Fran Healy, frontman of Scottish popsters Travis, has long earned a reputation as a world-class songwriter. The catch is that songwriting is one of his least favorite things to do.
“I don’t really enjoy the process, it’s too laborious for me,” he said this week. “It’s just like digging, you’re going clink-clink forever, and there’s a lot of dirt before you get to any diamonds. And in that process of digging, your ego gets eroded to the point where you’re saying ‘I am the worst songwriter on the planet, I just can’t do it’. The trick is to push just beyond that point, where you find that little germ of an idea that’s going to be the song. And that’s where the inspiration comes in. Lately I feel I’ve got my mojo back — I didn’t lose it but I directed it to being a father for 17 years.”
That trick has worked more than once, and the current lineup of Travis which hits Royale on Saturday — Healy, bassist Dougie Payne, guitarist Andy Dunlop and drummer Neil Primrose — is the same one that made the breakthrough albums “The Man Who” and “The Invisible Band” two decades ago. By now Healey is used to fans telling him those albums changed their life.
“I just say they changed my life too — not because they became big records, but because those songs really helped me out. I think songs are the cure and if you’re fortunate enough, or unfortunate enough to be the lead singer in a band, your duty is to carry the cure to as many people as possible. If you think of all the bands who’ve had hits, vs. the number of bands who have made records, there’s an enormous amount of luck involved. So even if you’re still doing good stuff, in some ways you can never match that first honeymoon. But I was competing with myself even then, always trying to find a melody I had never heard before.”
His own favorite songs are often at the back of his mind. “Think of something like ‘Wichita Lineman’ where Jimmy Webb wrote ‘I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time.’ That just floors me and I’ve heard it so many times over the years. So for me it’s like a thirty-year long song.”
The catchiest of Travis’ new songs, “Raze the Bar,” salutes a beloved Greenwich Village watering hole with a rousing singalong including Chris Martin (Coldplay) and Brandon Flowers (the Killers). “It was a bar called Black and White on Astor Place and a lot of artists used to hang there, like Robert Mapplethorpe and one of his muses. It closed all of a sudden so the song is like the last drink we didn’t get to have. The recording was a little mundane because Chris and Brandon were there remotely, same as when I got McCartney to play on my solo album. We didn’t get our ‘We Are the World’ moment.”
Healy should be back on two feet when the tour hits Boston. This wasn’t the case last week, when he took a tumble coming offstage in Seattle. “I was walking offstage at the end of the show on this makeshift flight of stairs with no handrails, the first step was shorter than the second, and my brain did the calculation wrong. I went down like a bag off potatoes, dragged myself to the dressing room, and proceeded to howl like a dog for a couple of minutes. I got taken to the hospital and did the next couple of shows with the big shoe on. So that’s what happened, and I wish it was more rock & roll glamorous than that.”