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Cash for Questions | |
You exhausted our mailroom staff with letters about breakdowns, that mohican, and relative "tackle size." In turn they coughed up about stolen fireplaces and being "slightly queer." Travis, your public is writing to reach you...
Travis tumble through through the doors of Mayfair Studios in London's Primrose Hill on this January midday, fresh-faced from their longest period of time off in three years. And despite the fact that they've been apart for nearly a month, they appear to comfortably fall back into their old pally routine.
You exhausted our mailroom staff with letters about breakdowns, that mohican, and relative "tackle size." In turn they coughed up about stolen fireplaces and being "slightly queer." Travis, your public is writing to reach you...
Travis tumble through the doors of Mayfair Studios in London's Primrose Hill on this January midday, fresh-faced from their longest period of time off in three years. And despite the fact that they've been apart for nearly a month, they appear to comfortably fall back into their old pally routine.
Talk turns to their recent televisual viewing habits. This, it seems, is the Travis equivalent of a water-cooler moment.
"Did you see Blind Date?" ventures Dunlop. "There was this guy on wearing just this wee strappy top."
"What? Was he nice?" a deadpan Dougie Payne enquires. "Did you fancy a wank?"
The cosiness of their surroundings have helped the familial vibe. Travis and Mayfair Studios go hack some way. It was here in 1998 that they were forced into hastily swapping the master tapes of "Writing To Reach You" for another track, following an impending visit by the then-neighbouring Liam Gallagher, lest Healy have to conjure up a reasonable explanation for the line, "What's a wonderwall anyway?" Today the business is B-sides for "Flowers In The Window," the third single to be lifted from current album The Invisible Band.
Before then, of course, there's proper work to be done. The quartet eyes the pile of letters from Q readers with mock trepidation. "This'll be alright," reasons Payne, "as long as we don't have to give them all 25 quid each for their questions."
Time to earn your cash then, readers...
What drugs have you taken?
Fran, what lie did you tell when you were 17?
Is it true that Fran cracked up between the making of The Man Who and The Invisible Band?
Do the other three in the band ever get jealous of Fran getting all the songwriting money?
Could Neil "have" the others in a scrap? Has there ever been a physical fight in Travis?
Fran have you seen your dad lately?
The cover of Q's 15th Anniversary issue suggests that Fran is going grey and
that he had a mohican to disguise it. His comments please.
Is it true that after Fran's house was photographed in Heat magazine, it was burgled and loads of fireplaces stolen?
Paul McCartney has been claiming he was involved in the making of The Invisible Band. Is this true and what did he do?
In Q186, someone asked Kid Rock to smash you across the head. Any idea why?
Do you follow the Tartan Army chant of "We're only here to drink your beer and shag your fuckin' women?"
Dougie, are you and your missus, Kelly Macdonald, the Scottish Posh 'n' Becks?
Andy Dunlop! I've seen you play live many times and watched your stage moves. Do you consider yourself "rock"?
Can we have a few more fast songs like the ones on your first album, Good Feeling, when you make your next record?
Do Neil, Andy, and Dougie ever worry that Fran's girlfriend Nora might do a Yoko?
My girlfriend wants to know whose bum it is on your website.
I read an interview where you said you'd cracked America. No offence but your album went into the American chart at Number 39 and dropped like a sack of spuds the next week.
Do you ever worry that you've peaked?
Have you ever forgiven Q for giving The Man Who a two-star review?
Who's got the biggest tackle in the band? And who's got the smallest?
Q
In fact, such is their familiarity that Q wonders aloud whether they met up socially during the Christmas break. All four shuffle awkwardly, the unspoken message being clear: Nae way, pal. Travis being Travis, of course, they make diplomatic noises about being in different parts of the country for most of the time. Or in different countries, even, as evidenced by the glow of Andy Dunlop's Mauritius tan.
Brian Golding, Bristol
Andy: Well, I'm on antibiotics at the moment. [Produces bottle] Claricid. 200mg, man, you know what I'm saying?
Dougie: I'm on antibiotics as well. [produces another bottle] Metronidazole. I've got a slight abscess on my tooth. Only 200mg though.
A: Ah, ya pussy.
Fran: As far as illegal drugs go, I think we can safely say that all of us have sampled everything. Apart from heroin. And glue. There aren't any glueheads in Travis.
Neil: We've done our fair share, but nothing ridiculously bad for you.
Stuart Wilson, Edinburgh
F: I cannot tell you that. It's nothing big. But if I told you, I'd have to kill you.
Laura Baum, Boston
F: Yeah, Christmas 2000. I think I'd just overloaded on work and the pressure of having to write another four songs for the record. It was that way when you can't talk to anyone. Especially at Christmas, cos everyone's all, Oh hello, do you like my sparkly dress? So I just took the phone off the hook. I didn't want to go out, didn't want to talk to anyone. It only lasted about two or three weeks, then I went up to Scotland for New Year and that sorted me out. If you've been on the road for as long as we have--last year we were probably home for about two months--you're gonna suffer from what Peter Buck calls tour psychosis. The more times you go round the circuit, the more you get used to it. Last year I felt a lot better after coming off tour.
Raymond Harvey, London
N: No.
A&D: 'Cos he writes all the songs!
Timmy Eden, Coventry
N: We've never had a proper barney no. We've had a few words, but to be honest, we're so fucking nice that we could never contemplate it.
F: I remember we had one big argument in Buchanan St. bus station in Glasgow when we first got a publishing deal. It was directed purely at the two guys who aren't in the band any more. I remember going absolutely spare, grabbing my balls and going, Get some fucking haws! But no, we've never come to blows. I think if it came to blows that would be it.
Mark Evans, Bradford
F: No. Anything to add? Definitely not.
Marcy Moss, Swansea
F: The mohican's not to disguise it...I'm quite happily going grey. I started going grey as soon as we got a record deal, and I'm hoping to be silver by the time I'm 35. But I don't have the mohican any more. It was just too recognizable--I could never walk down the street. The other thing is that everybody fucking got one of those haircuts now, it's ridiculous. I'd rather just have normal hair. I'm waiting for the first grey pube, actually.
Jane Bennington, Colchester
F: Aye. They printed a photo of the house with the number on it, said where it was--and mentioned the fact that no one was living there yet. The next week I went round the house and the door was hung off its hinges. Then I saw that the fireplaces had gone, but they'd done a really professional job. There was just spaces in every wall where the fireplaces were. It's a Victorian house, so every room had one. They took six! Luckily we weren't going to keep them all anyway. It's annoying and stuff, but then again, y'know I get Heat myself.
D: Not from the fireplaces any more...
Alan Hopkins, London
F: That was in the Sun. It was a kind of ambiguous quote about when we met Paul McCartney at the Apocalypse Tube. We played him "Flowers in the Window," and I said to he Sun that, by about the last chorus, he knew the song, so he finished it off--meaning he'd already learned it by hearing it, so he finished singing it. But they thought I meant he actually finished writing it.
Cheryl Clark, Perth
F: Probably because of the way we're perceived. I'm sure that half the people who love us and half the people that hate us, if they actually knew us...
N: ...They'd all want to batter us.
F: Nah, I'm sure they'd all swap around. The people who love us would hate us and vice versa. I can only assume that it's because we so nice. Which is absolute shite. Anyway, we like Kid Rock. You don't want to hit a badass from Detroit.
Gerry McCafferty, Airdrie
F: No. With us, it's more like, We're only here, we're slightly queer, to entertain your women.
Fiona Ceppel, Dundee
D: No, we're quiet and we like staying in, we're not big on going out. Although we did go to the Lord Of The Rings premiere, just because we were dying to see the film. We were walking down the red carpet thing to get into the cinema, and one of the people doing the interviews was like, So we never really get to see you two out, is this a new public face for you? And we're like, Aw fuck off, we just want to see the film. If you want to be a celebrity, you've got to be mental.
Hal Milligers, Sunderland
A: Nah, I think I'm more of a fanny really. The jumping about started 'cos I was so shit-scared onstage that I thought a moving target would be less easy to hit. I would love to just stand there and look cool like Keith Richards with a cigarette hanging out my mouth, but I can't do it. As soon as I get up there, I start acting like a fanny. It's not an attempt at anything, it's more of a nervous reaction. Like a rash.
Kevin Yelt, Doncaster
F: Yeah, probably. But then, there're bands like Feeder and Weezer who do it a lot better than we do, and all bands should do what they do best. We learned on Good Feeling that we can't do fast that well. Y'know, the most successful song on that album was "More Than Us."
A: Actually, "All I Wanna Do Is Rock" is slower than anything on The Man Who, it's just louder.
D: Exactly. It's not so much about speed, it's about running things up. Which we may well do on the next record. Or not.
N: At the moment, nu-metal is doing all that. We know what we're good at.
Which band member has got the biggest gay following?
Alan Kert, Warwickshire
D: Andy...
A: Yeah, that's just when I'm walking around the streets though.
D: It has to be Franny, having been on the cover of Attitude magazine.
A: The month after it appeared, there was a letter from this guy--Gordon from Chester--saying, "Fran from Travis can strum my guitar anytime..."
F: There's some boys who like Big Neil, some who like Cuddly Andy, some who like Weird Sexy Franny, and some who like Big Sexy Dougie.
Jess Brydon, Colchester
[Silence followed by mild sniggering]
D: No...
F: Actually Nora's coming in the studio today. We've got a bed coming...
A: Yeah, she's got a bit of a cold.
N: She's gonna mix the records from now on.
F: And sing...
Stuart Paterson, London
F: Oh, that's my arse. It looks bigger in the picture than it really is. It was when we were in Air Studios and we first put the webcam on. It's the kind of thing you do when you first put a webcam on. Unfortunately, people keep these things.
Marc Parkinson, Bradford
F: None of us have ever said we've cracked America. It's the press that've said that, but please, man, don't put words into our mouths. We've not cracked America. You've got to have worked there for 10 years solidly to do that. In terms of touring, we've cracked America. We can play to 2,000 to 3,000 people pretty much right across the whole country. But in terms of records, forget it, we're not there. So stop believing what you read in the press, ya walloper.
Martin Bradley, Mold
D: No. If we've peaked commercially, then fair enough. There's no way you can control how what you do is gonna be received. But I don't think we have... creatively, there's loads of places to go.
F: The first harvest is always the most impressive. With the first album, we sowed seeds up and down the country and for about two years you looked out the window, and the field was still the way it was the day before. Then when The Man Who came out, the whole field was like a green carpet. Whether that'll be our peak or not, I don't know.
D: I don't think you can ever worry about whether you've peaked or not, and you'll not know about it 'til after the fact anyway.
Stuart Moss, Barnsley
F: Naw. But it's quite funny because we got the Q Award for Best Album that year. I remember being really fucked off at the time though.
A: It was a pretty black hour in Glasgow Airport departure lounge when we first got the magazine, as I remember.
D: Aye, you hurt our feelings, ye bastards!
Dave Linley, Liverpool
A: None of us keep chickens...
D: I think to divulge that would just remove the mystique. You've got to keep certain things under wraps.
March 2002
Text: Tom Doyle
Photography: Eva Vermandel
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