We The Kings

Despite a severe leg injury suffered by lead singer Travis Clark, We The Kings made the trip up north last Thursday to perform at Toledo's Music Fest 2010.

"College shows are awesome, because all four guys in the band are single for the first time in a real long time," Clark said. "It's a bunch of beautiful women who love music. I never got to go to college. I would have loved to have this experience, so I live it when I'm here."

Clark also plays guitar and piano and is joined in the band by Ryan Thomsen on lead guitar, Andrew Thomsen on bass guitar and Danny Duncan on drums. All four members grew up in Bradenton, Fla. They formed the group in 2003 while attending King Middle School, which is where the band name came from.

The band members used to race free-style motocross as kids. During some recent downtime, the group utilized roughly 10 tons of dirt to build a ramp. Clark decided to test out the ramp two days before the concert at UT.

"Making a homemade jump is never good," Clark said. "It never works. I went way too high. The jump is about 7 feet tall. I just went straight up it. The dirt was so soft, so I kind of sank and my body kept going forward. I hit just below my knee on the peg and gashed it open. I needed 15 stitches. It looked like a CSI crime scene."

With no doctor's office open, Carter enlisted the help of a family friend, who happens to be an oral surgeon. The surgeon advised bed rest, but an hour later Clark was on his way to a Tampa Bay Rays game.

"We had suite one, right behind home plate," Clark said. "It was beautiful. I had a medic right with me the whole time to rebandage my leg and make sure I was safe. It was probably the biggest baller thing I've ever done."

Another "baller" moment for Carter came after a show in Hollywood a couple of years ago. The guest list for the performance included Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Demi Lovato, Adam Sandler, Nick Swardson, Miley Cirus and Adrian Grenier among others.

"‘Entourage' is one of our favorite shows, so meeting Adrian Grenier was an awesome feeling," Clark said. "Al Pacino has been in some of the greatest movies ever. He was drumming with his hands on the balcony. You could tell he wasn't there for business; he was there to have a good time. They were all jamming and having a good time. It was so amazing.

"Robin Williams came on our bus and played Halo with us. At that point I realized this is exactly what I want to do with my life."

Carter also met Lovato after the show, and they gradually became close friends. They teamed up for the song "We'll Be a Dream," the bands' current radio hit.

"I was writing the song on the piano at home, and that same week she sang the national anthem for the Dallas Cowboys game," Clark said. "I realized she could actually sing and was not just the Disney star that's more or less a piggy bank for all these other people. I decided to ask her to be on the song. I'd rather have a friend on our CD than some random business connection. When she sang, everybody got goosebumps."

The song reached No. 24 on the Top 40, four spots higher than the band's breakthrough platinum single "Check Yes Juliet."

"That song jump started us to where we are now," Clark said. "My mom hates tattoos. She slaps me every time I come home. When I was 17, she said if I ever went platinum she'd get a tattoo. I think she's going to get a check on her butt, and I'm going to get a check somewhere."

Carter already has a full complement of tattoos, including the words "love" and "hope" on alternate wrists. He also has a king's crown on his chest with the title of the first song he ever wrote, "Armor of Hope," written underneath.

"Our tattoo artist came on tour for about four weeks," Clark said. "When we were down in Florida, he met my mom. She slapped him too. The artwork is so vivid. She's excited that I'm at least not getting stupid stuff. Every one of my tattoos is extremely sentimental."

The band slowly gained a following after debuting with their self-titled album "We the Kings" in 2007.

"The first record was such a building record because nobody knew who we were," Clark said. "It was such an underdog thing. We were signed to an indie label. We didn't have a big push. We were never the band that was shoved down anybody's throats. If you liked us, you liked us. If you didn't, you never had to hear from us again. We were just a different band playing happy music."

Enough people liked what they heard, leading to a successful debut for "Smile Kid," their second studio album.

"We built up this kind of cult fan base," Clark said. "Smile Kid was such an initial success from all the fans we gained from the first record. We're still in awe of our success. It's special to be able to say we stuck with it long enough to live our dream."

Thanks to that success, Clark has been able to live out dreams of traveling the world.

"When we were growing up, none of us had any money," Clark said. "To be able to travel the world and make money is great. We get to bring our family out as well. I've flown my mom and dad to London, New York, Los Angeles, a lot of places they'd never have been able to see had something not gone really well. It's nice to be able to give back."

Soon the band will be able to check Australia off their list of destinations. While waiting to perform at Music Fest last Thursday, Clark learned over the phone that the band will be heading "down under" to tour for over two weeks later this year.

"I want to go a day early to get the jet lag out of the way, and stay three days after so I can chill," he said. "I know I'm going to find a wife in Australia."

The band's next release will be an all-acoustic album. It will feature two original songs and acoustic versions of four songs from each of their first two albums.