Invisible Music for Invisible Children

By Kevin Carter

Skip the sounds of the supermarket because the unprocessed hum of Lettuce Olive will be on display at Cafe Eleven on Nov. 14 for the Invisible Music show. We caught up with lead singer and guitar player Travis Tooke at a bar in Gainesville to find out what makes him the common man’s musical wizard and where he is headed with the new band. Are olives a fruit? If you have to look it up, you just got tooke!

Drift: You have been writing and playing music for many years. Is it fair to say your vision for music has remained constant but your goals have progressed over the years?
TT: My vision and goals for my music stay the same, at least in my approach. It always comes from a passion for whatever emotion is inspiring me. I try to relate those emotions to someone else, or just get them out because they are plaguing me. Music allows me to search through my feelings and come out the other side with this piece of art that tells the moral of the story of my life.

D: We hear Indigo Planet Records (IPR) is about to do a bigger marketing push on your late 2007 debut solo CD Artichoke. What can you tell readers about the CD?
TT: Artichoke is unique for me since it’s the first time I tried to record completely on my own. I hooked up with a friend – and now fellow bassist/bandmate – Mike Rotolante, who has a middle-fi studio here in town, and he and I worked on the entire record. Mike as the engineer primarily, and I as the producer, songwriter, pianist, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, singer, organ player … You get the idea.

D: So are you telling us you are a megalomaniac?
TT: For shame! I mean I did put in the sweat to produce 10 songs from beginning to end. I felt these songs were fruit from my soul that I really wanted to share with others. And without much help I still managed to finish them. All 10 songs on the record have that same motive, which is to follow through with your heart as best you can.

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Invisible Music for Invisible Children
WHAT: A benefit concert for several charities, sponsored by Drift Magazine and Indigo Planet Records
WHEN: Nov. 14, 8:30 p.m.
WHERE: Cafe 11
HOW MUCH: $8
WHO: Amy Hendrickson & the Prime Directive (St. Augustine, Florida)
Alaina Alexander (Los Angeles, California)
The Duppies (Gainesville, Florida)
Lettuce Olive (Gainesville, Florida)

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D: You were featured in Billboard last summer, and your single from Artichoke, “Acid Test,” received some national airplay.
TT: National airplay? Where? When? How? Somebody needs to play it in my town so I can hear my music on the radio and dream about it erasing all the heartless sex, drugs, and rock and roll bullshit bands from existence.D: The name of the band is Lettuce Olive and the album is Artichoke. Are those names just vegetables or are they a play on words?
TT: The names Artichoke and Lettuce Olive and the fact that they are vegetables was a coincidence. It was the play on words that I relished: the “art I choke,” “let us all live.” I went with the spelling of the vegetables to see who was tuned to my wavelength.D: So, you may be doing some recording for the debut Lettuce Olive CD in the NYC area. How might this inspire you differently?
TT: Honestly, I don’t know. The surprise of all the different outcomes that will happen from being moved to be moved in a whole new way. What? You ask. Exactly! I say. If Dave [who runs IPR] is willing to support me and pay somebody to get my songs accomplished, then I say thank you! The support and commitment of other people is inspiring enough.D: We have a lot of surfers out there in Drift land. Do you have a surf story you could share with them?
TT: Sweet! Yes, I have one. I went to learn how to surf for the first time about a decade ago. I went out somewhere around St. Augustine Beach and gave it my best for hours. I finally stood up on the board and road this gargantuan 2-foot wave in. [Laughs] I had a great time, but I haven’t been surfing since. If any of you out there like my music, I’m up for learning how to surf again. Let’s trade sets.D: What is your most memorable performing experience ever with For Squirrels or Subrosa?
TT: The most memorable as far as kind of crazy is the time we [he and fellow members of For Squirrels] opened for Bob Dylan at Music Midtown in Atlanta. Somehow we had a song on the radio [“Mighty K.C.”] that was doing well enough to get us that gig. I don’t remember if I had taken mushrooms or vitamins, but I was having a pretty good time and finished with the radio hit with a broken string. When the song didn’t sound as good as it did on the radio, we went berserk and smashed our instruments.

I was leaving the stage coming down the ramp you walk between the stage and the tour buses, which is as wide as a plank off a pirate ship, and suddenly there was Bob Dylan and his bodyguards coming at me to get on stage. I looked at him and said, “Wow! Bob Dylan!” Bob Dylan promptly gave me words of inspiration and instruction that I’ll never forget: He waved his hand to the side and said, “Move!” Which I did.

I also met Michael Stipe and Peter Buck from R.E.M. Michael told me to work on my singing. I said I would and then I told him to work on his eye shadow, and he didn’t laugh.

I must also say that as a band with For Squirrels, I enjoyed playing our first big gig in California at the Whisky a Go Go. We were just kids coming up in the world and had only played our instruments for three years, and here we are playing in this famous place in L.A. on the strip. Of course I will never forget the show at CBGBs the night before we had an accident and all my friends died. That sucked. I’ll always remember that show as the last time I ever saw them and played with them, and it will stick in my mind and fuel me towards respectful memories and passionate things to come.

D: Speaking of passionate things to come: The song “Something to Cry About” by Lettuce Olive is featured prominently on the Invisible Children benefit CD. Can you break down the song for us both emotionally and musically?
TT: Nope. It’s a secret. You’re gonna have to see us play it live at Cafe Eleven for us to “break it down,” as you say.