Truth, Growth, and Dreamcore: A Conversation with Travis Moseley of Colorblind

Some bands spend years chasing a sound. Colorblind spent those years creating one that is entirely their own. Formed in 2017 in Austin, TX, the quartet has grown into one of the fastest-rising names in dreamcore, blending metalcore, pop hooks, emotional vulnerability, and atmospheric textures. At the center of it all is one of the most distinctive voices in the scene today, Travis Moseley.

We caught up with Travis to discuss their full-length debut, Who Sold You This Truth ++ Was It Yours To Hold(arriving August 28th, via Solid State Records); finding the balance between melody and heaviness; and maintaining the deeply relatable emotional honesty that remains at the core of their music.

MSM: You're about to release your first full-length album. How did you approach the creation of that, knowing that this would be the complete vision of the band?

TRAVIS: I think, for us, we really went in blindly. I think looking too deeply into that, I'd just drive myself crazy. It really was just sitting down and writing and figuring out what we liked and what we didn't like. And this was my first time at making a full body of work like this. We've normally just released singles and EPs and stuff. So I didn't really even know I didn't know this at the time, but I didn't actually know how to sit down and make this full body of work with a connecting thread through all the themes of everything. So we just allowed those things to show themselves. We went into the album with no prerecorded demos, and we blocked out two months and wrote and produced, wrote, and recorded everything in that two-month time period and tried not to overthink too much and just made some stuff that surprised us and made some stuff that we really wanted to make. But it was really fun just getting to see what came out of that.

I've actually heard the advance stream, and it is amazing. I especially loved the line in "Paradox" - "How can I love myself when I'm my own worst enemy?" - It's just a beautiful line.

TRAVIS: Thank you.

So, when you were writing these songs, did the meaning of them change throughout the process when you were writing them compared to now? Because I imagine that was a while ago.

I think definitely after playing some of the songs live, they started to change shape ... like I've viewed some songs a certain way, and then now watching them take on a life of their own, and it's like your kid that you let out into the world and let it meet people and watch it evolve and turn into somebody else's. It's kind of a crazy thing to watch. And I mean, when we made God Complex, I really was excited about that song. I thought it was really cool. And then playing it live, the song got even way cooler to me because it was so fun to play live. And Neversleep was a song that I kind of always had an inkling was going to do that, that people were going to like this side of us, but playing it live has just been way fun because everybody loves it. So getting to play it live is a completely different experience than writing it, and it's so much fun.

And I'm sure just when you talk to fans, maybe the meanings might even change for you when you hear how it's impacting them.

Oh, absolutely. It's so cool to see a song do something in somebody else's life because a lot of it is just you making it as kind of a form of therapy for yourself, and you're not really thinking about anyone else. And then to hear that that struck a chord with somebody and helped them out in so many ways is so cool; to see it take on meaning in somebody else's life.

Photo Credit: Alexander Bemis

As a complete album, is there anything that you want people to feel like when they listen to it start to finish?

Who Sold You This Truth ++ Was It Yours To Hold is a journey through belief, identity, and inherited ideas. It questions the truths we're given, the lies we protect, and the weight of what we carry. Some truths shape us, some imprison us, and some were never ours to begin with. And this album exists to remind people that questioning what you were taught is the first step towards owning who you are. And every song ended up exploring this duality of belief and identity and how your own self-perception can guide you or cage you.

And your music overall seems to balance a lot of things at the same time, like the melodic elements with heavy elements, vulnerability, and also resilience. Do you consciously attempt these things, or is it just you create, and that's what comes out?

I think that it happens because we have so many sides to us. We love Bieber and pop music, but we also came out of the hardcore scene, and those are all just natural instincts of all of us. And so it just happens sort of. I mean, I think that at the beginning of making this, I definitely wanted to really explore. I wanted to have a really wide range of what we wanted also because we wanted to see what people were going to respond to because since this is album one, it's kind of our first time getting to be like, Okay, well, let's see what people like to see from us. Do they like seeing the poppier side, or do they like seeing the heavier side? And it was fun getting to put that together. So there was a little bit of planning with it, but it was also talked about at the beginning, but not very much after that. And then we just hit the ground and just ran.

Photo Credit: Alexander Bemis

How would you say that you protect your own mental health when you're creating?

I think the only way that you can truly do that is by having people in the room that you trust to confide in about stuff, like Josh Landry. His artist's name is Lø Spirit, but he's a very mental health-forward person, and he's become a really dear friend of the band because he produced some earlier stuff that we did, like "Love is Red" and "Ghosts" and the self-titled EP. But he's somebody that I feel like I can go talk to about where my head's at. And a lot of the songs written with Josh begin from a conversation where we're just like, "Well, how have you been? What have you been up to? What have you been going through lately?" And just kind of catching up with each other as friends, and then all of a sudden we'll be like, "Oh shit, there's a song here." But the short answer is I think that it's important to have people that you can trust to be vulnerable with in the room.

What would you say the mission of Colorblind is?

The mission of Colorblind is just trying to understand ourselves a little bit better through being creative with music while at the same time helping others and helping other people feel less alone in their problems. Sometimes all you need to hear is that somebody else is going through what you're going through, and that can be such a simply profound thing that helps you move forward in a rough place in your life. I think that that's just the mission of the band: helping others in the pursuit of helping ourselves. And it's just been such a wild experience watching that happen in real time and at the shows and seeing people connect to the songs, and that's just such a cool experience.

Photo Credit: Alexander Bemis

So, since your formation, you've gone from independent releases to now working with Solid State; you've played festivals, and you've opened for some major artists. What do you think the biggest lesson you've learned throughout this journey has been?

The biggest lesson that I've learned is how important touring is. It's so weird because a lot of the time, people say, in this day and age, touring is something that you shouldn't be doing. And I totally get that. I guess it just depends on where you are as your band and stuff like that. But I battled with such horrible self-doubt and, I guess you could say, imposter syndrome. And when we were a local band, we would play one show every month or something, and every show was like I was playing my first show again, and I had horrible, horrible extreme fear of being on stage and nausea and blacking out completely afterwards. The first four years of us being a band, I wouldn't even remember what happened when I got off stage because I was in such a nervous episode that I would black out.

I feel so lucky to get the repetition of it to now be able to feel like the stage is my home, and to feel that way is an insane 180 for me because I was so scared, and now playing shows is like, that's my favorite part, and it feels like it is just such a special experience, and playing live music is the best thing that I've ever done ever in my life. And also, I mean, from the business side of it, some people say that touring isn't worth it, but I mean, the market building that we've been doing the past few years from touring has been extremely huge. In every city that we play, there are more and more people there every time because it's not our first time playing St. Louis and Philly and all these other places. It's like we've played them four or five times before, and we're getting more familiar with that market of people in those areas that go to shows, and we're getting on their radar, and those are the people that bring their friends and come experience this thing.

And so I think touring sometimes gets kind of this rap, like, oh, it's just something that you should do as a response to your music doing well. But at the same time, Colorblind has never had a viral moment or anything huge, but the touring and the face-to-face market building of meeting people after playing a set and for their first time to be introduced to us is through a live experience. That has been a massive thing for us.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Ruth

Yeah, because even just from a viewer standpoint, live music is just — there's nothing like it. So I'm glad you were able to turn that around. And I think just being able to meet people like that, that's always going to be great for your growth.

Our management said at the beginning of our touring stuff, "Go outside and meet the line of people that are outside and give them two minutes of your time, and they'll give you an entire lifetime of coming to your shows." And we've watched that happen. If there's a line of people queued up before the show, if you are an opening band and you just go out there and meet these people that don't know who the fuck you are and shake their hand and tell them that you're so excited that they're there and so excited that you get to do this and then you play a show, you're going to see them at the next show. And it's so easy. And the reason that it's so easy is because there's not enough of that in the world anymore. It's all scrolling on Instagram. And so whenever you can actually impact people in real life nowadays, people are like, "Whoa." And it's so funny that it's such a simple thing, but it is so powerful.

And I mean, that's what they're there for — to hear good music and have a connection with it, and you're doing that. You're introducing yourself, and then they're like, "Okay, he's really cool," and then they hear you play...

There's always maybe a little bit of a preconceived thing where people are like, "Oh, the artist playing tonight, who knows what their ego's going to be like or if they're going to be the person that I really think they are. And I hope they don't let me down and be a douchebag or something." And then they meet you, and — sorry, to finish that thought — but it's like then they meet you and they're like, "Oh my God, you are nice." And I think we were doing VIP on this last tour, and somebody was just like, "Oh my God, y'all are so awesome because you're just so nice. And then we watch your band play, and y'all are so good, and it's so rare." And it's just like, wow, the bar is so low.

All you have to do is go play your songs well and be nice to people, and then you can make a career out of this, you know what I mean? I mean, there's so much more that goes into it, of course ... and I'm not trying to make this job sound easy because in no way is it not. But when it boils down to the simple things, it's like all you have to do is just be sweet to people that are excited to meet you and then go up there and play a really fun show, and then people are hooked. It's so simple, and people just aren't expecting that. They're like, I was expecting something to be off or something to go wrong just because everybody is. But it's so weird how the smallest things, as a band nowadays, can go so far.

Absolutely. And then my last question for you is, beyond the album release, what is a goal that you might have?

I want to get some songs on SiriusXM Octane. I want to get some stuff that's in full rotation. We've gotten on Test Drive a few times, but I want to get in real rotation at Sirius Octane. That's a really big goal of mine. Another big goal would probably be playing at this venue in Austin called ACL. We're from Austin, Texas. I grew up there, and I watched the city grow. I grew up skateboarding and spent all my time as this little skater kid riding the city bus and spending time downtown, and I watched downtown grow and change. There's this one venue called ACL Live at the Moody Theater, and it's a really big goal of mine to headline a sold-out show there, or I would be happy to play that venue in general. And another goal is to have a sold-out headlining tour and have something that really impacts culture in an important way and just have something really great, I think

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Keep an eye out for Who Sold You This Truth ++ Was It Yours To Hold . It's our debut album, and it's out on August 28th, and then this fall from the end of October to early December, we're hitting the road for the 'Not Broken Enough' tour with Catch Your Breath , TX2 , and Arankai. And we're playing first out of four, so if you want to see us, get there early. We're really excited for all the stuff that's coming up, and we hope that you guys will join us along for the ride.

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