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Three of a Kind | |
Travis, Starsailor, and Ryan Adams have more in common than their taste for epic songwriting. They're shortly to come together for a very special NME show.
To some, it's the moment where music and people joyously become one. To others, it's the arena where their art should be heard. To Fran Healy, singer with the popular group Travis, meanwhile, a great gig is reminiscent of one thing in particular. It is, he says, like a great shag.
"Exactly like that," he says as he puffs on a cigarette in a north London photo studio. "You feel slightly pleased with yourself that you've done so well, especially in front of so many people. You're sweating, and nothing's gone wrong, and it's been good and eventful. And you've tried..."
Tried?
"...many positions," he says, emphatically. "Not just one and it's not been contrived to have tried many positions. It's just been like the way it happened. So it's very uncontrived, like how you feel like after a lovely marathon sex session."
For Starsailor's James Walsh, gigs aren't quite so steamy, but they're still filled with intimacy.
"I normally go to the toilet at least four times before I go on," he says, frankly, "and try and relax, do breathing. And we always have a bit of a cuddle when we're about to go onstage. When I've done a good one, I've hit all the notes right, the vibe's there and soul's there. You don't want people to go, 'That was a good show, I got to hear the songs...marvellous.' You want people to think, 'Shit, what just happened then?'"
And for American rock troubadour Ryan Adams, things are different again.
"My night doesn't end with the gig," he says. "I almost want to ask the gig how it felt--it's not like I'm all-powerful. I almost want to say, 'I'm at the mercy of higher things here'."
Sex and the lavatory, the group hug and the philosophical question to the audience--yes, this is live rock'n'roll. And why are we asking these people how it is for them? And why are we asking them now? Simply because of this: on February 4, at London's Astoria theatre, Travis, Starsailor and Ryan Adams (assisted by lesser-known rockers Remy Zero) will play a landmark NME Carling Show. In aid of Warchild, the charity which helps kids in war zones around the world, it's an attempt to fit their large talents onto one pretty small stage, a dazzling highlight of NME's 50th anniversary celebrations and undoubtedly one of the live events of the year.
It's also a victory for all fans of a fairly sad and melodic song, and so we have gathered the major players together to talk it through. Well, to be perfectly honest, we've gathered a couple of them (Ryan and James) together, caught up with another one (Fran) later, and found out their plans for the evening. Their hopes. Their fears. Their multiple pre-performance visits to the bathroom. But if a great gig is like great sex, what happens afterwards?
"You do the whole smoking-a-cigarette thing," says Fran. "And we drink after it. Maybe I should start drinking after sex."
Fran pauses to consider the logistics of this.
"Have a cooler beside the bed..."
But stop! This mellow rock love-in is not ready yet! Before the pleasures of their dream date are consumed, let us meet the players and have a private moment to consider the beginning of their liaison. Maybe find out what they know about each other, and see if this relationship could last.
The other two participants we meet in a pub in London's Parsons Green at the tail end of 2001. James Walsh from Starsailor and Ryan Adams have already met a couple of times and seem to be getting on, fittingly enough, famously. James and his band have seen each one of their singles become a major hit, and their debut LP go Top Ten. Ryan has released two albums--Heartbreaker and Gold--which have showcased his talents as a miner of rocking Americana and won him the admiration of no less a celebrity than Elton John, whose "I Want Love" single was inspired by him.
For all three it has been, as Robbie Williams or Frank Sinatra might say, a very good year. But what do they actually know about each other? Well, they recognise a kindred spirit when they see one. This might not be quite an old boys' network--more a young-men-in-denim network, actually--but though they don't know each other yet, they suspect they might have a lot in common.
In the role of intermediary, we find Starsailor's James Walsh.
"He's my biggest fan," says Ryan. "He stalked me for about five months. After the investigators figured out who he was, that was all alright. Where did I meet you? In Scotland? Glasgow! We smoked some pot and some other shit. It was one of those nights where you couldn't not get high. We were celebrating our longest show ever, which was like three hours and 20 minutes."
"Before that I went to see Ryan at Hammersmith Lyric," says James. "It was one of those shows you'll remember forever. It's really organic, natural-sounding, it sounds effortless. His songs are instantly recognisable--the warmth of it all."
"I love the Starsailor record," says Ryan, "but I've never seen them live. They're nice, and it's just a good vibe. I had the pleasure of reading all these nice things they were saying about me, which was amazing. I'm pretty open to anything, I'll play music with anyone. It's good to see it really happening for these guys."
"I know a lot more about Starsailor," says Fran, a couple of weeks later. "In 2000, we'd just been doing our LP, and our manager mentioned that there was them and Turin Brakes and a whole load of acoustic bands. I saw them, and I was really impressed; James has got an amazing voice."
It is, all told, something of a love-fest. But although there are a lot of similarities between these three bands (a reverence for the acoustic guitar, a love of the song as played by the likes of Neil Young, the fact they've all been on Top Of The Pops playing songs that display a love for the song as played by Neil Young), they are still anxious to proclaim their individuality. They may like the same sort of things, but they are not, says James Walsh, part of some new kind of mellow mafia.
"Travis have always been really good to us," he says. "I think Fran is the songwriter for the people. But for us, it's important that we become our own band, really. For ages, it's been Travis, Coldplay, Starsailor, like we all went to school together or something. We've met Coldplay and they're fantastic people and we like their songs, and we've met Travis and like their songs, but we want to be thought of as something completely different."
"Anyone who writes a song is seen a bit like that," says Fran of all three acts' slightly soppy acoustic troubadour image, "but most people get pop bands to perform them. It's about the way it's presented. It sets a tone which either turns people on or off. If you start worrying about it...you might as well not bother and just make sure you always brush your teeth and iron your shirt.
"But from a song point of view, as long as your songs are melodic and the words fit over the melody and mean something, I think that's what these bands have in common."
To Ryan, such worries are frankly trifling. "No diss," he says, "but try having my fucking name. Really, I don't mean to be a dick, but try having a name that's one letter away from a 1980s Canadian rock icon. It's not funny..."
What matters above all to these people, what they have in common--terrifying as it may sometimes be to read--is the music. In spite of their differing approaches (Fran as the soulful heart of the people, James the insightful voice of the young and brokenhearted, Ryan the prolific and ever-so-slightly-full-of-shit rocker), each has a passion that immediately strikes an empathetic chord with their audiences.
Nice tunes and everything, but these are souls being bared here for your entertainment, and this is their rock'n'roll.
"Rock'n'roll is like a sculpture," explains Ryan. "You can bend it and twist it, you can make it any way you want it. You can make it as inclusive or as exclusive as you want. It's not a book, you can't read it, it's just weird fucking signals you send through the air that hit people's ears. It's in the moment."
"You give a bit of your soul, for a split second," continues James. "I think what's important is that is where it takes you inside, and where it takes you inside your own head."
"It's never about what they tell you it's about," says Fran, wisely. "Rock'n'roll is a personal thing, personal to whoever's listening to it. When it came out, it was very much the devil's music, now it's something that people relate to in their own way.
"We once played a show in Helensborough in a bar called the Clyde Bar," Fran continues, "and it was a terrible show, rubbish, and I made a pact with myself and the rest of the band that you play every show like it was the first show you ever played and the last one. Put everything into it, and then do the same the next night. Sing your bollocks off."
The reason why this sort of passion matters right now should be pretty obvious. 2001 may have been individually momentous for these three bands, but the chaos in the world last year redefined their context. Though these might not be individuals representing bands who explicitly comment on world events, who take the troubles of the world on their shoulders, the events of September 11 have nonetheless endowed them with perspective--on their position in the scheme of things, and how best to proceed.
What they've heard--or witnessed firsthand--may have shocked them, but by continuing to do their thing unbowed, they remain a force for good.
"My neighbourhood got airplanes crashed into it," says Ryan. "It's not cool. It's beyond reason and has nothing to do with rock'n'roll.
"I'm a guy that plays the six-string electric guitar. Those are the guys who can turn off the power to your amplifiers."
"Music's just escapism from any bad things that are happening, really," adds James. "Something like that happens and you just think, 'I should be enjoying being in a band, that this is a brilliant job.' There's no point worrying about how I can put an extra chord in the middle eight when there's something...blowing up."
"It was pretty sad," he says. "When we got there, it was apparent there was something weird about the city. New York is the best city in the world, it's like plugging yourself into the national grid. Everything usually feels really slow when you come back from there, but this time New York felt really slow, like they'd had their confidence punched out of them.
"After the gig, I just went to bed. If you're the centre of attention for a gig, you pick up people's energy, and I felt really...down. I was going to go to Ground Zero, but I just couldn't. Everything's changed. Even this new year, sitting in Scotland with all my mates, we were all feeling a bit...ugh. Like deep in your psyche, there's a wee animal, and it's just gone, 'FUCK!' Your human civilised behaviour is trying to block it out. but the little animal is going, 'Well something pretty serious has happened here...'
"I was watching a programme called How The Twin Towers Fell," he continues. "It was pretty obvious how they fell when you saw the length of adverts in between Part One and Part Two. I'm just fed up with somebody trying to sell me something all the time. It was the longest set of adverts I've ever seen. I was just waiting for the one that went, 'Buy the new album from Travis...' But they didn't, thank God..."
So it is then, that we find Travis, Starsailor and Ryan Adams in early-2002--shaken up, perhaps, but looking forward to the future. This year is evidently one with a packed itinerary and tall, melodic peaks to climb. Look at James Walsh. He was pleased with what he and Starsailor achieved with their Love Is Here LP ("Phil Spector's aware of it and thinks 'Lullaby' sounds like a Sam Cooke song," he grins), but what he hopes for the new year is to be able to make things a little simpler all round.
"I want 2002 to be the year that we try and make the songs more effortless and make the melodies a bit more at the heart of it," he says. "Recording Love Is Here was an amazing experience, it was like a massive primal scream, pure emotion, cathartic. And in some parts what I was trying to express got a bit lost in histrionics and over-reaching vocals or whatever. What I want to get back to is stuff I love listening to like Dion (former teen idol who made top undiscovered post-smack LP Born To Be With You) and Neil Young. He can get the same emotion across but in a really gentle way. Not losing the soul and passion, just balance it out with something calmer."
Ryan aims to make an LP employing the talents of both Black Crowes producer George Drakoulias and bearded rock behemoth and cofounder of Def Jam records, Rick Rubin, and then release other LPs that are already "in the can." A hectic schedule to cope with but one that with the assistance of his highly famous celebrity mentor Elton John may well be a little easier. After Elton expressed a preference for Ryan's Gold LP, a friendship developed between the two.
"It sounds kind of weird," says Ryan, "but he became a bit like an older brother kind of looking after me, really. This is a tough racket, and I'm doing way too much, so I'll call him and he's like, 'Hang in there.' Other stuff too, like, 'This girl is such a mean ice princess' or whatever--believe it or not, he's really good at pep-talking about chick issues. It's true. Maybe it's because he has that whole relationship with David or something. I get a lot of support from him."
Fran's long-term plans, meanwhile, are pretty hectic too. "I want to write the next two records," he says. "We're gonna tour more, then take six months out, and I'll hopefully write the next two. I'll probably get one, but if I get two, then I'll be chuffed. I'll just sit in a room and doodle until one of those little doodles makes the hair on the back of my hand stand on end. You just tailor it and make it bigger..."
Before all that, though, there's the gig on February 4 to be going on with. Individually, they've all played great gigs in the past: for Travis, it was probably the time they played at the Irving Plaza in New York in 1999. It could have just been business as usual, but every single member of the audience was into it and the band, they confess "tore the roof off." Then they went outside, it started to pour with rain, and Fran had someone pull a knife on him. It was an eventful evening.
For Starsailor, it was the time at a German festival last year, where the promoter put his neck on the line for the group and put them second on the bill to Travis before they'd even had a record out.
For Ryan, it could be any of the gigs he's played in the last year-and-a-half. Since he's been doing things his own way, doing gigs on his own, he's been a lot happier. And the longer they last, the better.
Now they're together at last, and your hosts are some charming men with the world in their hands. How could it not work out?
"You've got James, who's a lovely boy," says Fran, "and Ryan, who's like your American troubadour, and who's quite polite, and there's myself, who's Mr. Nice..."
Like they say in the movies--this could be the start of a beautiful friendship...
New Musical Express
Fran Healy, you undoubtedly know already. The undisputed king of melancholic rock, he has jetted in to a crisp New Year in north London, after a 2001 that saw the latest Travis album, The Invisible Band, sell over a million copies. He's tired, and he's sick of telly, but he's wearing a Homer Simpson T-shirt and is in good spirits.
Fran, meanwhile, was in New York with Travis shortly after September 11, to play a previously scheduled gig. Understandably, this was not one of the best he can remember.
19 January 2002
Text: John Robinson
Photography: Tom Sheehan
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