Travis Stever

Stever from a Polaroid.

**Travis Stever** (born November 25, 1978) is an American musician, best known for his role as lead guitarist in the band Coheed and Cambria, a progressive rock band from Nyack, New York. He has also played major roles in the bands Davenport Cabinet, Fire Deuce, and recently, Zero Trust.

## Music Career

Early in his career, Stever first performed with several different bands, all of which lasted a short period of time. Some of these bands include Toxic Parents, and Beautiful Loser, where he was the vocalist and lead guitarist. Often cited as an argument over gas money in June of 1995, (though this was definitely not the case, according to Sanchez) the band broke up and Stever left. The resulting band was called Shabutie and after their EP *The Penelope EP* dropped, Stever rejoined in 1999, to work on *Delirium Trigger*, which released in 2000.

After Sanchez took a trip to Paris in 1998, the members of the band at that time agreed to officially renamed it to Coheed and Cambria, and was shortly thereafter signed to Equal Vision Records. Coheed and Cambria achieved success on the East Coast after releasing and touring *The Second Stage Turbine Blade*, and gained mainstream success with the release of *In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3*, thanks to the single "A Favor House Atlantic". The band has since produced nine studio albums. Stever acts as a lead and rhythm guitarist in the band. He wrote the lyrics for the song "Ten Speed". He and Sanchez share leads and solos in the band's music, and often switch back and forth in the "dueling guitar" style made popular in the 1970s.

Aside from Coheed and Cambria, Stever is the lead guitarist and vocalist of a side project called Fire Deuce, a 1980s-style metal band who released "Children of the Deuce" in 2005, and continues today (although it's hard to tell with posts like these). He also embarked on a second side project named Davenport Cabinet, which released three albums (*Nostalgia In Stereo* in 2008, *Our Machine* in 2013 and *Damned Renegades* in 2014) before it was disbanded. Teo musicians of note that it featured were Rory Hohenberger, long-time friend and catalyst for Stever and Sanchez' own friendship; and Tyler Klose, Stever's cousin. Stever said he devised the project as a way to "throw pain at a wall."

As of March 26, 2021, Stever is also a member of the band Zero Trust where he plays bass. On August 26, 2022, L.S. Dunes was announced, a supergroup featuring Stever alongside Circa Survive's **Anthony Green**, My Chemical Romance's **Frank Iero**, and Thursday's **Tim Payne** and **Tucker Rule**. Their first album (*Past Lives*) was also announced with a release date of November 11, though their first single, "Permanent Rebellion", was released on YouTube that same day as well.

### Instruments

In addition to vocals and guitar, Stever plays other stringed instruments such as the lap steel, banjo, mandolin, bass, and dobro. He is credited with these instruments on various tracks of Coheed albums, and experiments with many of them on the Davenport Cabinet albums. He contributed to The Prize Fighter Inferno's *My Brother's Blood Machine* by playing lap steel on "Wayne Andrews, The Old Bee Keeper".

He uses a guitar talk box, as seen in Neverender DVDs. He has said that he would like to learn to play the pedal steel and always wanted to play violin, but feels like his fingers are too beefy. He also prefers playing Les Paul guitars.

## Trivia

* He attended Park Ridge High School and played on the football team.
* He and Sanchez have been childhood friends since they were 12 or 13 years old.  They met through a childhood friend, Rory Hohenberger, since they were both looking to start a band.
* Stever has obsessive–compulsive disorder which sometimes also translates to stage fright or superstition. He has said that sometimes his mind will spiral, and he used to have to wash his hair six times, but with treatment and therapy it's not that bad anymore. He also mentioned that sometimes on tour he will have to stay in his bunk and get to chapter 7 of a book in order to feel like he's going to have a good show.
* He often will lay on the ground to think or relax especially if he's tired or fatigued from travel. If he feels like doing it, he will often yell "man down" before doing so, so the band has named it as such.
* In 2013, for the band's *Afterman: Descension* tour, each band member designed a symbol to represent them and the band sold shirts and threw custom picks out to the crowd (even Eppard). Stever's symbol was a large upside-down triangle with a circle at its top and several lines running through it.
* He is an assistant coach for his son's little league.
* He loves pho.

## See Also

* Davenport Cabinet
* Fire Deuce
* Zero Trust

## References

1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kok6hBsVKi8
2. ↑ http://dontpassthefence.org/shabutie.html
3. ↑ https://vimeo.com/681905117
4. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20010501174618/http://shabutie.8m.com/custom.html
5. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20150512132055/http://www.pollstar.com/hotstar\_article.aspx?ID=68365
6. ↑ http://archive.recordonline.com/archive/2006/04/07/features\_goentertainment-07gocov-04-07.html
7. ↑ http://www.myspace.com/davenportcabinet
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 Stever, Travis. “Live Q&A with Travis Stever.” Interview by The Liars Club's Discord. YouTube, 12 May 2022, Private URL.
9. ↑ http://www.equalvision.com/news/zero-trust-sign-to-evr-release-self-titled-ep/
10. ↑ https://www.rocksound.tv/news/read/l.s-dunes-announce-debut-album-past-lives
11. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b00u9ba1EwE
12. ↑ https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/497737058/
13. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20151125050349/http://www.kwwl.com/story/27486913/davenport-cabinet-plays-rock-from-the-heart
14. ↑ https://vimeo.com/681905117
15. ↑ Cooper, Zach. “Live Q&A with Zack Cooper.” Interview by The Liars Club's Discord. YouTube, 28 April 2022, Private URL.