In a bizarre twist, Joshua Travis, also known as Josh Travis, of The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza has come forward with a surprising admission: he’s not entirely sure what his role is in the band. This revelation came to light during an interview on The Totally Legitimate Business Podcast. The confusion arose when Travis was absent from the band’s first show in 10 years and promotional materials, with Eric Berngruber taking on the guitarist role instead. The reunion lineup features Jessie “Danza” Freeland on vocals, Mason Crooks on drums, Mike Butler on bass, Layne Meylain on guitar, and Eric Berngruber on guitar.
Travis expressed his uncertainty, saying (as transcribed by thePRP), “What is my current status? Well, I would say over the last two months, I guess I have learned that we have a new guitar player. This guitar player will basically be handling anything that I do, or have done, anytime I’m not there. And I’ve also been hearing things like, maybe we just have three guitar players? So I’ve been kind of waiting to see what’s the… is my role here again? I’ve been kind of waiting to see, I don’t know if I’m gonna have to be a second drummer. Like I don’t know what’s going on yet, but one thing I do know is I don’t have to do vocals and I don’t have to play bass. I do know that for sure. So what is my status?”
Despite the uncertainty surrounding his role in The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, Travis is keeping busy with other projects. He’s still a member of Emmure and works as a touring crew member for A Day To Remember. Although he’s not entirely sure what his role in The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza is, he knows he’s still a part of the band. “Well, I will definitely be here. It’s just little harder because I do still play guitar for Emmure, and I also work for A Day To Remember. [With] A Day To Remember my schedule is like typically set out pretty far in advance. So I’ve been trying to balance just these two, you know, between Emmure and A Day To Remember, and that’s like, hard enough as it is. So then when Danza‘s stuff started coming into it, it was kind of like, ‘I’m probably gonna go jump into a river or a lake or something‘, and then, you know, like, we’ll just see what happens from there. But so we were lucky enough to be able to get [Berngruber] in here, who doesn’t know how to play any of the songs properly.”
It’s clear that Travis is aware of the band’s activities, often referring to them as “we” during the interview. However, it’s still unclear where he stands within the group. He seems to be seeking more information, saying, “But so now, we’re just kind of at this point where it’s like, okay, all of this stuff is slowing down. This is all slowing down. And now this is the first time I have laid eyes on Eric since… 2012….” Travis also mentioned that Berngruber has been teaching Layne Meylain how to play the songs, but not quite correctly. “But, he went in and he taught Layne [Meylain (guitarist)] how to play all of the songs improperly. So, um, we got that going for us. Everything is wrong. We got that going for us.” He also has a fill-in for his role in Emmure, Chris Dombrowski of Sentinels, who has been handling everything in his absence.
