Travis - Melody Maker, October 27, 1999

Good Squealing

As a nation soils its pants in anticipation of The Blair Witch Project, do chart-worriers Travis scare as easily? The lads prepare to meet their Maker...

Welcome to the darkest realms of horror, where things are not as they seem. Where all of Fran Healy's hair, not just that little bit at the front, is standing on end. Where "Turn" means "Turn and run like fuck! It's catching up! Nooo! Aaargghhhhh!" And where you don't feel mild paranoia but full-on, shit-yourself-so-suddenly-you're-propelled-skywards terror.
Have you ever shat yourself Fran?
"No. Not yet."
Well, prepare to strap on the nappy of truth as you face the most terrifying interview of your life. Covering stuff like...
Monsters!
"If I was a Halloween monster, it'd probably have to be a werewolf," the Travis singer muses twitchily. "Of all the horror films I've seen, the one that really affected me and got me really shitting it was An American Werewolf in London. It still gets to me, this guy who can't help turning into a werewolf, who has no control over any of his actions, his hands turn into claws and...Eruggh!
"It's both a fear and fascination thing--I used to draw these hairy hands and feet all over my jotters at school and stuff, scare the shit out of myself."
"Well, I," announces Travis bassist Dougie, "would have to be Dracula, with his nice cape. He's the best dressed of all the Halloween monsters."
Now seems an appropriate time to unveil the Maker's present to the band: the seminal children's pop-up novel Dracula and the Dentist.
"Cool!" beams Fran, as he begins to read. "Deep in the heart of Transylvania, upon a craggy mountainside..."
"I think," Dougie ponders a few seconds later, "that the pivot of the book is Dracula has toothache. And has to go to a dentist. Actually, that's quite sad and tragic. The irony is almost unbearable."
"Have you ever seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer?" screams Fran. "I saw it the other night. Now is that supposed to be a kids' TV show? My god! That was terrifying! All the stuff with necks and blood and killing--that's real hardcore!"
As is...
The Blair Witch Project!
Halloween is, of course, rarely very scary at all. Usually it's just a few children with hats on, demanding food at one's door, and then chucking a concrete bollard through your windscreen, depending on whether they're fed or not. Except this year, there's this little film called The Blair Witch Project.
"I'm very, very excited about the whole thing," gushes Dougie. "One of my friends saw it in New York, and apparently it just stays with you for ages and ages..."
Fran's fairly excited, too: "I check out the Web page the other day, and the way they've played it is completely straight, and it's just an amazing, really simple idea. I'm more excited about seeing that film than I have been about anything, other than Eyes Wide Shut, probably. And that was fucking excellent. Do you think Stanley Kubrick knew he was going to die?"
"I don't think he's dead!" announces Dougie, suddenly veering off into The X-Files territory.
"He might just have moved back to the moon with Louis Armstrong," adds Fran.
If you were the Blair Witch, who would you cast a spell on?
"I'd cast a spell on every politicain in the world," smiles Fran, "so that they wouuld only tell the truth--you'd have John Prescott standing up and going, 'Y'know, Tony. You're such a bollock. You really are.'"
Dougie: "And Tony going, 'John, you've always been a wanker. I had a problem in bed last night. With your wife!' Ha ha!"
Fortune Telling!
This is a scary prospect for two reasons. Firstly, the women doing it are invariably bearded in some way, which is most unsavoury. And secondly, it's all a bit spooky being told what's about to happen. Like if you knew Travis were just about to be asked if they'd ever been to a fortune teller.
Have you ever been to a fortune teller?
"Yeah. Well, indirectly. My mum got her fortune told, and I was in the predictions--she said that she could see me running really, really fast, jumping and then landing. Which was bizarre."
Like launching a pop career and your second album going double platinum?
"Er, well, I thought it was probably something to do with the world record triple jumping. I was always quite good at that."
Dougie?
"I had my fortune told in New York, and it was bobbins. She told me that me and my girlfriend were going to be inseparable, and that turned out to be rubbish. Thing is, it's all self-fulfilling prophecy, isn't it?"
If someone told you this time last year what 1999 held in store for Travis, would you have been scared?
"It's like being a werewolf," Fran decides. "it's the fear and the fascination. If you told me that next year I'd sell 25 million albums, it wouldn't scare me, I'd just be fascinated with how you conquer fame, rather than letting it conquer you. Anyway, paying money for a service like that is wrong. Fortune telling should be freely available on the NHS."
Being Blooody Scared!
"I was really jumpy as a baby, and in lots of ways, I still am," admits Fran. "I don't know if this is unusual, but when we were growing up, our family would do things to scare the living daylights out of us. My Auntie Babs and Uncle Bill would just absolutely scare us to death--I'd be eight years old, and they'd play me stuff like The Exorcist. It would scare the shit out of me!"
"My sister forced me to watch The Omen when I was seven," Dougie remembers. "And I was yelling and crying because I wanted to watch Match of the Day. Then we started watching it, and I was yelling even more!"
"We did this great fright on Andy once, the classiest fright ever," Fran chuckles impishly. "We were up at Dougie's house, and Andy went to the toilet, and I went, 'Right, I'm going to bed,' but I went outside the back door and started knocking the catflap. Andy bends down to let the cat in, and I just go 'Ghwhwgahahaaaa!!!' with this gardening glove on and smash the catflap to bits! Ha ha ha! You've never seen anyone shit themselves so seriously! He ran up the fucking stairs! Just leapt, bolted to the front door! And I was going, 'Sorry, man!' But that was classic! Haha!"
Nightmares!
"I had this horrible recurring nightmare when I was five," Fran begins hesitantly. "It started off fine. There'd be this little girl holding a flower in a terracotta pot, a really calm dream. Then this thing would just move over the window, this thing...Bigger than anything, just this force, this presence, and that was it. It used to scare the shit out of me."
"Oh God!" Dougie nods. "I used to have one like that! This blackness would come over me, and I just coulnd't move, like I was tied down! It went on for years. I also used to have a recurring dream that I was being abducted by aliens who'd arrive in a hot air balloon. They'd take me. And I'd wake up. They didn't harm me but...it was weird."
Maybe you had been abducted...
"Oh God!"
Fran suddenly perks up: "If there's a bunch of beings that are intelligent enough to be able to go through space, then they have to be peaceful. I mean, if humans are the most intelligent lifeforms in the universe, then that's fairly depressing, haha!"
Sounds like you wouldn't actually mind being abducted?
"Yeah, I'd love to be abducted by aliens! Not to be experimented on. Just to have a chat with them, see what they see."
And that is the sound of an intergalactic gauntlet being thrown down. Alternative lifeforms: you have the Maker's address. Make Travis's dream come true.
Melody Maker
October 27, 1999
Bewitched: Peter Robinson (words)
and Jay Brooks (pictures)

Conversions Discography Quotables Mailing List

Comments go in here.