Life after death

By TIM WATKIN

It was dying that made Travis drummer Neil Primrose realise how much he loved the band and the music they make. His death, he says, turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it gave the band "a good kick up the arse".

The good news for fans of the Glasgow quartet is that Primrose is calling from the other side of the world - London - not "the other side". He was dead for only a few minutes after an accident in a French swimming pool.

Even better is that the band have regathered after the accident and a new album, 12 Memories, is being released.

"It brought us closer together. It made us realise how mundane touring and everything had become and how much we missed creating our music," Primrose says.

The accident happened when Travis was playing a festival in France. Taking some rare relaxation time by the pool, Primrose dived in, hit the bottom and broke his neck in three places.

"It was very serious. I was dead for a few seconds because I was drowning at the time," he says dryly. "I was lucky because the guys were around and pulled me out."

The news from the doctors wasn't good, though. He might never walk again, let alone play the drums. Yet three weeks later, Primrose was at his drum kit for up to 15 minutes a day.

"I was enjoying it so much, I got through the pain. And it's the best exercise for it," he says.

Before the injury, the band had spent three years working hard to capitalise on the unanticipated worldwide success in 1999 of their album The Man Who, and its hit, Why does it always rain on me?

It had been three years on the relentless tour-promote-record-tour treadmill, during which time they had released the album The Invisible Band. The pressure was taking its toll. Cracks were appearing between the four guys who had just been mates starting a band together 10 years earlier.

"We were tired," explains Primrose, "but you've got to get that spent before you realise what you've got to do. You have to be pushed to the edge."

Primrose perhaps took that a little too literally, but he now sees the accident as a good thing, or at least the bad thing the band had to go through before they could become good again. Travis was forced to take almost six months off.

They reconvened last December at the Mull of Kintyre, a studio on a farm owned by friends of Primrose's parents, who run a bar and restaurant in the area. With no expectations except getting Primrose back on his game, the band mooched around, playing in their pyjamas, enjoying a few drinks at Primrose's parents' place and playing lots of Scrabble. It was "a healing place", bassist and former art student Dougie Payne has said.

"We started playing and recording, and in a couple of weeks had half the album done," says Primrose.

On the verge of literally becoming the invisible band, they had turned it around and become the invincible band. They had found the fun again and regained control of what they were doing, says Primrose.

As part of that reclamation, they decided to push on without the producer from their two previous albums, Nigel Godrich, and produce 12 Memories themselves.

"We thought, if it's sounding this good, don't try to fix it," Primrose says. Talking about the sound of the past albums, he adds, "We'd taken it to the end of the road".

Although Invisible Band was well received - one reviewer called it the kind of album Radiohead fans wished their boys would make - Travis seem to see it as a low point.

"I don't have a great fondness for the album," says Primrose. "There's a couple of really good tunes near the end ... We were just really tired," he says again.

It was an airy, sun-filled room of an album with flowers at the window, literally. On the new album it's as if they have been forced outside and clouds have covered the sun.

A sign of the times, songwriter Fran Healy has said. The band is older, more aware and, what's more, his relationship with fiancee Nora has settled down and is offering less songwriting material. Post-September 11, he felt he had to sing about what he saw.

It could loosely be called their political album and is their best work yet, Primrose believes. The first single, Re-offender, is about a dysfunctional, even violent, relationship. Beautiful Occupationis about the second Gulf War and is sure to be another single. It has been released this year in acoustic version on the charity War Child's Hope fundraising album for the children of Iraq.

Primrose chews over the "political album" tag for a while, not quite convinced.

"You have to ask yourself, what is politics? People use the word easily but there are many different kinds of politics.

"There is awareness and commenting on what you see around you. Then there's the spin and the bullshit.

"That's what politics is. Being someone in the street commenting on what he sees around the world doesn't means it is politics."

But the political is personal, isn't it?

Fair point, he replies. Politics should matter at a personal level and he is sick of famous people in the media telling us what to think. "We all have an opinion and we all matter and should have some thoughts on things."

It's kind of endearing that he sees Travis as people in the street and is oblivious to the obvious - that the band are just more famous people telling us what to think.

He doesn't like the thought of being a spokesman but, when you point out the fact that the band has a few hundred thousand more listeners than the average person in the street, he warms to the idea.

"With thousands of people listening you can unify them. You can create a feeling and make people think, or feel something. That's what art and music should do. Not think too much, but feel.

"If you think too much, you're formulaic. It should strike you on an emotional level."

* 12 Memories is released on October 13.