“As of late, I’ve been referring to it jokingly as concerned-dad folk,” Travis Ehrenstrom chuckles as he describes his solo acoustic music. The singer/songwriter may be best known around these parts for fronting the funky, jammy, fusion-rock six-piece TEB, or Travis Ehrenstrom Band, but as the weather turns cooler and musicians move inside to more intimate spaces, Ehrenstrom will also share his folksy side.
A partial TEB experience will be on display at The Ale Apothecary Dec. 6 when the trio of Ehrenstrom, bassist Patrick Pearsall and drummer Kyle Pickard take the stage, while Ehrenstrom will play solo at downtown’s The Commons Cafe & Taproom Dec. 14 with Whitney Wolfe (Steven James Whitney and Jordan Wolfe of Dive Bar Theology and Wolfe House Records) before heading out to the winter wonderland of Suttle Lake for the lodge’s Fireside Concert Series on March 20.
“I grew up just loving songs — like lyrics and melodies and bare-bones guitar and the power of that type of music,” Ehrenstrom says. Inspired by John Prine, Jackson Browne and Bob Dylan, these artists have “changed the way I’ve thought about things. For me, that’s always a goal in my songwriting: Can I afford a new perspective for myself that could lead to greater understanding? In terms of songwriting, that’s a power that I believe music has and something I’m always trying to unlock.”
The Source Weekly caught up with Ehrenstrom by phone. Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Source Weekly: This past summer, TEB played some big gigs at festivals like 4 Peaks and Cascade Equinox. You also perform solo and have some gigs coming up. Do you feel like you’re more known for one or the other?
Travis Ehrenstrom: I personally feel like the last five or six years, locally my creative focus has been with TEB, the band. Prior to that, creatively I was much more focused on the solo acoustic stuff. More recently, I’ve kind of been trying to marry the two. It’s weird for me because creatively they’re pretty different sonic things. TEB is a six-piece rock band that’s much more musical, and my solo stuff is a lot more songwriter-focused.
SW: Why do you feel like TEB has been the priority of late?
TE: As a musician, being in a band is certainly the top of the mountain for me. It’s an incredible experience to play music in a group, and I feel blessed to have the group that I have currently. [I’m] astounded by the quality of talent in this town, [and] speaking specifically to my bandmates, I’m shocked most of the time that they want to hang out with me. [Laughs] It’s been a focus for me because I find it so rewarding to get to play music with those guys; whereas songwriting has very much been more like an introspective pursuit. The collective experience of writing and composing music together, I feel like we really hit our stride recently with [TEB].
SW: Your latest release, “Lady Luck,” was this past April with TEB. What have you been working on since?
TE: The last few years, we have taken the fall as an opportunity to record the material that we have been playing all summer. We have a handful of songs that we’re looking to record that are newer and keep up the trajectory of releasing something every spring. For the first time in a while, I’m starting to collect some more solo acoustic material to try to do a record of that stuff as well.
In terms of the “Lady Luck” album, we had recorded that one live in my bandmate Gregg’s [Morris] living room with the intent of incorporating what it is about that band that I love, which is the musicianship and nonverbal interplay of the music.
SW: Where are you from and how did you learn to play music?
TE: I was actually born and raised in Sisters, out in the small mountain village. [Laughs] It was a lot smaller back then. My family is nonmusical, but my dad is a music lover. At a young age, I spent a lot of time just learning about music from him and listening to bands or artists like Jackson Browne and singer/songwriters. My brother, I think, was what really kicked things off. He bought a guitar that he never played, and then went to college and came back with a bunch of music like the Dave Matthews Band and artists that were popping off in the early ’90s. That’s when I started wanting to play music. In Sisters, just through access to the Folk Festival and stuff, I was at songwriting camps at the age of 14 or 15 with some, looking back on it, really, really legendary artists like Kelly Joe Phelps and Willy Porter and Keith Greeninger and people like that. It was sort of organic in that there was a really good system in place in that community for me to get an early start.
SW: Do you remember your earliest musical memory?
TE: The most embarrassing one is: I was probably 7 or 8 and I had taken the microphone from our family computer, which looked like the microphone that Garth Brooks used. I was belting the song “Shameless” at the top of my lungs and pretending to be Garth Brooks. And that was like the first moment where I was like, “Oh, this is kind of fun.” [Laughs]
SW: What makes the Central Oregon music scene feel like home?
TE: It’s the community and the people who make it happen. I’m sort of a shut-in by nature, and there’s just a really, really solid group of kind and supportive people who are putting on really cool stuff. When I think about, “Man, what would it be like to leave here?” The first thing I think about are all of the close relationships and friendships I have amongst the group of artists in town.
Travis Ehrenstrom Trio
Fri., Dec. 6
The Ale Apothecary
30 SW Century Dr., Ste. 140, Bend
Show 6pm; all ages
Free
Travis Ehrenstrom
With Whitney Wolfe
Sat., Dec. 14
The Commons Cafe & Taproom
875 NW Brooks St., Bend
Doors 6:30pm; show 7pm; all ages
$20 advance
bendticket.com/events/whitney-wolfe-travis-ehrenstrom-12-14-2024
This article appears in The Source Weekly December 5, 2024.
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