The Bassist Who...

Lyrically brilliant, with mesmerizing instrument work and flawless production, The Man Who is a record that should be on everyone’s top five records-of-the-year list.

Not only is Travis impressive by virtue of their music, they also continually produce some of the best and most brilliant music videos being made today.

Travis is a one-stop shop of amazement. Singer / songwriter Francis Healy, guitarist Andy Dunlop, drummer Neil Primrose and bassist Douglas Payne have an incredible future ahead of them.

Between poking fun at Oasis on "Waiting To Reach You" ("The radio is playing all the usual / And what’s a wonderwall anyway"), and almost calling out Beck (and Oasis again) in "Slide Show" (There’s no devil’s haircut in my mind / There is not a wonderwall), the Scottish foursome has shined with their sophomore effort.

In a recent conversation with Doug I learned more about Fran’s elephant obsession, the videos and the current U.S. tour.

We saw this thing on the Discovery Channel about elephants and they have grown in Franny’s opinion quite hugely. They are the coolest animal.

Do you agree?

I think they are pretty cool, but I like the otter. They are the only animal that builds toys.

The monkeys are the kings of all, yeah, monkeys are fantastic.

Well that’s all we are, just monkeys.

Yeah, just smart monkeys.

Well, we aren’t that smart.

They are probably smarter than we are.

Yeah, have you ever seen a monkey with a job?

No, and I’ve never seen a monkey in a suit either, except in those old movies. How is the road treating you guys?

It’s great, it’s going very well, the audiences have just been fantastic and the shows have been really good, it’s just a quick tour this one, then we are off to Australia.

Thank you.

No, it’s always the director. Yeah, the way we treat video and all that stuff is we just check out their work and they are just great directors, with great ideas, and their imaginations are amazing. Then we just say ‘here’s the song, here’s what it sounds like and here’s some money — go in and make a film.’

So tell me about the beginnings of Travis.

We all met ten years ago in various different ways. Me and Franny met in a drawing class, me and Neil worked together in a shoe shop. Franny met Neil in a pub and Neil asked Franny to be the singer in his band. At the time, Neil was in this band called Glass Onion — the guitarist was Andy. So, Franny and I went to art school, and the same day we went to art school Franny was supposed to be practicing. I met Andy the guitarist that night in a pub, so we all met in all these different ways and Glass Onion went on for a few years or so and then it changed because Franny was writing songs. Then at the end of 1995 he asked me to join the band and I said no but then he eventually persuaded me and I joined the band and moved into London and in a few months we had the record deal and that was it.

As writing goes generally, not a lot of specific things inspired us. I think when you’re writing you just sit with a guitar or a pen or a piano or whatever and you just sit and write a lot of rubbish. You write a lot of crap and then eventually after loads of these rubbish songs, something happens and it is just the best thing alive. You know it’s just about melodies and tones and just something happens, you’re just like alive from somewhere else and you can’t even claim ownership; it comes through you, rather than from you. I think most great songs that have been done in the past are fairly literal and people can just assume them to be metaphors for something else and make them metaphors themselves. Like, [people ask] ‘why were there references to it raining in your music?’ — because it was raining. It was when he went on holiday in Israel to get some sun and it was pissing down the rain and he wrote a song and it cheered him up. It was the chorus "Why does it always rain on me?" and so people, especially in Europe, were like, ‘Oh, why does it always rain on me’ and it is a very melancholy song, and so ‘it must be raining in your soul all the time,’ and I’m like, ‘no it was just pissing down the rain.’

That song is doing incredibly well here in America, how are you feeling about all the newfound exposure?

It’s difficult for us to say because we have our heads down and are just working all the time. You don’t really get to sit down and you just keep working. I think that is the healthy way to do it, because if you just are sitting back and saying ‘hey, check us out, we are all over the place’ that wouldn’t be the right thing to do. So we just kind of keep quiet and keep working. It’s quiet in the eye of the storm.

What’s the next single going to be?

In America it’s going to be "Turn".

No, "Turn" has already been a single in the UK, so we had a new song out last month a song called "Coming Around," and that is going to be on the new album.

What inspired the song, "Driftwood"?

It came from Franny remembering an episode from Cheers where Norm was talking to Woody and he was like "Oh I think I am going to lose my job, my boss said he was going to get rid of all the driftwood." I just thought that was a perfect example of a metaphor that he remembered and Franny was just doing dishes one day and just sang out "You’re driftwood lalalalalala." That was it, and we just wrote the rest of the song from that.

Pick up The Man Who from Travis, available from Epic Records at finer record stores everywhere and catch them in the States at a venue near you.

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