July 14, 2000
Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver - July 13, 2000
Travis on a rollBy TOM ZILLICH -- For JAM! Music
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VANCOUVER -- Blessed with an album that has sold by the truckload back home in the UK, Travis has a good feeling about playing smaller venues again, here in North America.
"It's like startin' over, and that's alright with us," enthused singer/songwriter Fran Healy, "because the philosophy of Travis is it's better to think you're shit than you're it, cuz usually when you think you're it, you're shit." Thursday night in Vancouver, the Scottish quartet convinced a sold-out Commodore Ballroom crowd that songs from The Man Who hadn't lost any punch following a trans-Atlantic flight from Britain, where the album has sold 2.5 million units and counting. The band's sophomore disc is just beginning to hit radar screens in North America, on the strength of the bittersweet single, Why Does It Always Rain on Me? (possibly the most uplifting "sad" song of the decade). A lone Scottish flag waved near the front of the Commodore stage, from which Healy turned on the faithful with a concert-opening All I Want to Do is Rock (a lava-slow anthem that opened 1997's Good Feeling). The band followed with a dozen-plus Travis favourites, including encore-time covers of Britney Spears' Baby One More Time (done acoustic with bass-guitar backup) and The Band's The Weight ("everybody thinks this next song was written by Bob Dylan--it's not, it's written by a Canadian," introduced Healy to a rousing cheer). The band's Vancouver gig launched a short North American tour (West Coast only) prior to a trip south to Australia. (See bottom of story for complete set list.) A few hours earlier Thursday, Healy relaxed at a downtown Vancouver hotel and talked at length about the pain of writing songs, and the direction of the new Travis album, due out next year. "We start recording it in October, in LA, with the sun out," said the optimistic Scotsman with the short, dark hair. "So hopefully it won't be raining out all the time like it was with The Man Who. Who knows, maybe it'll be a sunny record." The rainy-day mood of The Man Who is all Healy, the band's one and only songwriter. In person he is cheery and even high-spirited, clearly not as depressed as one might be led to believe (having written such happy-time numbers as Good Day to Die, from Good Feeling, and, more recently, The Fear, The Last Laugh of the Laughter and the rain-drenched current single. He doesn't really like writing songs much, either. "That's because you're not in control of it, you're just waiting for lightning to strike," he said. "I'm just lazy, I think. I'd rather just watch TV." Recording sessions for The Man Who were cut short to allow Healy to go home and write some more songs (a process he likens to entering a black hole). "So I went off and had the job of writing some more tunes for it, and just didn't do it," he recalled. "I sat there for, like, two months not doing anything about it. Andy Macdonald, our A&R man, phoned me up and asked me how many songs I'd written and I said, 'uh, quite a few actually'--you know, talking shit. Eventually I had to come clean with the guy and say, 'look, I'm not doing anything, I'm just sittin' here.' And that was probably a fear thing, cuz it's humiliating coming up with shit songs when people think you're a decent songwriter." Andy the A&R guy was forced to visit Healy once a week, in order to check in on his songwriting progress and be played some actual songs. "I need a stick up my butt to sort of make me work sometimes. In the end, we got Driftwood, The Blue Flashing Light (unlisted at album's end) and another couple of songs out of it, so it worked." Healy is happy to report that the chore of writing the next Travis album was much more pleasurable, thank you very much. "They're finished--all the songs. But then again, we may hit the thing that happened with The Man Who, where we'll hit a point and realize that we don't have enough good songs. But it's been relatively stress-free, the writing of the next record." At least a couple of songs that didn't make it onto The Man Who (Coming Around and Flowers in the Window, for example) will almost certainly make it onto the next, says Healy. And, in general, the songs will be shorter that previous Travis tracks. Healy said he learned his lesson from having to edit and mold Why Does it Always Rain On Me? into a radio-worthy track. "We cut a minute and a half out of that song, which is more than four minutes long on the record," he said. "Instead of doing (the cutting later), I'm doing it now. They all seem to be coming in at the three-minute mark. I hate the four-, five- or six-minute songs. I like Roy Orbison's approach--short songs. Like, Only the Lonely is probably just over two minutes long but I always thought it was about four minutes, you know?" Along the same line, Healy said he'd rather drive Travis on a long, story-filled journey than rise quickly to the top and fall off a mountain. "There's a temptation to cash in right now in Britain with big stadium shows and all that, but we still have a long ways to go--we still have a lot more songs to write and a lot more people to play to, so I'm in no rush. When it's all done and finished, there'll be a better story to tell, which I'm all for 'cuz I like good stories. You know, a quick shag behind the back shed is great, but nothing like a long, slow love-making session. It's most enjoyable and most sensual. You sweat and you come out feeling great about it."