Thursday, January 22, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Music: Bad feelings

An accident and 9/11 push Travis into darker territory

By Mike Prevatt

Travis was not supposed to get the rapturous response it did on April 11, 2000. Oasis had sold out the Joint at the Hard Rock that night, and its Scottish opening band was just supposed to play its folky rock tunes and warm up the impatient throng boasting Union Jacks and English accents (both real and fake). And, besides, this was Las Vegas, where ticketholders often talk over the opening act, especially when said act isn't even played on the radio.

Instead, Travis slew the crowd, earning louder and longer applause with each anthem it played, climaxing with its disarmingly earnest cover of Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time." Oasis took to the stage a half-hour later, but never reclaimed the gig.

"There's something about Vegas, where you feel you've made it when you get there, for some reason," says guitarist Andy Dunlop. "I still have the video of us arriving there."

Not exactly Beatlemania greeting the Fab Four in New York, but Travis has had its comparable moments. In 1999, the quartet released its plaintively moving sophomore release, The Man Who, to global acclaim and widespread commercial success. Even in America, a difficult place for Anglo rockers to crack, the band sold a few hundred thousand copies of the album and filled most venues it played to capacity.

Its next album, 2001's The Invisible Band, would debut at No. 1 in the U.K but failed to bowl over audiences as much as its predecessor. Some critics and fans found the songs less resonant than the band's older material. "In retrospect, I think it's a great record," says Dunlop. "From our perspective, we put ourselves in a position where we went straight from touring to making a new record. It was tough to do. We were just exhausted." But instead of taking a breather, another heavy touring schedule was planned.

Finally, halfway through 2002, the band received a much-needed, six-month vacation. The problem was it nearly killed drummer Neil Primrose and ended the band. Primrose took a headfirst dive into a pool in France and hit the bottom, causing a spinal injury that almost left him paralyzed. The other three band members sat and waited, ready to pull the plug on Travis if Primrose could not return to drumming duties. "After the accident, it was a bit touch and go, [us] thinking we might not be able to do Travis anymore," says Dunlop. "It wouldn't be a success if it wasn't the four of us."

Remarkably, three weeks after the accident, Primrose was back behind the kit, and as he painfully worked his way back to his pre-dive skills, the band took a break from rock 'n' roll. Then, America was attacked on Sept. 11, knocking singer Fran Healy into a new frame of mind and inspiring a new batch of songs, from the media-inspired "The Beautiful Occupation" to the protest-minded "Peace the Fuck Out," the latter fading out with a chant of the title by actual demonstrators.

Both of these songs, along with 10 others, make up 12 Memories, the band's fourth album. It's a definite departure from the sing-songy template Travis followed previously, focusing more on nuanced atmospheres and textures--ironic, given that the band's usual producer, Nigel Godrich, is known for his sonic coloring, and his services were not needed for 12 Memories (Travis opting for producers Tchad Blake and Steve Orchard instead). Most importantly, the band concentrated on naturally being a band--one full of friends--for the first time since its debut album, Good Feelings.

"For this record, we wanted to pull it back to just being the four of us in a room together, just go and enjoy ourselves and record that process, see what comes out at the end," says Dunlop. "We're not that concerted, we never have been. Half the time, we don`t even know what key we're playing in!"