Travis might not be the rat-biting, sneer-sniggering, beer-swilling epitome of rock 'n' roll (as Liam Gallagher said of them: "They're not very frightening, are they?"), but the Scottish outfit claim to be the luckiest and best band in the world. Not so much big in the UK as colossal, Travis (the name is from Paris, Texas, not Taxi Driver) appear to have surprised the world with the success of their second album, The Man Who, in the process becoming the staple diet of buskers from Sauchiehall Street to St Ives.
"It has taken us 10 years," says the band's glum guitarist, Andy Dunlop, a man renowned for having one of the worst record collections in living memory (anyone for a copy of Ratt's 1985 Invasion of Your Privacy?). "We put a lot of the groundwork down with the first album (1997's Good Feeling), and then through touring so much. The success of The Man Who is down to it being played on the radio. The most important thing about Travis is the songs. It's not about our age or the way we look, because we've never played on that aspect. It's all about songs, and radio play is the key to that.
"Radio can do so much more than any band. Bands can only play in front of so many people at any given time. The radio is omnipresent, and people hear our songs through it."
With Travis, what you see is what you get. The band's debut came at a time when Britpop was just about to curl up and die. Their music was easier to digest than the likes of the rude Gallagher brothers' gravy-smothered meat-and-two-veg music and Blur's increasingly artful side tracks. So began the UK's love-affair with the band. It was slow at first and - outside Scotland - pretty much devoid of that vital radio coverage. Despite reaching the UK Top 10, Good Feeling was cheated out of further success by a roughness of approach. With no hit singles to speak of, the band retreated into themselves (lead singer and songwriter Fran Healy has a tendency towards extreme morose reflection), perfecting what they thought would be a cracker of a follow-up.
The Man Who entered the album charts last year at No 5, but quickly slipped to No 19. Initial joy turned into the usual gloom and Travis, believing their bolt had been shot, began a series of gigs on the UK's summer festival circuit, bookended by Glastonbury and V99. A defining moment occurred at Glastonbury: just as they started Why Does it Always Rain on Me? the skies opened and lashed. And then it lashed some more. In the space of the length of the song, Travis had themselves a calling-card anthem. Cue fanfares and success on a scale they had never dreamed of. By the time Travis played V99, The Man Who was No 1.
"You don't concentrate on the success, because you're too busy most of the time," Andy says. "You concentrate on working hard. You've got to keep pushing yourself, and the band. I mean, we're focusing on doing the next album. You've got to keep your eye on future goals - that's what keeps you sharp. While the perception is that we've come from nowhere, the reality is obviously something different. But it doesn't really matter. We're not here to be martyrs. If people like the songs, then great. If they don't, then it's also fine. We'll keep on making albums. It's best not to get bothered about what people think of you."
While Travis is to all intents and purposes a rock band for people who don't like rock music, there is a self-belief within the group that is tangible, and one that disregards the begrudgers. According to Andy, the band have had to fight their own corner from the start of their career.
"We were very much ostracised in Glasgow, and we were never part of a scene. We knew people in other bands, but we never fell into anything. Any scene in any town seems to focus on what's cool and what isn't. We've never given a damn about what's cool and what's not. Cool is so transient, with lots of bands trying to be something. By the fact of trying to be something there's bound to be something wrong. Music should be effortless. So we've never bothered with having any kind of image. Even now, we're outsiders to a degree. We try to be as invisible as possible, which is difficult at the moment. But most people don't actually know what we look like. Fran gets most of the attention, but the rest of us wouldn't be recognised on the street, and that's a fact. Most bands try to get themselves recognised, but Travis try to get the songs in front of people. We've been fairly successful so far. We've stayed out of the way of the songs as much as possible. A rock 'n' roll thing is about the personality, and if you're good at it I've no problem with that. But so many people in bands are not good at projecting their personalities.
"Every band has some form of image, purely from playing live and appearing in magazines. But there are ways of being seen. In London, for instance, you can hang about The Met Bar and get your photo taken and be slapped on the front of the tabloids everyday - if you want to. But you can avoid that and take the long way around, which is to have some substance."
Which is what it's all about. Travis take some of the constituent parts of rock 'n' roll and wrap them up into an eminently listenable post-laddism commodity. Some of the music is disposable, while some is a melodic and gorgeous cross-section of Teenage Fanclub and The Byrds. Liam Gallagher is right, however: Travis isn't the least bit snapping-at-the-leash dangerous.
"Our point is not to frighten people," reasons Andy. "We're not trying to be rebellious rock 'n' roll stars. Someone like Liam Gallagher is a natural rock 'n' roll star. He was born that way and is possibly one of the few people around at the moment who can pull it off. Everyone else is acting, but he actually is. Travis is not a die-hard rock 'n' roll band. We're musicians in a band, and surely it's much better to know what your strengths are and play to them. I think Travis do that - we play great songs. We don't undersell ourselves either: we have a lot of belief in ourselves. Be realistic about what you do, is pretty much our motto. Bands die off in time, but the songs will always be there."
Travis headline the Witness Festival, Fairyhouse Racecourse on Sunday, August 6th
