The Traveller brings home two wins

The Traveller, a Centurion-based instrumentalist, is out to make his mark on the local music scene, with two wins at this year’s South African Independent (Afri-Indie) music awards.

Andre Liebenberg, the guitar maestro behind The Traveller, is no stranger to local music having worked with well-known names from his early days with the likes of Piet Pompies and Kurt Darren.

The Traveller made his first impact winning an award at last year’s Afri-Indies, putting the fire in him to take home Best Instrumental Album and Best Instrumental Single at this year’s awards.

“I am very grateful for the recognition. A lot of hard work goes into these compositions. Because you are not necessarily working with lyrics, you’re working with melody, you have to put a lot of thought and time into it; so to get recognition for that is awesome.

“It takes a lot more effort and skill for an instrumentalist to hold its own. It has taken me long to get to the point I am at now, to understand it from top to bottom.”

When he started his music journey in the early ’90s, he knew he had a dream he wanted to fulfil, but he had to learn some lessons first.

“A brain would have been useful then,” Liebenberg told Rekord shortly after his wins.

“Back then, I had to learn about the financial side, how to make money from music and that took years to learn.”

He is now finding his feet in his solo career as an instrumentalist, using his years of experience to showcase his masterful storytelling abilities with little more than his guitar and his go-getter attitude.

Liebenberg puts everything he has into making sure he puts out music that he uses to express himself, but also gives something to his listeners that can engage with and become part of his instrumentals.

“Often I can sit working on my music for hours and hours. I have an album that I worked on that isn’t even out yet, and that took a month and a half working eight hours a day.”

His experience alone isn’t enough, and he finds that his learning never stopped.

“I have had to learn to compartmentalise everything. Like at the moment I have to juggle getting ready for my show on the 22nd (April), getting the new songs perfect for the live performance while working on my new stuff and the behind-the-scenes work such as social media and publicity.”

The Traveller started taking off around 2015.

“Before that, I was part of a duo called the Mischief Guitar Duo. We were really going for it, we were on TV, and we were guest artists at many events. Then my partner (Rudo van Staaden) got married, had kids and had to move to Cape Town, which made it hard to manage.

“So I wondered to myself what I would do now. My first passion was instrumental, so The Traveller was born from there. I started writing my own instrumentals, not for two but just for one, and it kinda got born from there.”

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Liebenberg doesn’t confine himself to a specific space, but experiments with genres such as rap and gospel while always keeping his eyes on his goals.

“Being an instrumentalist is hard. I end up playing sessions for other artists, but there are times when I have to put my foot down. I have a dream, and I am going to chase it. I’ll give up a couple of gigs to go do one show as The Traveller and get myself out there.”

While he works very hard to perfect his art for his listeners, Liebenberg said that his talents came quite naturally.

“It is just a natural form of expression for me, I can really pull emotion from it. A lot of the inspiration from my pieces, and instrumental music is so open for interpretation, so when you listen to something you might think of the sunset or something, but that isn’t necessarily where I come from,” he says.

“A lot of what I create comes from my life experiences. Like my song ‘Winter Memories’ – last winter for me was particularly memorable. A lot of things happened in my life, and it was a hard time, so that’s where that came from, it is how I express my feelings.

“The only way for me to effectively express myself is through my music. I sometimes struggle to express myself and read social settings, so it is kind of my voice.”

Liebenberg is a family man who is driven by his love for them.

“My son is a big inspiration for me. I have watched him transform into a great young man, and with very little help from myself, he has been able to overcome some great obstacles. He is very inspirational to me.”

He said that his biggest fan and muse will always be his wife.

“She is such a rock in my life. A lot of my music comes from her. The song that won the award, ‘She Is’, is all about her. She loves my music, she says it gives her peace.”

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