WE GO AGAIN

TRAVIE LIFTS THE LID ON HIS PAST FEW YEARS, AND TELLS SOME TRUTHS ON HIS LONG-AWAITED NEW ALBUM, 'NEVER SLEPT BETTER'.

- MADDY HOWELL

Oftentimes, planning is an essential step to achieving your goals.

Whether it's a creative project, your career path, or even a major lifestyle change, mapping out your route before you dive in is a step that shouldn't be skipped. However, in an increasingly unpredictable world, no matter how watertight the calculations are, some things don't go to plan.

This realisation came to Travie McCoy a few years ago whilst unravelling the blueprint and putting the wheels in motion for the sixth Gym Class Heroes record, commencing a journey that would prove that sometimes the biggest pitfalls can spiral into the happiest accidents.

"We started making 'Never Slept Better' as a Gym Class Heroes record in Nashville a year or so before COVID hit, but things weren't meshing like we thought they would. We took a recess from the record, came back home to reassess things, and Matt [McGinley, drums] and I decided to put the band to rest for the time being," he recalls.

"It happens, but I never thought it would happen to us. It took me a long time to process that it might be over, and I was very depressed for a while. Once I got over that I was like, 'I've invested far too much time and energy into this album to stop now'. I decided to go back to Nashville and finish the record myself."

Inspired after re-reading The Most Dangerous Game, a short story he'd first come across in high school, what followed was a tale of overcoming. A narrative that pursues a master hunter who outsmarts his captors and cheats death to wind up having the best night's sleep he's ever had, as Travie read the words on the page, he started coming to realisations about the last decade of his own life.