Musician looks to kick-start career

Singer-songwriter Travis Ehrenstrom has taken to the Internet to help fund his next recording project. Sisters' native Ehrenstrom has enlisted the help of Kickstarter.com to raise funding to support a new full-length record.

Ehrenstrom, a 2007 Sisters High School Americana Project graduate, is no stranger to assisting people fulfill their goals in music and the arts. As assistant festival director, Travis helped the Sisters Folk Festival sell-out this past September and currently assists the Nature of Words in helping to strengthen the literary arts in Oregon.

Ehrenstrom has been writing and recording music for the last decade, and performed both as a solo performer and bassist for Seattle-area band The Courage.

The new CD is a step toward reigniting a career as an artist.

"I think it's one of the few things I feel I am inherently good at," he told The Nugget. "It's taken me a long time to trust it as a profession - but it is."

The spark for the new recording came from a connection with Sisters producer Keith Banning. The two bonded over a mutual admiration for ace producer Daniel Lanois (U2, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson and others) and Ehrenstrom's admiration for Banning's deep understanding of the nuances of recorded music.

"I knew immediately that I wanted to work with him," Ehrenstrom said.

Ehrenstrom hopes to begin recording his new album this November in Banning's Sisters-area recording studio, known as Lonely Grange, with a handpicked group of musicians.

"Once it's made it sets me up as an independent artist," Ehrenstrom said.

It will take a minimum of $11,000 and as much as $15,000 to record and package the project at the level of quality Ehrenstrom seeks - an amount that's well beyond his personal means.

"I don't have the financial capacity to record an album in the way that, as an artist, I really want to do that," he explained.

Enter Kickstarter.

Kickstarter.com is a crowd-funding website dedicated to connecting independent artists and musicians with like-minded individuals and patrons of the arts.

Individual donors pledge support of $10 to $150 and receive in return the recording and a variety of perks including a documentary of the making of the CD, a T-shirt, a limited-edition vinyl pressing - depending on the level of support.

Committing to the project has helped Ehrenstrom focus on his music, which he had put on the back burner to focus on his day jobs.

"It forced me to reinvest in that, and people have been reinvesting in me," he said.

Ehrenstrom has until November 13 to receive pledges and raise the money to record a new full-length album. To visit Travis's Kickstarter page, go to www.travisehrenstrom.com.

For more information on Kickstarter, and Ehrenstrom's progress, email him directly at [email protected]