About Travis
Travis are a Scottish rock band formed in Glasgow in 1990, and composed of Fran Healy , Dougie Payne , Andy Dunlop , and Neil Primrose . The band's name comes from the character Travis Henderson from the film Paris, Texas . The band released their debut album, Good Feeling , to moderate success where it debuted at number nine on the UK Albums Chart and was later awarded a silver certification from the British Phonographic Industry in January 2000.
The band gained greater success with their second album, The Man Who , which spent nine weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart, totalling 134 weeks in the top 100 of the chart. In 2003, The Man Who was certified 9× platinum by the BPI, which represented sales of over 2.68 million in the UK alone. Following this success, the band released their third album, The Invisible Band . It matched the success of The Man Who, debuting atop the UK Albums Chart as well as peaking at thirty-nine on the US Billboard 200. A year following the release of The Invisible Band, the BPI awarded Travis with a 4× platinum certification for the album. Subsequent releases, 12 Memories , The Boy with No Name , Ode to J. Smith , Where You Stand , Everything at Once , 10 Songs , and L.A. Times , also achieved commercial success. In 2004, the band released their first greatest hits album, Singles.
Travis have twice been awarded best band at the Brit Awards and were awarded the NME Artist of the Year award at that website's 2000 ceremony, and in 2016 were honoured at the Scottish Music Awards for their outstanding contribution to music.
Both Fran Healy and Andy Dunlop went to the Glasgow School of Art from 1989 to 1991. A 16 year old Healy played in front of a crowd for the first time in 1989 at Holyrood Secondary School when he was in 5th year. The band that would become Travis was formed by brothers Chris Martyn and Geoff Martyn along with Simon Jarvis . Andy Dunlop, a school friend at Lenzie Academy, was drafted in on guitar. The line-up was completed by a female vocalist, Catherine Maxwell, and the band's name became "Glass Onion", after the Beatles' song of the same name. Neil Primrose then joined to replace drummer Jarvis. Parting company with their singer in the spring of 1991, they auditioned for a new vocalist. Having met each other through Primrose pouring him a pint, an untrained art student, Fran Healy, joined after being invited to audition by Primrose. Healy joined the band on the day he enrolled at the Glasgow School of Art in the autumn of 1991. Two years later, with the option of playing music holding more appeal, Healy dropped out of art school and, inspired by songwriters such as Joni Mitchell, assumed songwriting responsibilities. With brothers Chris and Geoff Martyn on bass and keyboards, in 1993, the five-some released a privately made CD, The Glass Onion EP, featuring the tracks "Dream On", "The Day Before", "Free Soul", and "Whenever She Comes Round". 500 copies of the EP were made and were recently valued at £1000 each. Other songs they recorded, but were left off the CD, are "She's So Strange" and "Not About to Change".
The band won a talent contest organised by the Music in Scotland Trust, which promised £2,000 so that Travis could deal-hunt at a new music seminar in New York. Two weeks before they were due to leave, however, the prize was instead given to the Music in Scotland Trust Directory. According to their publisher, Charlie Pinder: "They were a band that everyone in the A&R community knew about and would go and see every now and then. But they weren't very good. They had quite good songs; Fran always did write good songs." While on a visit to Scotland, American engineer and producer Niko Bolas, a long-time Neil Young and Rolling Stones associate, tuned into a Travis session on Radio Scotland, and heard something in the band's music which instantly made him travel to Perth to see them. Healy said: "He told us we were shit, took us in the studio for four days, and taught us how to play properly, like a band. He was ballsy, rude, and New York pushy. He didn't believe my lyrics and told me to write what I believed in and not tell lies. He was Mary Poppins, he sorted us out." The band recorded a five-song demo, which included the song "All I Want to Do Is Rock".
Having failed to achieve breakthrough success in the United Kingdom, the band relocated to New York, as they believed that the American music market might be more suited to their style of music. Before heading to New York, Healy suggested that the band should send a demo to Charlie Pinder of Sony Music Publishing, whom they had known for a few years and regularly sent songs to, saying: "If he's not into it, then we'll ." Pinder was immediately impressed by the song "All I Want to Do is Rock", which he felt was a dramatic change for the band: "It was harder, more exciting, sexy; all things that they never really were. They turned a corner." After performing a secret gig for Pinder and his boss at Sony, Blair McDonald, they were signed to Sony Music Publishing. The immediate impact was that the founding member and keyboard player Geoff Martyn was removed while the bassist, his brother Chris, was replaced with Healy's best friend Dougie Payne. The band was moved to London where they were given a rehearsal room and a house.
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