, right? But if that doesn’t work out, I’m getting a music degree so that I can teach.”
Travis has two albums under his belt and is currently producing his third. He debuted his newest single “don’t come home” during a live performance at Mean Mel’s in Cookeville, Tennessee on March 7.
To contact the features editor, email [email protected].
For more news, visit www.mtsusidelines.com, and follow us on Facebook at MTSU Sidelines and on X and Instagram at @mtsusidelines. Also, sign up for our weekly newsletter here.
