Mushkat is William Travis, a singer-songwriter from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Growing up on military bases across Canada, including Goose Bay, Labrador, and Cold Lake, Alberta, then attending high school in Southern Ontario, Bill has a different collection of life experiences than some. After graduating from the Royal Military College of Canada, in Kingston, Ontario, he moved every year for a while, to Halifax, then South Korea, Northern Saskatchewan, Thailand, and Bolivia. He came to think of himself as ‘geographically unstuck’ and started craving the ability to return home to Halifax. He writes and plays his own style of introspective folk-pop songs with influences like Peter Gabriel, Lou Barlow, Neil Young, David Bowie, and Robert Pollard. He has fronted the groups Sausage and Poplar Mechanics in Kingston, Ontario, as well as The Mary Bean, Mushkat, Flamenco Duro Y Oscuro, and The No Hitters (a Guided by Voices cover band) in Halifax. His favourite place to play in Nova Scotia is The Union Street in Berwick. He plays guitar, bass clarinet, and percussion (“a mean egg shaker”) and has been with his current trio (with Mark Merrimen on bass and Chris Brown on drums) since 2009.