Wanderlust for Life

Glasgow new gravers TRAVIS may have called their mighty new single "All I Wanna Do Is Rock," but that's only half the story. Because they also wanna tour--until their "nuts are raw," in fact. And, as Mark Beaumont found out, they mean it, man. Glasgow rangers: Andy Willsher

Whatever the guise, whatever the demeanour, you will always know the journeyman. He may come by Lear jet, by Transit, or by weary foot with battered acoustic strapped to his back, but it will be in the eyes. That longing glint for the open road--to feel the bugs in his hair, the grit between his toes, and the Ginster's pasty down his cardigan. They call it the Dando Syndrome: the undying need to spread The Word to whoever will take heed.

This sunny Islington afternoon, The Word in question is Travis. And the journeyman in question is one Fran Healy, a man whose fresh features and bright-eyed vigor belie the wisdom and experience beneath. He has come from Scotland via the deepest black hole between the power chords from the stars, and his travelling instincts are rather more obvious than those of most restless troubadors. For wherever Fran lays his arse, that's the place he will be thrown out of within minutes.

"No children allowed, I'm afraid," says an unrepenetant barman, "you'll have to move on."

Singer Fran, guitarist Andy Dunlop, bassist Dougie Payne, and weird-bearded drummer Neil Primrose--purveyors of soaring rock mayhem for the discerning gravester--giggle at each other and grin benignly at their press officer's angelic three-year-old son, who shouts, "Chips!" in response. We saunter over out to the street, pints left in the beer garden to settle. Time, once more, to roam.

"We're gonna tour our nuts off," Fran enthuses, settling uncomfortably into a seat in a nearby fish-and-chips-restaurant-cum-botulism-breeding laboratory, "tour until our nuts are raw! Dry and toasted! Because a band has to get out. That's a band's job."

Brilliant! Here, my aunt's getting married next week, and I was wondering if you'd like the gig? Strictly Chas & Dave covers only, 50 quid in cash, no questions asked.

"FIFTY QUID!" Dougie shrieks. "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! We'll do it now! Get the guitars out of the car!"

Erk. You join us, intrepid ramblers of rock, on a mission. A mission to meet, greet, and blow the feet off everything that could conceivably be called an "audience." To read every crap joke about Menswear on every dressing-room wall in every toilet venue in Christendom. To officially become the Hardest Working Band in Show Business, even if it means learning the harmonies to "Down to Margate" at a week's notice. And mystique? Controversy? Irony? Travis, friends, would happily shove such concepts squarely up Marilyn Manson's cod-satanic rectum. If his head weren't in the way.

"We're trying to eradicate all that shite," Fran snarls. "We fucking hate irony and all this rock'n'rollism. All the smashing hotel rooms and shite, there's nothing rebellious about it because the record company will pay for the damage. Personally, I wanna chuck a hotel out of a window."

"We fucking hate rock'n'rollism. Smashing hotel rooms--there's nothing rebellious about it. Personally, I wanna chuck a hotel out of a window."--Fran Healy

"Jesus, man!" Dougie howls, mop-top a-quiver. "That's a fucking concept!"

A pause. The faint crank of brains stretching.

"Mind you," Fran muses eventually, "all of that will come with time. We're setting ourselves up for a really big fall, really..."

"And let me tell you," Neil intones, "there'll be fucking scandal. This band could give you whatever scandal you're looking for. We do scandal to order."

WA-HEY! How about a spot of salacious homosexual revelation to start us off then?

"Yeah, I love kissing Dougie," Neil deadpans. "He's a great kisser."

"We're all gonna come out to NME!" yelps the ever-yelping Dougie. "We're STRAIGHT!"

Steadfast of sexuality and bereft of scandal as Travis (currently) are, their road to critical acclaim has been warped indeed. Born from the furrowed brows of Glasgow art-school chic, Travis congregated in that city's art-house bars, noted the onslaught of turtlenecks and fondled chins around them, and decided that "irony" was the first sign of terminal wankerdom.

Now confusion, there was the key. Hence their first gig featured Fran in full surgeon's uniform, casting a briefcase full of sweets into the crowd, while their first single--last year's independently released "All I Wanna Do Is Rock"--sounded less like double-necked guitars being licked in earnestness and more like Radiohead being given a dignified funeral at sea. Which means that they didn't really want to "rock" that much at all. Hang on, there's a word for that, isn't there? Let me just grab my dictionary...

"It's not ironic!" Fran insists. "That's what's really brushing people. The song is quite blatantly literal! It was a point in my life where I was like, 'Am I really gonna continue with this?' The 'rock' is the X factor--all I wanna do is be a journalist, all I wanna do is to be a painter and decorator. You either do it or you don't.

"We're not a glam-rock band. We're not a Glitter Gang stomp. There's an innocence to us that none of those bands can touch."--Neil Primrose

"I never went out just to appeal to the cool kids because most of them are middle-class fuckwits who don't have a clue what they're doing. All they know is what's supposed to be happening in the music scene and they blurb off about that. I write for your mum, your wee brother..."

...And would-be child molesters, judging by first single proper "U16 Girls," a chant-along warning against the dubious pleasures of underage rumpo. Nothing controversial about that, obviously. At least not in the eyes of Wunnerful Wun Ef Em, which promptly catapulted them into the Top 40 and into the backlines of the Real Rock vanguard, finally giving them the means to live out their motorway-guzzling fantasies without ending up smelling like Mega City Four.

Andy: "We've got a good bus with a video in it. We don't all cram ourselves in a transit van and sit on a bench..."

Dougie: "...scratching ourselves with wee brown dogs."

The RSPCA will be pleased to hear it. But in an age when any band foolhardy enough to sing about the trials and turmoils of Real Life without first donning Buddy Holly specs and recruiting a comedy keyboard player is immediately labelled new grave and battered to death with old Mission compilations. Aren't you worried about your gigs being overrun by mascara freaks who think the Manics have got too cheerful these days?

"Yeah," Fran agrees, "but they're kids that are just a bit mixed up. There's a little chemical imbalance there. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing--I've maybe got a wee bit of that--but it manifests itself in other ways because I'm not very self-destructive.

"I felt really sorry for one guy who came along with these big slash marks up his arm. To be in that situation, you've got to feel like you're not completely alone and you're not leaving anybody behind you. You must feel so low."

You are asking for it, though, what with writing a song called "Good Day to Die" and all...

"It was a toss-up between 'Good Day to Die' or 'Handful of Pies.' But 'a good day to die' in Red Indian culture means the best day of your life."

"It's like the old tourist slogan 'See Venice and Die'," Andy explains, "because when you've seen Venice, you can die happy."

"Will you be having a main course?" asks an unrepenetant waitress, eyeing closed menus suspiciously, "because if you're not, I'm afraid we can't serve you..."

A journeyman's rest is never languorous. As we trudge wearily back onto the cooling evening pavement, Fran turns his back, smiles at the proprietor, and waves. "I hope your establishment burns to the ground very soon..."

Onward. Towards...

"Woodstock! Loads of acid casualties and more coke than you can throw a stick at!"

The waiter is welcoming. The pizza menu suits all tastes. There are no "Dictaphones forbidden!" signs anywhere. There is beer. Sanctuary.

"And I found out that Woodstock never actually happened there," Fran continues. "It happened 25 miles down the road because they got their license revoked at the last minute. It was still called Woodstock, but it was nowhere near the place!"

And so it was to the birthplace of rock, roll, and nude mudbathing that Travis journeyed to give birth to their immaculate debut album. In a barn. A painless labour of only four days duration, soothed by master midwife Steve Lillywhite. Yet their offspring--a re-recorded, altogether dirtier version of "All I Wanna Do..." for their next single release--was more feisty, energized, and covered in feedback muck than they imagined. It still had Thom Yorke's star-gazing eyes, but it had grown the teeth of a rabid Alsatian and the tonsils of...well, Heavy Stereo having their toenails ripped out, actually.

Neil: "Are you looking for a fight by mentioning Heavy Stereo?"

Yup. D'ya want some?

"Well, we're not gonna get it. We're not a glam-rock band. We're not a Glitter Gang stomp. There's an innocence to us that none of these bands can touch."

"We are all things to all men," muses Fran. "People aren't two-dimensional. On a bad day, they might like 'Good Day to Die.' On a good day, they might like 'Happy.' On a day when they feel like they're falling in love, they might like 'I Love You Anyways.' On a day when they want to go to the pictures, they might like 'Funny Thing'."

Indeed, Travis make music with such broad sweeps--music to make your heart sink, your soul soar, your bowels quake, and your head go, "I wonder if Crash is out yet?" all at the same time--that their debut may well encapsulate all aspects of this kerayzee thang we call "life" in 45 minutes.

Neil: "49, actually."

"Fourty-nine minutes and seven seconds of utter fucking emotional education," Fran beams.

And if it all disintegrates? What would you have on the Travis headstone?

Neil ponders. "'This is the new grave of the new grave'."

"Hello, our names are Steve and Cindy, and we're gonna play a few songs..."

A Sonny and Cher for the Noelrock generation settle into seats two feet away and blast into "Stuck in the Middle with You." Interview rendered inaudible. Fran sighs and his eternal catchphrase lingers in the air, unspoken, unacknowledged but always glimmering in his eyes.

"I'll get me coat."

New Musical Express
June 14, 1997
by Mark Beaumont
photos by Andy Willsher

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