Travis - Melody Maker, 21 June 1997

Brave Free Travis!

Forget irony, glibness and surface gloss--TRAVIS have. They're bursting with belief and unembarrased about wearing their hearts on their sleeves. And they're going to be HUGE.

Fran Healy, singer with Travis, pulls a postcard out of his pocket for me to read.
"What is a poet? A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings but his lips are so strangely formed that, when the sighs and the cries escape them, it sounds like beautiful music."
Someone understands.
"Music doesn't get in the way," says Fran as he busies about the Bristol pizzeria, fetching cutlery, pouring wine, lighting cigarettes. "Bands get in the way. You can destroy a film, you can destroy a painting, but you cannae destroy a tune. It's always been that way and it'll live on forever. So, bands get in the way. I don't really like music because of that. I'm not a real music lover--there's far too much shit about."
"People should realise that they're just sounding boards or mouthpieces for something that would have come into the world anyway," adds guitarist Andy Dunlop.

"Irony has become such a f___ing overused, tiresome, and weary thing. It's sapped all the joy out of life and all the pain as well. What we're trying to do is say that there is joy and pain in life. We're just honest and open."--Dougie

"Travis, as a band," Fran continues, "are just about the songs. But one of the main motivations for writing anything is wooing. Your mother, your girlfriend, whatever. It's like a cat bringing in a mouse and putting it down on the floor: 'Look, I brought you something!' It depends on how many records you sell, but you can woo a lot of people, and they can use your songs to woo other people.
Did you ever write a song for a girlfriend?
"Yeah, once."
Did it work?
"No, I got chucked. I was trying all the wrong doors. A lot of my songs are about one person. A person with all the wrong doors.
"The ideal Travis fan? She's five foot eight, she's got magic tits, beautiful eyes...and she's got a willy! Nah, everybody should like us."

It wasn't the most inspired question, sure. Because the answer is obvious. The thing about Travis is that they really are all things to all people. Play them to a random selection of musical guinea pigs and each one will fall into a woozy slump as their eyes blissfully gloss over; they'll tell you that this, this is exactly the kind of music they really love. But every one of them will have heard something totally different, at the same time, in the same song. Which is pretty unique for a band who, so far, have only released two proper singles.
"It's a nice feeling," sighs Fran. "That's a massive compliment. Our music does seem to touch certain different people at certain different points. That's one of the most important things a band can do, putting an exclamation mark at the end of a certain part of human experience, any part. It's a really special thing, and I think we are a special band. Having said that, we have been around for six years. I'd say there have been three geneses, three times where we've dropped all the songs and started afresh. It'll happen again with the songs we're doing now. You can't be afraid to do that. There's better songs, better albums to come."

"We're not necessarily a serious band--or a joking band either, for that matter. We're just human."--Neil

Do you feel lucky? Every word that's written about you, every comment that's uttered is bursting with enthusiasm, with the certainty that Travis are the latest in a long line of Next Big Things.
"I'm never happy, man. I'm not content, and I don't think you should be. Sometimes I lie with my head in my pillow, and I'm like, 'We're shit, I hate this.' And I'm not just saying that so people will go, 'Ah, you're all right, you're great.' I'm really very, very self-critical. You cannae ever get complacent.
"If we don't make our next record better than this one," says Andy, "why are people gonna want to listen to it?"
"And, if it is shit," adds Fran, "I'll be the first to admit it."
Never gonna happen. Not if their live set is anything to go by. Let me set the scene. Bristol's Louisiana venue--very small, very crowded, very hot. Hardly the kind of place you'd expect a band who have been blowing Reef, Longpigs, and Mansun offstage for the past six months. Four men, grins the span of the Clifton Suspension Bridge and expectations just as high. Ten songs to scratch into the hearts of every single person present: "Hazy Shades of Gold," a riot, screamed out through the swagger of total confidence; the last single, "U16 Girls," and the revel of "Tied To The Nineties" sending the crowd up into the air with every note, letting their feet touch down momentarily on the floor before flicking them up again with yet another wave of energy; "Good Feeling," the ultimate pull on every muscle, on every emotion. Everyone stops dancing mid-air to feel a chill shake right through their spine. Pause. Wait. Oh, we're never going home. "Good Day To Die," packing all the force of Prince Naseem on PCP, Fran scraping notes of the ceiling, clawing them down again before spinning off into a chorus which doubles back on itself with the recoil of a cannon.

And the biggest, the most incredible, breathtaking monolith of sound we've ever heard--Travis's new single, "All I Want To Do Is Rock." Back last October, when it was first released as a 10-inch on the band's own Red Telephone Box label, when Travis were just another unknown Glasgow rock group, this was the greatest single I thought I'd ever heard. Single Of The Week. No question. Tonight, it's just the big bang--everything that goes to make up the universe of rock condensed into one, small pocket of sound, bursting, throbbing, pushing out to explode. It pulls me inside out. No one blinks.
"I knew we were going to make it when I wrote 'All I Want To Do Is Rock'," says Fran later that night, as we drive back to London after the gig. "You can write songs till the cows come home, then one day something strange happens and you write something that you've never done before. After that, my confidence shot up.
"But, you know when you've got the flu and you can't remember what it was like to be well," he continues. "And, when you get better, you can't remember what it was like being ill? Well, when you write a good song, two days later you're like, 'I'll never, ever write another f___ing good song!' You're always on that line--which is a good place to be at."
Do you see yourself becoming a hero, Fran?
He stops to think for a moment, furrowing his eyebrows just like he does onstage. It's his trademark; it's adorable.
"Maybe I would like to be a hero--well, I think I'd make a good one. Why? Because I'm not a wanker. The over-riding thing is just to be nice, kind to people. It's nice to be nice."

"The thing is, with that tag of New Seriousness, when people come and see us, they come away loving it. We play with a smile in our eyes--not an ironic smile though, a smile of pure joy. Of belief. New Seriousness tends to take away from that."--Andy

Listen to the very first note of "All I Want To Do Is Rock," and you'll hear what makes Fran a hero. It's the howl, his delirious wail, that sense of giving everything. Of having everything to give. It's a howl which spans every emotion, every thought and hope, every urge and expression. A howl like no other, much warmer and much more approachable than Kurt Cobain's last-stand hue and cry. And, despite frequent comparisons, it's unlike Thom Yorke's bitter primal scream, too. Maybe only Janis Joplin's holler comes close. It is astonishing. Travis are that how, aren't they, Fran?
"Sure. When you listen to one of our records, you're listening to belief on magnetic tape. It's like, Liam Gallagher is a fantastic singer. He makes you believe that his songs are really good when, in fact, they're actually pretty average. He believes those songs are brilliant, so he sings them with belief. And Thom Yorke, I suppose. But it's different with him, 'cos he's singing in a really twisted way. Which is admirable, I guess. I met Colin their bassist once, and he was going, 'I really like your band...blah, blah, blah...I play bass myself.' So I asked him what his band was called, and he said, 'Radiohead.' Doh! I'll get my coat. But he came to see us in Oxford and everything; he really likes our stuff. But come out, tell me about the Radiohead comparisons. Do you think Radiohead could have written 'Tied To The Nineties'?"
No, but they could have written "Good Day To Die."
"Yeah, but could we have written...'Creep'?"
Yes.
"Well, that's the point. Ah, I don't know. Ask the question again, Robin."
New seriousness, new dangerous categorisation. But there is something to be said for this particular herding together, and undoubtedly, New Seriousness works far better as a tag than New Grave. Sincerity is such a loaded word but it would be better still. It's only belief. So, is there a problem with that?
Travis's bass player Dougie Payne enters the fray: "I think that you should call in New Non-Irony. Irony has become such a f___ing overused, tiresome, and weary thing. It's sapped all the joy out of life and all the pain as well. What we're trying to do is say that there is joy and pain in life. We're just honest and open."
As does Neil Primrose, Travis's drummer: "We're not necessarily a serious band--or a joking band either, for that matter. We're just human."
"I don't think we are or ever have been part of any scene," says Fran. "The Bends was fine, it was wonderful, it was soul-wrenching, and it made you feel great when you'd just been chucked. But I can't see the connection with us."

"Bands are like dogs," adds Andy. "They've got really short life spans. In terms of bands, Radiohead are two generations away from us."
Sure. "All I Want To Do Is Rock" led the new... whatever, back in October. You were always at the front, so why back out now?
"The thing is," explains Andy, "with that tag of New Seriousness, when people come and see us, they come away loving it. We play with a smile in our eyes--not an ironic smile though, a smile of pure joy. Of belief. New Seriousness tends to take away from that."
Fair enough. Travis are a pleasure, but I'd hate anyone to think you were a simple "laugh," just as much as I'd hate people to think you were a bunch of misery merchants. It's about treasuring the lows as well as the highs, isn't it?
"People have cycles," answers Fran. "Remember that night when I was round your house, Dougie? I wasn't suicidal, but I was fairly...the thing that was making me feel so bad was that I couldn't put my finger on it. It was like an itch I couldn't scratch. I was throwing all these things at it--but it was just a low point."
"I remember when I was dumped by this girlfriend of mine," interjects Dougie. "I was heartbroken, completely devastated, on the floor, lying prostrate for f___ing days on end. But there's a funny sort of pleasure in that. When you've got that depressive side to your character, it's not those moments which make you feel the most wretched. It's those times when nothing is there, when you're at your emptiest."
Andy jumps in. "You know when you've read about two pages of a book and you haven't taken a single thing in? That's the lowest point in life--when you go through life for two days without feeling like you haven't lived at all. If you're feeling joy and you're feeling pain, then at least you're alive."
"That's why I like the name 'Embrace'," says Fran, referring to Travis's biggest competition for the Band of '97 title. "I remember once, when everything was going wrong and Dougie said to me, 'Embrace it, go with it. Go with everything. Never, ever fight it or you'll end up having a nervous breakdown.' That's the point, that's the thing. Live every moment as if it were your last. Play every song as if it were going to be the last song you every play. The New Humanity--that's what it should be called! Every song we play is actually celebrating something--either celebrating happiness or celebrating sadness. We don't wallow."

"What is a poet? A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings but his lips are so strangely formed that, when the sighs and the cries escape them, it sounds like beautiful music."--Fran

North London. Home. One last question, Fran. "All I Want To Do Is Rock?" It's not really about, um, rocking--is it? How horny a bugger are you?
"Me? Very. Very. I'll tell you what it's about. It's about my ex-girlfriend. She was working, doing her A-levels at college. And as soon as she got a bit of time off, she went and got this f___ing job at a hospice. I never got to see her. I was like, 'COME ON, I WANNA...' So, all I wanna do is rock? All I wanna do is f___. As time goes by, the meaning's changed, but even then, it was about far more than shagging.
"It goes: 'If this was any other day/I'd turn and walk the other way/Today I'll stay.' You know how people walk out if they're not getting enough? But that frustration didn't really seem to matter to me. Still, in the end, she left me! Girls of that generation--all they wanted were rugby players with rippling muscles.
"It's about so many things now. All I wanna do is be with these three guys, in this van. 'Rock' being the word that rhymes with 'sock.' It could be anything--all I wanna do is crochet. All I wanna do is be an athlete. All I wanna do is feel passionate about something. All I wanna do is smoke, actually...have you got a cigarette? Cheers.
"You know what I was saying earlier on, that all my songs are about one person? That person isn't my ex. That person is me. That's what the songs are about. And they always will be."
Melody Maker
June 21, 1997
Interview: Robin Bresnark
Photos: Martyn Strickland

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