Travis Garland on Landing ‘DWTS’ Singing Gig & His Boy Band Beginnings (Exclusive)

Derek Hough sits down with Travis Garland, one of the amazing singers on “Dancing with the Stars,” for our new “Extra” Spotlight series. 

Travis dishes on his journey to Hollywood, sharing that he grew up in West Texas where his mom sang in the church.

"There's not much of a music scene out there, right? So, growing up, it was always musical theater. It was church, ton of community theater,” he said.

He won an acting competition at 13 and moved to L.A., where he hired an agent and manager.

Garland recalled, "A buddy of mine was in a boy band and he asked me to join his boy band… NLT.”

Travis explained it stands for “Not Like Them,” adding with a smile, “We were just like them."

The singer went on, "I was 15 when I joined the group. Signed my first record deal at 17… we signed with Interscope Records… that was life changing.”

He spent his teen years touring with the Pussycat Dolls and working with Timbaland, Pharrell and Ryan Tedder.

Travis went on to work as a singer for “DWTS,” and has been there for 10 years. He said with social media, his role on the show has been in the spotlight more this season.

“It's been cool to get to show some more behind the scenes work that we put into the show,” he said.

He also explains how the gig came about through Mark Ballas. 

"Mark pulled me in, I think it was in 2015. He wanted me to come in and sing one song for him… ‘Make It Rain’ by Ed Sheeran.”

From there he was hired to join the show as one of the singers.

Plus, Travis dishes on his new Western R&B album “Western Feels.”

"This is a project I started 10 years ago. Kind of threw it in the trash thinking nobody's really checking for like cowboy R&B… and then a little independent artist named Beyoncé started doing sort of that style of music. I threw some of these demos online just to kind of get the temperature. And I got flooded with messages. People were like, ‘What are you doing with this? Release this. We want to hear it.’”