'Still Getting Away With It After All These Years': Travis' Triumphant Return To Australia Has Been Decades In The Making

At the start of the century, it was a little hard to escape the presence of Glasgow rock outfit Travis.

Having first formed in 1990, the Scottish group made their debut in the mid-'90s with a handful of singles preceding their first album, 1997's Good Feeling. A modest success, it reached the top ten on the UK charts, though a wider chart presence remained absent from their immediate resumé. That all changed with their second album, The Man Who.

Released in May 1999, it became their first of two records to top the UK charts, and hit No. 8 in Australia. Singles such as Writing To Reach You, Driftwood, and Why Does It Always Rain On Me? became staples of the radio during this era, with the latter hitting No. 11 on local soil.

This success resulted in the band's debut visit to Australia in July 2000, and their rising profile necessitated a return trip just one year later – a month before they released their third album, The Invisible Band.

But since then, it's been radio silence in regard to another visit from the Glaswegian group – until now. Next month, the group will be gracing local shores again in celebration of their latest trek, which sees them bringing The Man Who to life on stage for their legions of dedicated fans.

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As frontman Fran Healy recalls to The Music, the making of The Man Who came about during a rather formative period for the group, which included an unexpected record deal, myriad live shows, and touring with some of the big names.

"The highlight was touring with Oasis," Healy remembers, having first supported the Liverpool icons during their Be Here Now era in 1997.

"We ended up playing with them on three tours in the end, but we played so many shows that it was almost like going to college – not just learning how to play, but learning how to be in a band and do it in a responsible sort of way as much as you can when you're four 20-somethings in the middle of Britpop."

Having thought that their Good Feeling debut was "the greatest record we could ever make," Healy remembers writing in piecemeal throughout their touring commitments. But by the time they were able to hit the studio for the first sessions of The Man Who in 1998, Travis were unsure of what would come out of it.

"When we went into the studio, honestly we had no idea what we were going to get out of it," he recalls. "It was a little bit scary because you've got a record company who just invested a lot of money into the band. So as we approached the recording of it, everyone was shrugging and going, 'Fuck, what are we gonna do?'"

Describing the first sessions of the record as something of a "minor disaster," it was only when the band began working with producer Nigel Godrich (often dubbed the sixth member of Radiohead for having produced every one of the band's albums since 1995) that "everything started to click into place."

"I think that he was the momentum that we needed," Healy adds.

Few could have expected the success that The Man Who would have upon its release. Originally receiving a lukewarm reception, the mood soon shifted and not only was the record named British Album Of The Year at the Brit Awards (while Travis were named best British Group), but it would spend nine weeks atop the charts and ultimately sell multiple millions of copies.

However, Healy remembers feeling a little unsure of whether the record would actually go anywhere upon its initial release. Having known the band needed to step things up after the release of Good Feeling, they chose who they worked with carefully and found themselves in a position that felt good.

"I remember sitting in Abbey Road Studios, listening to the record and going, 'God, this sounds amazing. It sounds so good,'" Healy recalls. "But I also remember being told by an NME journalist that it was commercial suicide because it was so quiet and it really didn't match any of the wallpaper that was up on the studio's wall at that time.

"I dunno, we just didn't feel like it was gonna be anything."

However, Travis were coming off the back of an impressive run of singles at the time. While singles from Good Feeling had managed to chart within the 30s in the UK, the release of their More Than Us EP in 1998 was a bit of a breakthrough, reaching the top 20 with a placing at No. 16. "We were getting closer," Healy laughs.

As The Man Who spawned singles, so too did that momentum continue. Writing To Reach You hit No. 14, and Driftwood did one better, but it was Why Does it Always Rain On Me? that served as the metaphorical opening of the floodgates.

It charted globally and hit No. 11 in Australia, becoming the group's only Gold-certified single here. Its legacy was cemented in 2022 when Gang Of Youths covered the song for their appearance on triple j's Like A Version series.

"That wasn't even going to be a single," Healy remembers. "I had to fight with management and the record company to get it out, because they wanted another song.

"My pitch was, 'Hear me out: It always rains at Wimbledon, and then they'll play it on Wimbledon if you can pitch it and we'll get on the telly.' We were literally clutching at straws at this point. 'We were kind of going, 'It's not really going to happen.'

"Then we did Glastonbury and it rained at Glastonbury, and that was the beginning of everything," he adds. "Six weeks later, the album went to number one. It was mental."

Indeed, much like how festivals such as Woodstock 1994 were pivotal in cementing the careers of acts like Nine Inch Nails and Green Day, Glastonbury 1999 was the turning point for Travis.

Poetically, the band's performance was complemented by rain, adding to the mood of the song and underlining its impact and legacy. One year later, they returned to the festival, this time as headliners alongside The Chemical Brothers and a little-known upstart called David Bowie.

"It was like we'd gone from zero to a million in 12 months," Healy says of their rise to fame. "And when you're going at that speed, you're not even aware of the vapour trail you're making. You don't know what you're doing. And in fact, I think it took about three, four years before it caught up with us.

"I saw a video of us playing at Glastonbury and it was like, 'Fuck, did that happen?' We were in the eye of the hurricane. I found millions of videotapes and there's one video of us all backstage somewhere and it's literally quiet. Everyone's just standing about, nobody's really there, there's someone filming it, and then someone's like, 'You're on.'

"The camera follows us up the stairs," Healy continues. "There's nobody about, it's deserted backstage – I don't know where we are. We walk on stage and it's the big Glastonbury show – headlining to 150,000 people. That's kind of how it felt the whole time; it just felt quiet."

But more than 25 years on from this auspicious release and subsequent rise, does it feel like a quarter of a century has passed for the band?

To answer this, Healy points to their A&R guy, Andy MacDonald, who had previously signed acts such as Billy Brag, The Housemartins, and The La's.

"Generally bands or songwriters are not very confident," he explains. "You just don't really know what you're doing. You're like, 'Is that any good?' and you generally err on the side of 'Ah, that's shit.'

"But he always lifted us up and he would say to us, 'You're writing songs that people will be listening to in 25 years.' When you're 26 years old and someone's telling you that, I always kind of thought, 'Yeah, right.'

"But it's true, and I listened to one of our songs from The Man Who a couple of months ago – I think it was Writing To Reach You," Healy recalls. "I thought, 'Wow, it sounds really fresh.'"

As he points out though, the band has remained the same since 1994, meaning that everyone has the same experience of growing with these songs as the listeners have.

"When we play the songs live, it's the same band and it's the same people," he echoes. "When you're in a band, it's sort of like a pickle jar. You kind of preserve yourself, it's like a spell that's cast on you and you just stay in this zone.

"One of our things is don't use backing tracks. Everybody uses backing tracks, but we want to go up on stage and play as a four-piece band, and if anyone fucks up, you hear it. If we stop, we stop. You don't hear 60% of the music still continuing.

"We're kind of slightly purist about it," he adds. "And it's just lovely to think that we're still getting away with it after all these years."

Of course, when it comes to Travis' relationship with Australia, the elephant in the room is the fact that it's been over 24 years since they were last on our shores. Healy assures us that it's nothing personal, but solely a management decision that has since changed following a reshuffling of the ranks.

"If it was up to us, we would've been playing in Australia every couple of years," Healy asserts. "But our old manager was very sort of reluctant to go back because he couldn't make any money there. He felt the same way about America. It was just a bit of a loss leader or whatever you call it.

"It wasn't spoken of, really. You're just doing your thing and these guys are sort of making all these calls. So when we fired our manager after many years, we decided to start to go to places that we hadn't played in years, like America and Australia."

While America hadn't experienced the same gap as Australia has (a nine-year absence took place between 2013 and 2022), Healy admits that his time away from our shores has been "a shocking amount of time." However, there's not too much worry about making up for lost time.

"I feel like it could be two years after we played as far as it goes when you see the band and the way we are on stage," he notes. "Nothing has changed. I mean, we've been through a lot and so much has happened to the band in that interim and we've stuck together through it all.

"I think if you can stick together through that and when you see a band that have this interesting bond, very strong connections between one another, and when you see them on stage I think it makes for a really special experience.

"I think the only other band I could say that I saw where I felt that sort of familial feeling was The Rolling Stones," he adds. "They're in their 80s now, and I don't know if we'll make it that far. I'm sure one of us will die before then."

As Healy reflects on Travis' upcoming Australian tour, he thinks back to the group's first visit back in July 2000, taking a moment to pull out a stuffed kangaroo his grandmother brought him after her own trip to the country when he was a young child.

"I've had this for maybe 45 years," he explains. "I treasured it, and so when we were going to Australia, it was like a big deal. And when we got there, it was just pissing with rain. I'm like, 'What? It's like Glasgow.' I felt like I was home.

"But it felt like the connection that we made in Australia made it feel like a little bit of home. It's weirdly somehow more Scottish. I don't know why; no idea. But it's a place that was always kind of magical because of that connection and someone going there when I was a little boy and bringing this little kangaroo and a boomerang back. She might as well have been in Paris and brought back onions and a striped shirt, or a kilt and some whiskey if you're in Scotland and some whiskey.

"But I've still got them and I still have that connection to Australia," he adds. "So when we go there's that for me, but that's a super personal thing. On a band level, I think audiences got us a bit more. They got our humor or got that we are a bit loose or whatever it was that you want to call it."

Needless to say, Healy won't be complaining if it all comes full circle with some gifted stuffed kangaroos when they hit the stage in Australia next month. Who knows, maybe it'll even mean we won't be waiting another 24 years for their next tour?

Tickets to Travis' upcoming Australian tour are on sale now.