Caleb Travers & Big City Lights are set to release their debut CD, “Blue Weathered Dreams,” this Saturday at the Off Broadway.

Travers, who has been paying his dues in local clubs for the past few years, has a low, of-the-earth type voice. The tracks are marked by moaning harmonica and wailing steel guitar work by veteran pedal-steel player, Scott Swartz. It’s a well-produced, genuine alt-country effort that evokes rural travels, family hardships and perseverance.

I caught up with Travers after his band did an ‘in studio’ at KDHX on Roy Kasten’s show. He has been hit with the flu this week, just as he is set to release the album.

RC: How did the radio set go?

CT: We did O.K. It was a miracle I was able to get out of bed. We chose songs that were lower on the register so my voice could handle it.

RC: Where are you from?

CT: I was born in Cookville, Tenn. Then we moved to Tucson, then Paducah, where I spent most of my childhood. I came here six years ago when I was 20.

RC: Was your family musical?

CT: My dad was a very serious jazz drummer and a music major at SEMO in Cape Girardeau. After he met my mom, they got involved with traveling in a Pentecostal, charismatic, spirit-filled 1970s type of thing. They would travel a lot playing music in evangelical revivals.

RC: Do your childhood experiences play into your music?

CT: The song “Annie” is autobiographical, though my father wasn’t that much of an ass. The song was re-written four or five times. It’s about dreams in general. My parents wanted to live idealistically. They believed in a religion and a way of life and they were going to turn out a certain way. It was terrifying for me to be in my twenties and realizing that my parents are drastically different and it got me thinking, how much different am I going to be decades from now? So a lot of my songs are about dreams and aspirations. Some of the songs also draw from the married life. I got married a few years ago and Jeff Tweedy’s (Wilco) career has always been a big encouragement for me as a married songwriter. It’s an interesting shift from being single and always having new material to write about. Now it’s more of a slow burn. Tweedy has always been a good model, showing that it can be done.

RC: You came to roots music later, correct?

CT: In college I listened to post-grunge and some metal. Some cryptic stuff like Nine Inch Nails. When I first heard it, I could see the downward spiral and I didn’t know what to do with it! It was alarming and frightening but gripping at the same time. So now I try to write music that is dark and dramatic but also gets at a timeless quality.

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Next week the band will travel to Columbia, Mo., where “the billboards get weird,” according to Travers. “Why are vasectomy reversals so popular outstate?” he wonders.

Upcoming

Feb 9 - CD RELEASE at Off Broadway

Feb 16 - Cherry Street Artisan, Columbia, Missouri

Feb 22, 28 & March 1 - Maya Cafe, Maplewood

Mar 13 - Erato Wine Bar

Apr 10 - Mangia Italiano

July 17 - Sounds at the Station Free Concert, Union Station