Travis Frontman Fran Healy On Revisiting ‘The Invisible Band’ Twenty Years Later

Scottish various band Travis will come to the U.S. this November for 5 exhibits in six days, beginning November 4 in San Francisco and ending November 9 in Washington, DC (in between they will play Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York Metropolis). The tour is in assist of the 20 th anniversary launch of the band’s breakthrough third album, The Invisible Band. Launched in June of 2001, the Nigel Godrich-produced assortment, which featured the smash single “Sing,” spent 4 weeks atop the U.Ok. album chart and made the band full-on various stars on the time.

So the official anniversary of the album was 2021. The rationale for that delay is apparent, COVID. The rationale for the second delay, why the tour shouldn’t be taking place till November goes again to an previous cliche — “No good deed goes unpunished.” As frontman Fran Healy defined to me over a current Zoom chat, he was rescuing a canine who bought free when the canine bit him and ripped his fingers up, making it troublesome for him to play guitar. Fortunately, after a surgical procedure, each Healy, who wanted the surgical procedure, and the canine, who didn’t, had been doing high-quality.

‘I spoke to Healy concerning the extent of the harm, revisiting the album 20 years later, songwriting and the emotional story of enjoying the album’s “The Humpty Dumpty Love Music” for a dying buddy and why that tune is now ceaselessly modified for him.

Steve Baltin: The place are you?

Fran Healy: I am in downtown Los Angeles, and I am in my little studio place the place I attempt to write. However I am having a bit of little bit of issues in the meanwhile enjoying guitar, ‘trigger I bought bitten by a canine a number of weeks in the past. The story is, I used to be driving out of my home, and I simply had come out of the home and was taking place the hill in Hollywood and all these vehicles had been jackknifed on the road and everybody was out of their automotive. Then immediately, a bit of canine ran out and I assumed, “He is gonna get hit.” I shuffled up behind it to try to choose it up, and that is when it ripped my hand to bits. After I went to what you name pressing care, I got here and I knocked her door and checked to see if the canine was okay, and the canine was okay. So I did my civic responsibility and I am glad the canine is okay too.

Baltin: Do you write sometimes phrases and music collectively? So can you put collectively any lyrics or no, proper now you are simply in a holding sample?

Healy: I am on the piano a bit extra. I’ve bought like 4 fingers out there so I can get by, and I’ve bought this complete hand. So I’ve bought 9 fingers out there. However simply enjoying the guitar is sort of not possible. The canine chew healed and I could not get full motion again in my hand and I went to a specialist. And he is like, “It’s best to have full motion, we have to open you up, we have to go in, there’s in all probability an an infection in there, and possibly harm to the tendon.” So he went in and now my finger appears to be like like Frankenstein.

Baltin: How a lot of an influence will this delay even have?

Healy: Proper at this stage, it is arduous to say. ‘Trigger earlier than the operation I could not play sure chords, ‘trigger my finger would get there and it could spring again. So he is like, “It’s a must to function.” And I stated, “Nicely, how lengthy will it take to heal?” And he stated, “One and a half to 2 months.” Then when he did the operation and I stated, “Oh, I’ve bought exhibits in April.” He gave me this look. And I am like, “Whoa, actually?” And he is like, “Nicely, you understand, it is arduous to say.” I have not actually considered it till you requested. However I am simply each single day doing my workouts, and this finger is getting a bit of bit decrease daily, so we’ll see.

Baltin: How have you ever dealt with not having the ability to tour for years?

Healy: I made a secret want after we had been on our final tour. I stated whereas on stage to myself, simply considering I missed my son, and I did not wish to miss him from his fourteenth birthday ’til his sixteenth birthday. I did not wish to miss these years ‘trigger I believe they’re fairly necessary, and it is fairly necessary to try to be there for that, however I used to be like “We’re going into an album, we’re gonna be touring, ah no matter.” However I needed to be house. It was not that I did not wish to tour, I simply felt I needed to be house, and I bought my want. And I additionally wished for the visitors in Los Angeles to be like Thanksgiving for a minimum of a month, and I bought that want too, in order that was good. So I believe I am gonna maintain wishing for sure issues, I did not anticipate there to must be a pandemic to get my needs come true although, that is the one factor.

Baltin: Twenty years in the past, you’re a totally different individual. Once you come again and have a look at this album for the anniversary, how has it has modified for you, and are there songs that you simply actually hear differently?

Healy: Nicely, here is the factor that I’ve realized. Like that is the highest layer. This bit right here is me speaking to you proper now, then there’s little substrata’s that go there, there after which there’s one proper on the backside. And if you’re songwriting, this prime layer is the individual that you’re on the time, that means, I haven’t got a son, simply form of totally different. However if you happen to drill down and down and down into this layer, down the underside, usually that is the place I am going to search out melodies. You go, you shut your thoughts off, you try to shut the whole lot off and let stuff bubble up from down right here. So once I return to listening to this album, I am like, “Oh my God,” it looks like a tune from that album is coming from this. I try to go to the identical place each time I try to write a tune. However you get songs that had been mined from this strata, you get songs that had been mined from this. There are like 5 depths, one of the best songs come from digging the deepest and discovering the little diamond and bringing it to the floor and a bit of little bit of gold and bringing it to the floor. In order that they nonetheless have that very same punch that there is a sure universality to sure songs on that report. And I write very a lot from what is going on on in my life on the time, however that is extra a lot the lyric that you simply drape throughout the melody and the tone of it. So the melody and the tone of one thing tells you nearly tells you the lyrics that it’s essential to write with it, however it all the time begins with the melody and the tone and the emotion of the tune or no matter bubbles up. So, in an extended reply to your query, it feels form of the identical going again and listening to it. I am like, “Oh my God, ‘Sing’ sounds actually nice.” It is bought that very same feeling. Initially, this tune was known as Swing, and it was this sense that you simply get if you’re on a swing, if you’re a toddler and you are going up and backwards and forwards, and that is what that tune makes me really feel. Once I hear it it is fairly an uplifting tune. Most bands do not hearken to the information after they’ve minimize them so as, however I needed to do it this time, and I bought to the tip and bought to “The Humpty Dumpty Love Music.” And on the very finish, there is a 30-second notice performed by an 80-piece orchestra, and there is one thing in simply that. I wasn’t there once they recorded it, I used to be over right here, really, Nigel and the band went into the studio in London and recorded the strings for “Sing,” and for the “Humpty Dumpty Love Music,” and I believe one other tune. And that lengthy notice on the finish of the tune, it simply stops and I burst out crying, and I known as Nigel, the producer up and we chatted and I used to be like, “Oh my God, I have not heard that tune in so lengthy and I hadn’t actually, actually given it a lot time, however it’s so lovely.” And I thanked him once more for the route that he took it in. And so, yeah, it has been very nice to return and have a look at all of it.

Baltin: Have been there songs that you simply had been shocked if you return and hearken to them, that you simply understand how a lot one thing you wrote in 2000 or 2001 continues to be so related to your life in 2021?

Healy: So, an attention-grabbing story as I used to be saying about “The Humpty Dumpty Love Music.” Now, 21 years in the past, we shot a video for a tune known as, “Coming Round,” which was certainly one of our singles. We shot it in Los Angeles, and the video director is a very, actually good buddy of mine, was a very, actually good buddy of mine. And his thought for the video was bringing Humpty Dumpty into the fashionable context. Like how would Humpty Dumpty fare within the trendy world? And we shot it in LA. It is a actually good video, it is a bit darkish. It would not finish nicely, however the video director known as Ringin, and he did movies for us earlier than that as nicely, and we have been associates ceaselessly. In order that night time, after I shot that video, I bear in mind being within the room and I wrote “The Humpty Dumpty Love Music.” All of it wrote itself in a short time, we went, we recorded it, and out it goes. Two weeks in the past, my buddy was on his deathbed in Northern Washington, and his associates had come from all around the world to be beside him. He bought most cancers, he is 50. The identical director, like certainly one of my finest associates, and right here he’s, sitting on this room and respiration his final breaths, and we spent this wonderful day with him, all of his associates round him, collectively within the room laughing and joking, whereas he was on morphine. He was in lots of ache, so he was form of out of it, however he was there. After which his associates got here up in a while within the day round about eight o’clock within the night and requested me, he was like, “Would you sing a tune ust to kind of break it up a bit of bit?” And I used to be like, “Yeah, certain.” It is not one thing I might usually volunteer to do, however everybody gathered within the room round him, and I stated to him, “Right here, Ring. Here is a tune that you simply impressed 21 years in the past,” and I performed it. And immediately I noticed what the tune was about. The tune was about him. It immediately made sense ‘trigger I might all the time been like, “What is that this about, what is going on on right here?” And I performed it and there was this actually fantastic, unforgettable second the place we had been all there and there was this tune, and 20 years can cross earlier than you understand, “Wow, that is what the tune is about.” Perhaps it is bought to do with context. I can not clarify it, however it was form of wonderful.

Baltin: Once you have a look at the tune, going again from this new expertise, does it completely change the tune for you ceaselessly?

Healy: Yeah, it does. It is his tune, I assumed it was mine.

Baltin: As you return and have a look at the anniversary of this report, are there favourite tales you have heard from folks about what this report has meant to them?

Healy: That is a superb query. in Scooby-Doo the place they threw the white bucket of paint over the invisible man and he exhibits up, you are like, “Oh there he’s?” And in a way that is what a tune is, to those deep feelings that everybody has you could’t fairly put into phrases.And if you hear a tune that touches you, that explains, it is like throwing that white paint over that feeling that you simply had and also you see it. You are like, “Oh my God, I can see it!” It is like remedy, it helps you, if you happen to can establish it, then you possibly can identical to, “Okay, you may get previous it.” But when it is invisible, you possibly can’t, it is like a ghost, you do not know the place it’s, it is simply gonna hang-out you ceaselessly. So, I believe that is the ability of the tune, and other people through the years have come up and informed me their tales about these songs which have helped me and the way they’ve helped them. It actually does make all of it make sense the place you suppose this isn’t simply my tune, this tune belongs to a lot and plenty of totally different folks. I am going to inform you this very fast story. I listened to a tune known as “One other Sleep Music,” by Graham Nash, religiously, nearly solely one tune for a complete 12 months. I simply obsessed with this one tune nearly for a 12 months. Minimize to a couple of 12 months after that and I used to be in a foyer in Manchester, and I met this man who’s a mutual buddy, and he is like, “Hey Fran, have you learnt who that is?” And I regarded beside me and it was this man, and I used to be like, “No,” and he is like, “It is Graham Nash!” And I put my head down on the reception desk after which nearly began crying, I rotated to Graham Nash and I stated, “I’ve been listening to ‘One other Sleep Music,’ nearly solely that one tune for a whole 12 months, and now you are sitting proper right here beside me.” And he is like, “Wow.” And one factor led to a different, he was hanging a images present in Manchester that night time, and I went to see him dangle the present. And his spouse got here up and stated, ” if you happen to ask him, he’ll come and sing that with you on stage tonight,” and I am like, “Ah, no… ” And anyway, I did not ask him, and she or he requested him and he ended up approaching stage and singing that tune with me that night time. I requested him, “What’s that tune about to you?” And he stated it is about Barbra Streisand. And I used to be like, “What?” He says, “I visited Barbra Streisand, and she or he was depressed, and she or he was in mattress, and she or he wasn’t doing something, and she or he’d simply checked out.” And he wrote this tune about being awake however asleep. And I used to be like, “Oh, nicely, wow.” I do not know whether or not it enhanced or diminished or no matter however it was so totally different from what it meant to me. It is an ideal tune.