You could say Travis have changed over the past two or so decades, but until you are in a room with Fran Healy and Dougie Payne, you don’t quite realise the full extent.
On the other hand, maybe the Scottish indie band were always this philosophical; their biggest hit, Why Does it Always Rain on Me?, after all, is a song with a fairly existential title.
"The whole 'perpetual connectivity' thing is the great red herring of contemporary culture," shrugs Payne, barely breaking a sweat as he disseminates the themes of the band's new album, Everything at Once. Right so.
Then again, perhaps it's just that this version of Travis is older, wiser and more outward-looking than the band who scored their major international breakthrough with second album The Man Who in 1999 – a record that defined the smarter end of the post-Britpop era, before Coldplay came along and ruined it for everyone.
The extravagantly bearded Healy (42, with his now-grey hair pulled back into a Thom Yorke-style man bun) and the smiley Payne (43 and barely looking like he's aged a day in the past 17 years) and their bandmates Neil Primrose and Andy Dunlop last night played a stomping, hit-strewn set at tiny London venue the Lexington for an assembled throng of fans and journalists, the setlist serving as a reminder of just how many catchy numbers their back catalogue is strewn with.
Today they are in the suite of a plush hotel overlooking the hustle and bustle of King's Cross, reflecting on the serious lyrical content of their new album. A number of tracks on Everything at Once deal with the disconnectedness of society, including Animals and Paralysed – the latter name-checking the Kardashians in the same breath as Twitter and denouncing humanity's obsession with technology.
No agenda
"We weren't trying to write any songs," says Healy, who answers most questions like you've asked something mildly unreasonable. "There's never an agenda with Travis. I mean, how could there be if there's three different writers who are all coming in with stuff? But Paralysed was about us all doing this," he says, miming looking down at a phone in his hand.
“Everywhere you look, on the street, train stations, they’re all just doing this. Everyone’s just rooted to the ground these days. It seems ironic that we’re all so ‘connected’, yet we’re completely disconnected on an animal level. When all of this social media shite is happening and the little dictators in our head are yapping away, we’re neglecting the things that make us all feel a part of something.”
Sounds like a pretty bleak outlook.
“It’s not depressing though, it’s not,” he insists. “I’m interested in it, because when you concrete over shit, nature always comes through. I’m interested to see how it fights back and I get sad sometimes, to think that . . . You know when you look at the RSPCA ads and you go, ‘Oh, look at that wee, skinny dog, it’s just been left’? That’s what I think about all of us: we don’t feed ourselves well, we don’t look in the mirror and go ‘God, you’re nice. Look at you – go on, treat yourself.’ I don’t know how, but there’s got to be an uprising.”
Payne jumps in. “I think it’s only depressing if you’re not aware of it. I think as long as people are aware of it, and aware of this falsity, then there’s hope for us to evolve past this f***ing ridiculous technology and find another age of enlightenment, or something. It’s happened before. Civilisations lose their technology all the time.”
He pauses, grinning. “I would f***ing love to see that happen.”
The album – which is not nearly as musically serious as its themes suggest, replete as it is with jangly indie anthems such as Magnificent and slinky ballads such as Idlewild alike – comes with an accompanying collection of videos all directed by the band, telling a story that illustrates their enduring relationship as bandmates and friends.
“I didn’t realise when I got into it exactly how much work it would take,” laughs Healy. “In my whole life, I’ve never worked so hard – but it was so enjoyable and so collaborative. It’s so cool, and it’s given a whole other dimension to this lovely album. And it’s weird; it’s the best representation visually that I’ve ever seen of us. I think we’ve made 27 videos and they all have moments of Travis-y things in them, but they were all directed by other people. This is all coming from inside the camp, and for that reason it’s more us. It just comes off the screen totally unpretentious; all these different facets of us. And as a record of us, it’s so sweet and so funny.”
Work rate
With Healy spending the past eight years in Berlin, the four-piece haven't all lived in or near the same city for almost a decade, but that has affected neither their workrate nor their friendships. Their break of several years that they took before releasing 2013's Where You Stand acted as a "clearing of the air; like opening the window and letting the fart smells out of the room", during which time Healy released his own solo album.
In more recent years he has worked with other bands and musicians, including Steven Malkmus (he recorded the vocals for 2014's Wig Out at Jagbags), and last year as part of Midlake's not yet released Banquet project in Texas – but at the end of the day, he says, there's nothing quite like a Travis album.
“It’s funny, because we’re a proper band, but at the core we’re still just four mates. It’s a very relaxed air that we have with one another, and that’s a nice thing to watch,” he says. “There’s the music and all this stuff going on, but there is this other thing that’s like a background radiation of love that we have within our group. It’s not spoken, but it’s very, very apparent I think. You don’t see it often and I think it’s a nice thing to witness.”
Payne adds: “And it’s nice, these days, to feel a bit like grown-ups, and to feel like we have our own autonomy and can make our own choices . . . And then go up on stage and . . . be kids.”
Healy goes all philosophical once again, stroking his beard as he ponders their longevity. “It’s timeless, this friendship, love, music, a decent song, whatever... it’s timeless,” he says, nodding heartily as he rolls a cigarette. “And we’re in that business. We’re still just mates who write songs.”
- Everything at Once is out now
