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Travis get their mojo back
It's 11 years since Travis released their debut album Good Feeling – but the Scottish band are still going strong.
The foursome – lead singer Fran Healy, Andy Dunlop (guitar, vocals), Dougie Payne (bass) and Neil Primrose (drums) remain a tight unit and seem unfazed by the constant changes in the music industry.
What's more, they don't look like they'll be stopping anytime soon.
"Nuclear bombs might stop us but anything other than that we'll keep on going," jokes Fran.
The late 90s was full of indie-rock bands, but Travis seem to have stayed the course. Their second album, The Man Who, went nine-times platinum and they've managed to stay mates along the way.
Before you think this makes them a bunch of saints, Andy admits that it hasn't been easy task.
"It is quite a pressured environment being in a band, once you're in a successful one the pressure increases. You're in quite unnatural circumstances, it's a pretty steep and intense learning curve and we've had to learn a lot."
Dougie reckons solid friendship is the secret to their longevity.
"I think we had relationships before we were in the band which stood us in good stead, we knew each other for a long time and over the years we've learnt about what it takes to survive. It's about giving each other space and time, knowing when we need to take a break, when we have to take a step back. I think because we lived together before we went out on tour we got all of the 'that thing you do is really annoying' conversations out of the way beforehand."
Giving each other space is something the band have become rather good at – they've gone from living with each other to now not even living in the same country as Fran now lives in Berlin.
"I just thought we should try and live in a different place," he explains.
"I had a son and it seemed like a good place to live. I think London is a really fantastic city to live from 18 and up but I think with kids maybe they have to grow up sooner here, I just wanted to go somewhere where my son can have more of a childhood.
"My wife is German and with Berlin, as well as having all the things going on in the city it's got an amazing culture. In the area I live there are 60 playgrounds. Where I was living in London, Crouch End, which is the same size, there's two. There are different values, the cheaper way of living means families have more quality time, everything just feels a bit lighter."
It's a testament to their closeness that his bandmates say this geographical divide hasn't had any impact on their output.
"We're always travelling anyway so it makes no difference, we'll just meet at the end of a flight rather than a start of one," Dougie says.
"We used to meet at Heathrow and now we meet wherever we're going."
The evidence also seems to back up Dougie's claim. They've even set up their own record label, Red Telephone Box, which is home to their latest album, Ode To J Smith.
The album is a heavier outing then their previous few releases although Fran is keen to clarify that it's not exactly hard rock.
And who is J. Smith?
"J. Smith is just a character," Fran explains.
"I was thinking the other day about how Star Wars started off as two scenes and (George] Lucas built the whole film around them. In a way that's what this album did. We started off with three songs – J. Smith, Chinese Blues and Something Anything – then the rest of the album was built around them."
Fran's proud of the album, but doesn't want to single out any particular track.
"The album is only 32 minutes long so you can listen to the whole thing easily," he says.
"You here a lot of records which are about an hour long and I don't have the attention span to listen to them, so for ours, I wanted us to pack it with as much possible in a shorter time."
Fran feels so strongly about the album he's not even insisting everyone should run to the shops for it.
"I just want people to listen to it, they don't even have to buy it. Just do whatever you need to do to hear it and then talk about it because it is I think the most cohesive thing we've ever done."
As for other albums out there they like, they list MGMT, Fleet Foxes, Midlake, Field Music and Death Cab For Cutie among their favourites. British bands are noticeably absent from the list.
"There's a lot of good music coming out from America, in particular Brooklyn and Portland," Andy says.
"For some reason at the moment Britain seems to be so conservative whereas in America there seems to be a great inventiveness, eclecticism and spirit I don't know why that is."
The band used to specialise in cover versions – at the last count they had done 17, including a version of Britney Spears' Baby One More Time and their take on Elton John's Rocket Man – but Fran says those days are over.
"There's just not too much kicking about for us to cover," he says simply.
For now they are just happy enough concentrating on their own material and making sure that while other bands come and go, they remain a strong force.
"Dougie's the talking man, Andy the handy man, Neil's the sexy man and I'm the beardy man," Fran says with a smile.
"Together we make the perfect man."
Ode To J.Smith is out now.
For more on Travis click here
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