Travis: the talking man, the handy man, the sexy man and the beardy man

By Jade Wright on Sep 29, 08 12:31 PM

It's 11 years since The Man Who went nine-times platinum, and somehow Travis have managed to stay mates along the way.
The Scottish band are still going strong, and they're heading to the Academy tonight to prove it.

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.
Dougie explains: "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."
They've even set up their own record label, Red Telephone Box, which is home to their latest album, Ode To J Smith.
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."
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.
For now they are just happy enough 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."
Travis play Carling Academy Liverpool as part of the On Song festival. For details see www.liverpool-academy.co.uk.