Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on March 2011
Courtesy of Smash
A lead singer’s decision to release a solo album often raises issues—just look at the trouble Mick Jagger got into with Keith Richards. But apparently Fran Healy’s bandmates can rest easy.
“Travis is my band, so it hasn’t crossed my mind,” the Scottish vocalist says when asked if he’d ditch his longtime group to go solo full-time. “It doesn’t feature in my thoughts, because I know I am going to make another Travis record.”
The decision to release a Fran Healy album came at the tail end of an exhausting tour in 2009. “Everyone was tired and fed up and wanted a break, and I thought it was ideal to do it at that point,” he recalls from his home in Berlin. “I asked the band if they were cool and they said yes.”
Still, the way he describes the creation of Wreckorder—which boasts an appearance by Sir Paul McCartney on bass—makes it sound like his group is, well, less than indispensable. “Being in a band is like being married, and I had always thought that meant being faithful,” Healy says. “But I have since changed my mind.”
The process of recording the album led him to consider if he and the phenomenon known as “Travis” aren’t one and the same. “The process with Travis of writing is me sitting in a room alone writing a song, and once I get the song I make a demo, and then take it to the band and say, ‘This is it,’” he explains. “But in this case I sat in a room, wrote the songs, did the demo, and then just recorded it with the help of some other musicians. So it is in effect the next Travis record, which begs the question: What is ‘Travis’?”
Ironically, many fans seem to think the new record is a Travis album. “I’m still meeting people who say, ‘Nice one, Travis.’ I’m like, ‘Oh God, that’s the name of the band, it’s not me.’ Had I called it a Travis album, they wouldn’t have even questioned it. It would have just sounded a little different. Of course, people would have gossiped about why Paul McCartney is playing on it…”
Names aside, Wreckorder explores the more intimate, contemplative side of Healy’s songwriting, more The Man Who than Good Feeling. Fertilized with a dose of sampled beats, it would sit nicely on the shelf alongside a Coldplay album—which is appropriate, considering that The Man Who was reportedly an inspiration for Chris Martin.
Living quietly in Berlin with his German wife Nora Kryst and young son Clay, Healy sounds like he’s found his own private heaven. Yet the songs on Wreckorder are suffused with melancholy. “As It Comes,” for instance, is “about an old man who doesn’t really appreciate his wife.” “I grew up surrounded by old people,” he continues, “and I have some affinity with them and with older people’s humor, and this song contains a lot of that. It’s a sad song, because eventually at the end when he shows some affection toward his wife, it’s too late—she’s dead. So it’s a dark, British song.”
The song is also notable for featuring a certain former Beatle. Was working with Sir Paul intimidating? “The scariest thing was, he did only three takes and it occurred to me, what if he had a bad day?” Healy says. “I thought, ‘What am I going to do? I’m just going to have to use it, for better or worse.’ But I needn’t have worried, because all the takes were played by—in my opinion—the best living bass player. Everything he does is sympathetic to the song. He doesn’t get in the way, and when he does get in the way, it’s fantastic.”
Having toured these shores regularly for more than a decade with Travis, Healy is no stranger to Japanese audiences. But his upcoming Tokyo date promises something different.
“It’s going to be very stripped down, just me and my guitar,” he says. “Actually, I just did two shows in the UK with a nine-member band, but if I brought the full band, it would bankrupt me. But more than that, after 14 years with a band, I just wanted to be by myself.”
Fran Healy
Travis front man in a solo show. Mar 16, 7pm, ¥6,500. Akasaka Blitz. Tel: Smash 03-3444-6751.
