Catching up backstage at this year’s CMA Fest, Audacy's Rob + Holly were happy to be up early to talk with singer Travis Denning, also a morning person himself -- unless, of course, there’s fishing involved.

“Even then, sometimes I’m like, ‘I’ve seen a fish before, I’ll get a couple hours extra sleep,” Travis laughs. “There’s a quote that someone said, that says “Nobody ever regretted waking up early,” he remembers. “I was like, I don’t know about that!”

Travis and his wife (also a big fan of shut-eye) recently took a trip to Switzerland for their honeymoon, a decision they made because it felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “We kicked around the tropical thing,” he says, but “I was like, ‘look, if we go somewhere that’s tropical we’re gonna sit and do nothing but drink, which is fine! But we could also just do that in Florida.”

Travis had surprise-released two songs for his then-fiancée Madison -- “Second Best Thing” and “New Year’s Kiss” -- just before their wedding, a rare feat for him, he admits. “She knew one of the songs, she knew that I had recorded it,” he says, “I just never told her when it was going to come out and all that. It was pretty cool. I actually surprised her… She doesn’t like surprises very well, but that one I got her pretty good.” Full disclosure, he admits, “She also told me if it didn’t happen by the end of October 2021 that we were probably going to break up, so I was like, ‘well…’”

--Travis’ contact lens falls out of his dang eye--

With the 5-second rule applied, he says, “I’m just gonna hold it in my damn hand!”

Speaking of hot messes… Travis told us about his honorary knightship in his pal Dierks Bentley’s Hot Country Knights. While touring with Dierks and going hard on his parody band as a joke, he says he heard through the grapevine that Dierks was impressed. “I told him, ‘Look, one night I want to be a Knight, I understand y’all have your routine, but I want to do something.’” He finally got his chance at an afterparty. “Same thing, banana in the pants, cussed him out on stage,” he says. “They threw me out and everything.” His stage name for the night: ‘Wyatt Williams.’ “I’m Doug’s long lost cousin that just got out on parole, an original member of Hot Country Knights when they were kids.”

Travis is currently on the road headlining and playing festivals throughout the summer, and is also working on his next collection, with a number of tracks already recorded including the first single, “Strawberry Wine And A Cheap Six Pack.” He’s also co-written a track on the new Morgan Wallen album, “Devil Don’t Know.”

“[It’s] just [a] really heartbreakingly sad, heartbreak song, I love it,” Travis says. “I wrote that song in 2020, and he cut it on the first round of some of the songs for the record,” he adds. “The reaction has been really cool, I wrote it with two really good friends of mine [Jared Mullins and Ben Stennis], and I can’t think of a better record to have a song on.”

Don't miss Rob + Holly's full chat with Travis Denning above, and stick around for our continuing coverage from CMA Fest 2023 in Nashville, brought to you by Simple Green,

Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Rob + Holly