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A Marriage Made in Song | |
Not everyone was so impressed. A few weeks later, the British press give it poor reviews. "[The material's] OK if you're Billie Holiday or Frank Sinatra. But if you're a bunch of blokes from Glasgow, the result isn't tremendous," NME decided.
"It was like having a teacher at school tell you your child was a dunce," remembers Healy, "when you know your kid's intelligent. How could they not see? I'm still bamboozled by it."
Today, Travis is the proud owner of the best-selling British album of 1999, having sold close to 2 million copies throughout Europe, and they've only just begun. Still, Healy and the band can't quite believe the ride they've been on.
"When you watch a film like Superman," Healy explains, "you suspend your disbelief in order to get through the movie from beginning to end. We're definitely suspending something--our ego, maybe? reality?--in order to keep doing what we're doing. If we didn't, we'd be full of ourselves, and that's not like us."
The members of Travis--Healy, Dougie Payne (bass), Andy Dunlop (guitar), and Neil Primrose (drums)--know what it means to be humble. It's the emotional state in which they've spent most of their lives. Three members of the band attended art school, excepting erstwhile bartender Primrose, who went to business school. While painting, Healy realized he'd been deriving more satisfaction from finishing songs than canvasses. After a few pints at the Horseshoe Pub, he, Payne [sic], and Primrose formed a band to play those songs; they secured a publishing deal in 1996. An EP arrived soon after, and a full-length, Good Feeling, followed in 1997. High-profile tours with Oasis and Catatonia fell into place, and Travis began erecting a career edifice. But it wasn't until the band released The Man Who--a laborious project written and recorded in six months and as many studios--that they began earning the kind of attention normally reserved for superstar acts.
"We're not uncomfortable with fame and all that," admits Healy, his deep blue eyes hypnotic. "But fame is a result of trying to get our songs out to as many people as possible. As far as I see it, the only reason why we're on a stage at all is so that the guy in the back can see us."
Still, Healy and Travis seem stunned by all the attention even a full year down the road. "I remember sitting in my house the evening after we played Glastonbury," Healy recalls. "Highlights from the show were on TV, and they were talking about me. 'Fran Healy this' and 'Fran Healy that.' All of a sudden, I was no longer this person. I was a name. By the end of it, I was really freaked out, man."
Those who managed to turn up a copy of Good Feeling will discover that the ragged charm of that album has morphed into a Radiohead-like uber-melodicism, led by Healy's soulful vocals and the band's soaring, eggshell-acoustic pop. Along the way, sonic encounters with Hunky Dory-era Bowie, Bob Dylan- and Joni Mitchell-stlye folk, as well as Brian Wilson pop arise regularly, making the new Travis album a perfect bridge between post-Radiohead Britpop and classic rock.
The churning morality tale of "Turn," the subtle, anxiety-ridden "the Fear," the McCartney-esque "As You Are" all prove Healy's an excellent melodicist and lyricist, with a knack for weaving colorful threads of poetry into traditional story songs. "Every day I wake up along," Healy sings on the heart-hurting adolescent tale "As you Are." On the rather sly but equally revealing "Slideshow," Healy sings about the way he views life unfolding. "There is no design for life/There's no devil's haircut in my mind/There is not a wonderwall to climb or step around/But there is a slideshow and it's so slow/Flashing through my mind."
Healy isn't preoccupied with socio-political observation, but prefers delving into intimate human issues and does so with an empathy that balances the personal and universal.
For Healy, nothing is more important that the song, and he demonstrates a surreal understanding of the art form. "We take pride in what we do, we understand what we do, and what we created is more important than what we are," he says with emphasis. "Lately, I've stumbled on the rather mundane fact that a band needs a song if it's going to be a band. But once a song is out there, it doesn't need a band. It lasts forever. That's where we're coming from. We're just in it for a song. When you write a song, you marry it. It's a contract you sign in blood. When you put a song out there, that contract states that you'll remain faithful to it for as long as it exits. That's what we plan to do."
Following their whirlwind year in Britain, Travis has escorted its "marriage" contract to America. No matter that it's already been a full year since the release of The Man Who (Epic), a full year of touring the same songs and carrying a formidable workload. The band understands that it's more a mission than simply something to do.
"They're good songs," Healy states, "and I don't think we'll tire of them. At least at the end of the day, I'll know that our songs are going somewhere, doing something."
Case in point: The night preceding our conversation, Travis had just played its second U.S. gig on a brief warm-up tour prior to the domestic release of The Man Who. Healy, breathless from the experience, found that even after a nearly two-year absence from Stateside audiences, the songs still hit their mark. "Like I said, we're married to our songs and to take that one step further, the gigs are kinda like sex. Now we're fortunate enough to have sex almost every single day. Sometimes it's a letdown and it's premature ejaculation. But sometimes it's the best sex we've had in our lie. We'd like to keep it that way. Wouldn't you?"
CMJ
It started last May, the month Glasgow quartet Travis released its second album, The Man Who, in Europe. The band, which first came together in 1996, had recently completed recording sessions at Abbey Road with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich. Singer-guitarist Fran Healy recalls kicking back, satisfied with the final mix. "We sat in a room together and said, 'Oh, that's good then. The songs are good, the album's good, and it sounds great.'"
Despite "shite reviews," the record began selling. Each of its first five [sic] singles stuck to the charts, including the epic, cello-lined "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" and since its May release, the album has not left the U.K. Top 20. In fact, in an even lovelier dose of poetic justice, many of the rags that took broad swipes at the record upon its release would later go on to vote The Man Who "Album of the Year."
April 2000
Words: Bob Gulla
Photo: Karen Miller
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