Interview - Fran Healy

Having been a staple of the mainstream for 25 years, the perception of Travis is probably ‘timeless songs delivered by nice boys’. Not exactly the most rock and roll description, but it could be worse. Yet to assume it’s a description they readily accept is dangerous.

‘We’ve always been bashed for being nice, and I always find that quite amusing,’ says Fran Healy. ‘I would say to people: don’t confuse nice with weak. It’s the wrong thing to do, especially if you’re talking to someone from Possilpark. I’ll fucking rip your face off, you c**t. People look at us like, ‘Ahhh’. You don’t even know me. Fuck off.’

When CLASH speaks to the Travis frontman, he’s suffering from jet lag having landed in the UK to prepare for a short but condensed run of shows. Yet one senses that his riposte is not because of tiredness, more a flash of rarely-seen inbuilt Glaswegian steel.

‘It used to annoy me,’ he says of their public image. ‘But what can you do? You can’t do anything about it, it’s just the perception of a few people. The fact is, in a hundred years from now, we’ll all be dead and maybe there will be a couple of songs floating around. That’s kind of it.’

https://www.clashmusic.com/features/ive-still-got-unfinished-business-travis-interviewed/