Thanks For The Memories

04/12/2004 9:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Ben Gilbert - LAUNCH U.K. & Ireland

After Travis's sophomore album, The Man Who, became a massive, multiplatinum success in the U.K. and garnered huge critical acclaim on this side of the pond, the Scottish pop group was touted as the next British band to finally break in the U.S. That hasn't exactly happened yet (Coldplay and Radiohead seem to have cornered that market, sadly), but that doesn't detract from the fact that Travis's latest release, 12 Memories, is their best yet. And back at home, they continue to be rightfully worshipped as heroes--note that when LAUNCH's Ben Gilbert interviewed bass player Dougie Payne backstage before Travis's recent homecoming show in Glasgow, 7,000 eager fans were waiting in the audience for the boys to take the stage.

Below is the conversation between Ben and Dougie, covering everything from Travis's new head-scratchingly odd video for "Love Will Come Through" to the head-shakingly pathetic state of popular music today. Here's how it went:

LAUNCH: What's the story behind the song "Love Will Come Through"?

DOUGIE: It was recorded before we started to record the last album, 12 Memories. We did a version at Real World studios in May the year before last, and we thought it was a cracking song. So we put it out as a download, and all the money went to charity. Now we've got the chance to put it out as a proper single, so more people get to hear it. The track is kind of self-explanatory, but it's not so much about romantic love, rather the love for your family and friends that keeps you going, that will get you through the darker times.

LAUNCH: What about the video?

DOUGIE: It was directed by two guys from Iceland. They wrote a treatment for us initially that we thought was fantastic, which was about a bunch of children meeting the figure of death on a school trip. That was seen by the band as being a little dark. They did another treatment for us and it was very interesting because it seemed more like a classic Travis video, like "Writing To Reach You" and "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?" There's a narrative, but it's unclear what it is and it's all a little odd.

LAUNCH: Are any of the band members in it?

DOUGIE: Me and [lead singer] Franny are in it, playing a cowboy and an Indian. They cowboy's wandering around Warsaw and meets a couple of seductive twins and then meets me, and I'm playing football with a couple of wee boys. Then we find a pair of magical binoculars and go running off after these gypsies. It sounds terrible, but it's actually very good.

LAUNCH: Do you guys enjoy appearing in videos?

DOUGIE: It can be fun, but we treat videos as being someone else's thing and let the directors get on with it. If they want us to be in it, then fine. If not, then we're probably slightly happier. We just let them get on with making their own little film. The less it has to do with the song, the better, because then it's like a new piece of work.

LAUNCH: You came back to a very different scene this time around...

DOUGIE: Yeah, we definitely live in funny times. It hasn't affected the band so much, though, to be honest. I think we made our best record with 12 Memories, and you can never second-guess how things will be received; nobody expected The Man Who to be that massive phenomenon. There seems to be a different scene, backed with this massive conservatism in radio and in media. There's a lot of novelty acts and they're not going to offend anyone because no one takes them seriously. It's definitely a difficult time. I can't imagine what it'd be like to be a new band.

LAUNCH: Do you find that frustrating?

DOUGIE: It's not frustrating. We just plough our own furrow. We're not interested in what anyone else is doing. I think you get to a certain age and you start questioning and thinking about things, you know: "Am I being lied to? What's going on in the world?" Culturally, people are treated like children. What goes on TV and radio, there's no substance. It's like visual and aural equivalent of baby food. There's no substance to it and because of that we're getting more and more pampered. Everything's soft and inoffensive and just a little bit cheeky.

LAUNCH: So did the band make a conscious effort to broach "the big themes" on this record?

DOUGIE: No, not really. It was just the way the songs came out. I guess we're at a time in our lives and the point the group is now at...when you write songs, you don't necessarily sit and plan it. Some bands do, but we don't. You don't make plans, it just comes out. That's the way musicians and artists work. You work out what's it's about after the fact. The initial thrust of creating something comes from somewhere other than your conscious mind.

LAUNCH: Have you brought the old Travis crowd along with the new material?

DOUGIE: It feels like we have. We're playing to 7,000 people a night, and that's a lot of people. The response to some of the new stuff is on a par with stuff like "Sing" and "Driftwood."

LAUNCH: What are the band's plans for the rest of 2004?

DOUGIE: I don't think we're doing any festivals. We're going to do some European shows after this and then go to Japan, and then we'll start writing for the new album. Hopefully recording by the autumn and then get the new record out. We don't really make plans, we're sh-t at that.

LAUNCH: You're playing a homecoming show tonight then--how's the reaction been?

DOUGIE: Incredible. Standing on the stage is the best view in the house. It's really entertaining. The response has been unbelievable. Last night, after two or three songs, it became so mental and intense we had to take a breather. It's always surprising when you go out onstage and there's that many people; it is quite amazing and humbling. The fact that we can make that many people happy...there's nothing like it.