16 MusicWeek 12.07.13 THE BIG INTERVIEW FRAN HEALY
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This free and independent route wasn’t always available to Healy. He looks back with fondness at the group’s ‘golden handcuffs’ signing to Andy MacDonald and his Sony-financed Independiente label in the mid-Nineties. It was a relationship that lasted 12 years and spawned four Top 10 UK albums, but Healy admits it was also crash course in trad music industry inhibitors. To his credit, the singer has no regrets about
allowing Coldplay - as well as Keane and Snow Patrol - to mop up plaudits and US royalties that may, in a parallel world, have been his for the taking. His stubble a little greyer and his Glaswegian drawl slightly slower than you might remember, Healy remains sanguine on Travis’s fortunes, and optimistic about their reunion. “When Travis came around, there were no other bands doing what we did,” he observes. “Then you come to a door, and you don’t notice who’s holding it open - because it’s you. A lot of bands came through in our wake because that’s the nature of the music business. “When a band becomes unusually successful
with a certain vibe - in our case a gentle, laid back thing - the business then looks around and signs everything up that sounds like that. We had to change to keep it enjoyable for ourselves, to stay sane. When the door shut, we could have tried to follow fashion - but then we wouldn’t be us...”
We haven’t seen you together in a while as a band. Why come back now? We came off our last tour in 2009. We did Ode To J Smith as a sort of bachelor record - it was our first record off a traditional label. We made it without A&R, without someone asking us “can you write an album of 11 singles please?’. It was our reaction to that. We wrote it in four weeks in December, recorded it in two weeks in January, mixed it in February and then Dougie had his baby in March. We released it and went out on tour six months later, without any of the pomp that surrounded any other album we’d ever done. We had the best tour that I think we’d ever been on.
ABOVE Travis 2013: [L-R] Dougie Payne, Fran Healy, Neil Primrose, Andy Dunlop
Did you lose some fair-weather fans during that period of your career? Travis’s success was by and large down to us being a huge singles band. The Man Who was big and then The Invisible Band was big, and then we went a little bit dark on 12 Memories. Even on that and [2007 follow-up] The Boy With No Name, we always had singles. Losing fair-weather fans? I don’t know. I don’t think about that kind of shit because you have to believe that if you’re in a band that plays live, your day-to-day existence is looking out and seeing people reacting in real time to what you’re doing, rather than thinking about charts and all that stuff. I’ve always been more interested in the radio playlists charts rather than the [sales] chart, because as a child I never bought music - I couldn’t afford it - so the most popular tunes I remember were in the Top 10 of the airplay chart.
“I still feel that thing all bands should feel. Otherwise you’re just a grey, joyless fucker churning out the hits” FRAN HEALY
Can you walk us through your deal with Andy MacDonald of Independiente? Our relationship began two days before my 23rd birthday in [London venue] Water Rats. I was approached at the bar by a strange, handsome, softly-spoken gentleman. Now, if you’re approached in Kings Cross by a blue-eyed, softly spoken gentleman, usually you might be slightly worried. But in this case it was to prove fortuitous for us: he introduced himself and then came straight out and said, ‘I’d really love to sign your band.’ It was like what you read about in books. It was great. Andy and I had an amazing 12 year journey together. He is a maverick, brilliant and big-balled. He’s an A&R guy and very song-oriented, but also a businessman
- and as a businessman, his nuts are huge. This guy put his fucking house on a [re]-mortgage and then said to his kids, ‘Kids, you’ve got to trust me on this. I’ve got this band, I believe in them and we’re going to make it.’ He put everything on black or red. That’s the kind of guy he is, and why I love him.
That must have made it easier to listen to him when he was offering opinions on your albums… I worked very closely [with MacDonald] on A&R. Even though sometimes, especially when you think you’ve delivered something great - and they always do this - they turn around and say, ‘Could you give us more singles?’ It’s like, ‘C’mon mate, I’ve just put seven singles on this fucking album. How many more do you want?’ ‘Twelve?’ Oh right, okay. It was cool with Andy. But we seriously got to the end of that relationship, just like any relationship. It was fair enough. I remember our last phone call together was really nice, and I haven’t spoken to him since. That makes me a little bit sad. I do miss him. We went off and did Ode To J Smith, and then the band went ‘right, end of part one’ and dispersed. That was five years ago. I’ve only just seen the band after that long. I daren’t ask Andy what he thinks of our new album. He’ll probably go: ‘I think you could have written a few more singles!’
Your relationship with Ian McAndrew is pretty much unbroken since day one. That’s pretty rare. Ian is trustworthy. That’s what it comes down to. People respect him, which means a lot to me. I’m aware that he’s our face in the business, our rep, and I trust him completely with that. To be honest, when we signed, we signed to Colin [Lester] and Ian [at Wildlife Entertainment] and I miss the two of them together. They were definitely quite a funny double-act. They still go out for dinner, they’re still mates - but I’m not privy to that. I loved them when they were both together and were kicking it. Like all good managers, they made life very difficult for the people who need to have their lives made difficult. Sometimes too difficult for the A&R guys
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