Biography
Travis Morrison is chiefly recognized for the ten years he spent as frontman of the influential dance-punk quartet the Dismemberment Plan. Born in 1972, he grew up in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Fairfax, VA, where he took up guitar and led several short-lived groups during high school. After spending three years at the College of William and Mary he left school to devote himself to music full-time, and in 1993 he assembled the Dismemberment Plan alongside Lake Braddock Secondary School classmates Eric Axelson on bass and Steve Cummings on drums. Drawing equally from the local Dischord Records art-punk aesthetic, R&B, and hip-hop, the group cultivated a fervent underground following through its first two albums, 1995’s ! and 1997’s The Dismemberment Plan Is Terrified, before securing a deal with Interscope in 1998. The label released the band after it finished 1999’s Emergency & I, an album that became both a commercial and critical breakthrough when issued on the independent DeSoto imprint. Following a European tour in support of Pearl Jam in 2000, the Dismemberment Plan completed 2001’s Change and embarked on a co-headlining U.S. run with Death Cab for Cutie. At the height of its popularity the quartet nonetheless declared its breakup, staging a final performance at D.C.’s historic 9:30 Club on September 1, 2003. Morrison subsequently moved to Seattle and enlisted Death Cab guitarist Chris Walla as co-producer for his first solo album. Although an early posting of his cover of Ludacris’ “What’s Your Fantasy?” attracted considerable press, the finished record, 2004’s Travistan, received some of the harshest notices in recent years. He promoted the album with the Travis Morrison Hellfighters and began writing material for a follow-up. Sessions in 2005 proved unproductive, yet in 2006 the band traveled to Chicago to work with producer Jason Caddell, a former bandmate of Morrison’s; those recordings yielded All Y’All, which appeared on Barsuk in 2007.
Albums
