Formation and early years (1989–1993) in 1999. It is on all releases with the exception of Good Feeling (which was released in 1997) and Ode to J. Smith'' (which featured a comparison between
Gill Sans and
Johnston Sans). 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 (bass) and Geoff Martyn (keyboards) along with Simon Jarvis (drums).
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, 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. In 1993, 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".
Changes and debut album (1994–1997) 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. Payne played with the new line-up for the first time in a free space above
The Horse Shoe Bar in
Glasgow. Once set up in London, the band spent between nine months and a year recording new songs. The album's sleeve notes include a dedication to film director
Stanley Kubrick, who had died a few months prior to the album's release. number four in their native Scotland, number ten in the United Kingdom, and the top twenty in Australia, Finland, and New Zealand. , according to
Concord Music,
The Man Who has sold over 3.5 million copies worldwide. It was among ten albums nominated for the best British album of the previous 30 years by the
Brit Awards in 2010, losing to ''
(What's the Story) Morning Glory? by Oasis. Travis followed the release of The Man Who'' with an extensive 237-concert world tour, including headlining the 2000
Glastonbury,
T in the Park, and
V festivals, and a US tour leg with
Oasis. The title of Travis's following album, 2001's
The Invisible Band, again produced by
Nigel Godrich, reflects the band's genuine belief that their music is more important than the group behind it. Recorded at
Ocean Way Studios in Los Angeles, and featuring songs including "
Sing" (the most played song on British radio that summer), "
Side", the
McCartneyesque "
Flowers in the Window", "Indefinitely", "Pipe Dreams", and "The Cage", the album made it to No. 1 on the UK chart and generally received widespread critical acclaim, with the band again taking Best British Band at the annual
Brit Awards. It also received
Top of the Pops Album of the Year. The album also had an impact across the Atlantic, the popularity in the US of the single "
Coming Around", a non-album track with
Byrdsesque harmonies and 12-string guitar, enhancing this.
Primrose's accident and change in direction (2002–2006) store in
Toronto,
Canada, 2003 In 2002, drummer
Neil Primrose suffered a serious injury after he dived head-first into a shallow swimming pool while on tour in France, just after a concert at the
Eurockéennes festival. Breaking his neck, he almost died due to spinal damage. If not for his road crew, he also would have drowned. Despite the severity of the accident, Primrose has since made a full recovery. With Primrose having recovered, Travis regrouped and re-evaluated. Moving into a cottage in Crear,
Argyll and Bute, they set up a small studio, and over two weeks came up with nine new songs that would form the basis of their fourth studio album, 2003's
12 Memories. Produced by Travis themselves,
Tchad Blake, and Steve Orchard, the album marked a move into more organic, moody, and political territory for the band. The album's lead single "
Re-Offender" was a commercial success for the band, reaching number seven in both Scotland and the United Kingdom.
12 Memories was also a commercial success, reaching number three in the United Kingdom and forty one in the United States. In 2004, Travis embarked on a successful tour of Canada, the US, and Europe (supported by
Keane in the UK), and in November 2004 the band released a successful compilation of their singles,
Singles, as well as the new tracks, "
Walking in the Sun" and "The Distance" (written by Dougie Payne). On 2 July 2005, Travis performed at
Live 8's
London concert, and four days later at the
Edinburgh 50,000 – The Final Push concert. Travis also participated in
Band Aid 20's re-recording of "
Do They Know It's Christmas?"—Healy and friend
Nigel Godrich playing leading roles in its organisation.
Artistic re-evaluation (2007–2009) in Glasgow, September 2007 Travis released a fifth studio album,
The Boy with No Name, on 7 May 2007.
Nigel Godrich was the album's executive producer, while
Mike Hedges and
Brian Eno were also involved. The album is named after Healy's son, Clay, whom Healy and his partner Nora were unable to name until four weeks after his birth. Healy has described the process of making the album as "like coming out of the forest". Travis played at
Coachella on 28 April 2007. At the Virgin Megastore tent in the festival,
The Boy With No Name was available to purchase over a week early. Reviews of the album were mixed. The album's first single, "
Closer", was released on 23 April 2007 and peaked at No. 10 on the
UK singles chart. Two further singles were released from
The Boy with No Name – "
Selfish Jean" and "
My Eyes". After a brief tour of the United Kingdom, during which the band tested new material, they recorded their sixth album, in two weeks between February–March 2008, having been inspired by the speed and simplicity of their recent recording session with Beatles engineer
Geoff Emerick while participating in a BBC programme celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the ''
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' album. It was announced around this time that the band and their long-term record label Independiente had split amicably. In early June 2008, a vinyl EP of the song "
J. Smith" was announced online as the first release from
Ode to J. Smith, for 30 June. It was an EP limited to 1000 copies and not an 'official' single; instead more of a taster of the album for fans. Fran Healy said, "The album is called
Ode to J. Smith partly giving a heads up to the key song and partly because all the songs are written about nameless characters or to nameless characters." He has also described the album as a novel with 12 chapters, with each chapter being a song. The album was released through their own record label, Red Telephone Box, with the lead single "
Something Anything" being released on 15 September. On 29 September,
Ode to J. Smith was released. Travis headlined a 12-concert UK tour to coincide with the releases between 22 September and 8 October. Early reviews were very positive, with some calling it Travis's best record ever. The second single released from
Ode To J. Smith was "
Song to Self", on 5 January 2009.
Return to prominence (2010–2016) A live acoustic album featuring Healy and Dunlop was released on 19 January 2010. In 2011, Travis returned to live performances. They played at the
Maxidrom Festival in Moscow, in May; at G! festival, Faroe Island, and the Rock'n Coke Festival in Istanbul, Turkey, in July. On 31 October, Fran Healy performed a concert in
Berlin along with
Keane's
Tim Rice-Oxley. Travis recorded songs for their next album at the end of September 2011, and they continued writing new songs in February 2012 with Tim Rice–Oxley of Keane, in both Berlin and London. On 25 April 2013, they revealed that the new album
Where You Stand would be released on 19 August 2013 via
Kobalt Label Services, and that the first eponymous single "
Where You Stand" would be released on 30 April. A post from Travis on their
Instagram page confirmed that recording had commenced on the band's eighth album at
Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin in January 2015. On 25 November 2015, Travis shared a free-download single "Everything at Once" and announced two UK live shows for January 2016. A new album, also titled
Everything at Once, was released on 29 April 2016. In 2016, at the 18th annual Scottish Music Awards, Travis were presented with an award for their outstanding contribution to music. The film had its premiere in 2018 at the 72nd
Edinburgh International Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award.
10 Songs (2017–2024) In 2017, Travis celebrated the 20th anniversary of their debut 1997 album
Good Feeling and the 18th anniversary of their seminal 1999 album
The Man Who. As part of the occasion, the band re-released the album
The Man Who as a limited edition box set. In September 2017, the band also performed the album in full at two shows in
Manchester and London, followed by more full-album UK shows in June and December 2018. For the 20th anniversary of
The Man Who, the band re-released the album reissue box set, along with the live album ''Live at Glastonbury '99'', a recording of the set that is credited to be "a pivotal moment in kickstarting Travis' commercial success", this being despite the band members feeling that they had performed poorly when they originally performed at Glastonbury in 1999. On 10 December 2019, Travis released "Kissing in the Wind", a song from their upcoming new album, a song that had previously been included in their 2018 documentary
Almost Fashionable: A Film About Travis. Another single, "A Ghost", was released on 3 June 2020, along with details of the band's upcoming ninth studio album
10 Songs, released on 9 October of the same year. As a result of the outbreak of the
COVID-19 pandemic, the band were unable to schedule a tour to promote the release of
10 Songs; however, when restrictions were lifted, they rarely played any of the tracks from the album live. The album was produced by
Tony Hoffer and written by Fran Healy in his studio on the edge of
Skid Row, Los Angeles. The cover of the album is a photograph of the band in Los Angeles taken by Stefan Ruiz, who also took photographs for the covers of the previous albums
The Man Who,
The Invisible Band, and
The Boy with No Name. The band announced they would be supporting
the Killers on their seventeen-concert Ireland and UK tour in mid-2024. ==Collaborations and solo work==