Abandoned balloon rides, randy dogs, a stricken rollerblader,
an animal-free zoo, and a gigantic
sheet of blue card ripping in the wind... It's midday in the currently blustery south London
borough of Battersea and Travis's Q photo shoot is turning into an ever more surreal
pile-up of
unlikely incidents.
The Scottish quartet turn up promptly at 12, ready to board SuperSky Trips' "great balloon
experience, a thrilling ride over London." Despite hangovers and guitarist Andy Dunlop's fear of
heights, the band are eager to pose for aerial snapshot. However, the prevailing wind speeds
instantly ground the tethered airborne sightseeing platform.
"What a bummer," decides singer Fran Healy. "I was all up for a bit of up, up, and away in my
beautiful fucking balloon."
With balloon fun ruled out, our players relocate to Battersea Park to attempt to reconstruct the
cover of The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds in the children's zoo. But on reaching the zoo,
there's one
problem--seemingly all available llamas, kangaroos, and capybaras have also taken note of the
weather and disappeared into their homes. A third picture idea is scuppered when the Q
photographer's portable backdrop is repeatedly ripped in the gale. Now, a fourth gambit is about
to be tried, only for yet another unexpected obstacle to enter the frame.
As the band prepare to strike a pose, their attention is wrenched away by the sound of a female
rollerblader crashing to the ground. From the moment the woman crunches onto the tarmac, its
clear she won't be getting up in a hurry. There are groups who would affect rock star-ish
insouciance in such circumstances, but Travis aren't one of them. Healy hurries over, surveys the
damage (shattered ankle, unfortunately) and then whips out his mobile to summon the emergency
services. Within 10 minutes, this tableau has been augmented by police car, ambulance, several
passers-by, and a pack of cavorting dogs.
"Look at that bastard," observes bassist Dougie Payne, as one mutt presses its suit with a passing
collie. "'Trying to get a wee shag."
The day's events have been oddly in keeping with Travis--a
band who pour out
Radiohead-flavoured gravitas one moment and sound like The Monkees over-provisioned with
Tennant's Super the next. For, just as Travis are happy to contemplate balloon-based buffoonery
one minute and then offer impromptu emergency assistance the next, this is a band whose debut
album, Good Feeling, mixes the "Digsy's Dinner"-esque "Tied To The '90s" with the
broodingly emotive "Funny Thing"--knockabout good cheer followed by a manifestly
heartfelt ballad. And, if this mirroring of Travis's song-based schizophrenia wasn't enough, the
sheer force of the parkland scene fits perfectly with the Travis band credo. They call it The Stupid
Factor--an all-purpose nostrum that advocates rolling with the chaos that surrounds you,
oblivious to the consequences.
"Aye, The Stupid Factor!" enthuses a grinning Healy. "We believe very strongly in The Stupid
Factor. It's about going totally over the top with the most insane idea and not worrying what
anyone thinks."
"People said 'U16 Girls' (Travis's first single) was ironic," adds Payne. "It wasn't, it was
stupid."
With its suggestion of calculated dumbness, The Stupid Factor smacks of modern art
conceptualism. Which isn't that surprising; Payne, Healy, and Dunlop all attended Glasgow
School Of Art--only drummer Neil Primrose missing out on this educational interlude.
|
| "Why can't we do serious and funny? I think with us, you'll only get the whole story at the end of the career. How many albums that'll be, I don't know. But we're not out for the short term."--Andy |
|
Travis are a strange crew. All 24 or 25, they are something of a gang of latter-day Jack
Kerouacs--dreamers' hearts hiding just behind the gruff phizogs of men's men. Thus, they smoke
many fags and give constant expression to the traditional Pictish lexicon of "pish," "shite," and
"cunt." But, at the same time, they give each other numerous little hugs and tugs of physical
affection. Healy is apt to describe his songs as "belief on magnetic tape" and pull out postcards
bearing starry-eyed inscriptions: "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 he sighs it sounds like beautiful
music."
Pressed for key musical influences, they will decide on such hardy perennials as Neil Young,
Dylan, and "the blues." But for every musical reference, there's likely to he a nod to the wider
arts. Because, for all their now full-time dedication to rock, Travis remain very much an art school
band.
"At Glasgow I did a painting that was The Stupid Factor incarnate," reveals Healy. "It was the
last painting I did before I dropped out. I remember walking in and overhearing the tutors saying,
That fucking thing is not going on the wall. All it was was a painting of a model with a big stupid
cartoon head drawn on. It did have a big cartoon cock as well, but I think it was the head that
upset them. It was called Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em."
Now at Mayfair Studios in London's Primrose Hill, Healy strums through the Embrace ballad
"Fireworks" (the bands played together last night in Oxford). In the control room sits Tim
Simenon, producer of the last Depeche Mode album and the man behind Bomb The Bass. He's
here ready to record a new version of Travis's "Funny Thing."
"Oh yeah, Tim," considers Healy, looking up from his guitar. "A new dance direction? No, not
really--I was just out having a drink one night, and I got talking to him and I thought he was dead
nice...It seemed like he'd be a good laugh to work with."
Such top-flight production opportunities and plush recording environments are a long way from
this band's formative months. A part-time job in a shoe shop was instrumental in bringing them
together, as was an art school party which ended in the four eventual Travises "lying on the floor
talking about The Monkees." Subsequently, the four would meet up at Glasgow's Horseshoe Bar,
where Primrose worked as a barman. At the time Primrose and Dunlop were in a band called
Glass Onion.
"We were terrible," admits the drummer with a shrug. "Fuck, we were turning into a Starship for
the '90s." He grimaces at the memory of the authors of "We Built This City (On Rock 'N' Roll)."
Primrose is the earthy foil to the more fanciful Healy. It's a role in keeping with Primrose's
idiosyncratic childhood. Growing up in the Strathclyde town of Cumbernauld, he was so
enamoured with his parents' record collection that he spent his formative years wishing he was
Levon Helm, bearded, rustically-attired drummer with The Band.
Primrose decided, in 1991, that Glass Onion were going nowhere and phoned Healy with a
proposition. Soon Healy was complementing his artistic endeavours with making music with
Primrose, Dunlop, and a bassist who "modelled himself on Mark King from Level 42." Songs
were written and gigs played, but nothing happened until Healy decided to drop art and play
music full time.
Financed by £600 borrowed from Healy's mum, the band went into the studio. Following
these demo sessions, the summer of 1995 brought a publishing deal from Charlie Pinder of Sony
Music. Such was the band's gratitude that they briefly contemplated calling themselves Pinder.
The next step was the replacement of the Level 42-loving bass player with Healy's friend Payne.
Then, on June 1, 1996, the band moved en masse to London, taking up a Help!-style
communal residence in a north London house. They decided to put out their own single, choosing
"All I Wanna Do Is Rock," the first song they'd ever played together. A total of 750 copies were
released on their own Red Telephone Box label.
It was at this point that Andy Macdonald entered the picture.
In 1983, Macdonald founded Go!
Discs and launched it with a single by Sheffield three-piece The Box. By the time he'd added
Portishead, Gabrielle, and The Housemartins/Beautiful South to his roster and provided a womb
for Paul Weller's career rebirth, Macdonald had established a reputation as one of the music
world's canniest talent-handlers. Polygram, owners of 49 per cent of Go! since 1987, had recently
pocketed the remainder for further millions, and Macdonald was looking for the right band to
launch his new label, Independiente. After hearing a Travis tape and bumping into Healy at
London's Splash club, he was convinced that Travis were that band.
"I'd got this tape," he recalls. "It had two songs--'All I Wanna Do Is Rock' and 'Funny Thing.'
That was so intriguing, because you had a full-on feedback rock anthem followed by this lovely
emotional ballad. I just wondered what was in between."
A show at Camden Town's Dublin Castle filled in the missing information.
"They had such great songs," remembers Macdonald. "And Healy had a great voice, and the band
had a great mixture of humour and passion. I immediately thought this was a band who could play
anywhere and be brilliant."
Travis's debut for Independiente label was the single "U16 Girls," an upbeat blast of pop-rock
whipped on by a great voice that somehow combined Marti Pellow and Kurt Cobain. "U16 Girls"
was widely read as a paean to the joys of young female flesh. In fact, it was actually intended as
something like the opposite--a quietly moralistic warning against such decadence.
"Nah, it was no Lolita thing," smiles Healy, now in a Primrose Hill Russian restaurant with the
rest of the band. "You know the line where it says, 'I met a girl in Paris...' That girl was actually a
36-year-old Japanese woman I met when I was 17, over in France for the weekend with my mum.
I got the title 'U16 Girls' because I thought it sounded like an old World War II bomber..."
|
| "The artist sees it in his head and then
makes it. Art is the background, music is the soundtrack. We're in the 5 percent that think music is more
important than it actually is. Just ask normal people how important music is."--Fran |
|
Travis followed "U16 Girls" with a rerelease of "All I Wanna Do Is Rock" and the singles "Tied
To The '90s" and "Happy." The Good Feeling album was released in September '97 and
went Top 10. Travis also supported Oasis on September British arena dates--events enlivened
by the sight of Liam standing in the wings, banging his tambourine along to his "fuckin' favourite
singin' song" "All I Wanna Do Is Rock." Nonetheless, Travis's singles have had mixed success for
releases of such quality--their best chart placing to date is Number 30 with "Tied To '90s." Not
that the band seem destroyed by the relative lack of Top 40 action.
"It's pretty cool, but it's also pretty not cool," decides Healy. "I never thought we'd be
a cult band. I think the problem people have with Travis is we'll do an interview on the radio and
we'll all be having a laugh, like boys do. Then the next second we're (adopts furrowed brow,
sings), 'Funny thing to do...'"
"People find those two things grate each other," reasons Dunlop. "But why can't we do serious
and funny? I think with us, you'll only get the whole story at the end of the career. How
many albums that'll be, I don't know. But we're not out for the short term."
Blinis and budvar seen to, it's now time to head back over to the waiting Simenon. Briefly
stopping to praise The Academy's recent Sensation exhibition, Healy embarks on one more
theory.
"The artist sees it in his head and then
makes it," he enthuses. "Art is the background, music is
the soundtrack. We work in this business, so we think it's the most important fucking thing in the
world. To most people, that's what music is (points to speaker playing Eurythmics at muted
volume). It's two decibels in the background. We're in the 5 percent that think music is more
important than it actually is. Just ask normal people how important music
is..."
As they head for the door, we should perhaps be a little grateful that Travis are some way from
normal.
Q
January 1998
by Roy Wilkinson
photos by Gilles Duley
And TRAVIS aren't bad either!
Ker-tish! Laying powerful
claim to the Best New Band of '97 tag, the happy/sad Scots foursome have taken roaring, joyous
rock into the hearts of many. Roy Wilkinson meets some good men in a crisis.
