http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1sA7YkLw1w Days of the New could and should have become an enormous success. With outstanding songs, great musicianship and a whole lot of creative ambition, frontman, songwriter and founder Travis Meeks managed to fuse heavy acoustic guitars with powerfully masculine and sometimes haunting vocals reminiscent of Jim Morrison (in fact, he sang a blistering rendition of The End with Ray Manzarek, Robbie Kreiger and John Densmore in 2000). His first album simply titled Days of the New - and later known by fans as Orange - gave Meeks the opportunity to open for Metallica, which is sadly the biggest success he achieved. The sophomore effort, Green, featured a band stripped back to essentially Meeks alone and a new conceptual style featuring different musical textures and experiments including electronic drums, instrumental passages, vast vocal arrangements and layered string sections - all which favourable reviews unfortunately failed to convert into any success further than a loyal cult following. Over the past few years, Travis has been playing occasional live performances and releases bootlegs from time to time, a quick listen of which will demonstrate how his gigs have an honest, good-time feel without giving away too much of his secretive personality. The long awaited fourth Days of the New album (Purple) is still unreleased although fans are hopeful that one day it will see the light of day. As a next-to-unknown musician with the voice, the mystique, the looks and the guitar skills to boot, truly Travis is the very definition of the under-celebrated frontman. The good news is that recent rumours as to a reunion of the original Days of the New band would appear to be true, with a string of dates across the mainland US announced, to which we would strongly suggest that you make it to one of these performances if you have the chance! RECOMMENDED LISTENING: Green (Days of the New) So are there any we missed? Do you not agree with who's already here? Fire away in the comments section!
Musician, guitar geek and genuine fool of a Took. Born and raised in The (Worcester)Shire UK, one time Londoner and now living in Sweden. Feel free to drop by www.tomlloydjones.com for music and further info.