I’ve come out the end of a personal storm – Fran Healy

Fran Healy has had an emotional few years.

His marriage ended, one of his best friends died of cancer and his band Travis sacked their long-standing manager of more than two decades.

“It was like being in a storm and you think you might sink,” says the singer.

“Then it clears, because that’s what life does, and coming out the other end is this record. When I say it’s the most personal record the band have done it’s because it’s imbued with all of this stuff in it.

“It’s like whisky. I’ve been soaked in all this mad stuff and I think it shows.”

Healy is speaking while sipping tea rather than anything stronger. He’s sitting in an upmarket Glasgow hotel, back in the city that birthed his band – a group now releasing their 10th album, L.A. Times.

The singer – currently sporting hair as orange as Irn Bru – is used to weathering what he refers to as “seismic changes” in his life and turning them into material for songs.

The Glasgow quartet’s breakthrough second record The Man Who was inspired by a host of similar experiences, from the death of his grandfather to, as he describes it, “being chucked.”

That album, and a legendary rain-soaked performance of Why Does It Always Rain On Me? at Glastonbury in 1999 catapulted the group into music’s major leagues, with arena gigs and chart success following.

However L.A. Times arguably cuts even deeper than before. The track Alive celebrates the life of friend Ringan Ledwidge, who directed videos for the band’s hits Turn and Coming Around. He passed away from cancer in 2021 aged 50.

Both Home and The River ponder watching your children growing up, with Healy’s son Clay now a teenager going to art school in New York, as well as having started a band of his own.

Hanging over it all is the end of Healy’s marriage to his wife Nora. The break-up actually infused the writing on the band’s last album 10 Songs, but it is only now the songwriter feels able to discuss the end of the relationship.

“We looked at each other one day and it was just like we both sighed,” he recalls.

“I was this ‘this just feels…’ and she went ‘I know’. When you’re a parent it’s like you’re not quite friends and you’re not quite lovers, you’re parents.

“Both of us realised the bond we have hasn’t changed, it’s exactly the same – we’re just not living together.

“Nora’s still my soul sister because I’ve known her forever. It’s just evolved into another type of relationship.”

There are other relationships that run through the album, from Healy’s feelings on Los Angeles (a “hard city to live in”) to the group taking the decision to sack their manager after 25 years – a decision made because they felt management no longer “loved” them.

“It was one of the most empowering moments we’ve had recently. It reminded me of taking control of the band to begin with, and going ‘this is my f****** band, I’m the leader of it’.”

That refers to when Travis switched from their previous name of Glass Onion, losing the two founding members of the group in the process after Healy made the decision to replace them with bassist Dougie Payne.

Since then the band line-up has remained unchanged, enjoying both highs – such as chart-topping albums – and lows – like drummer Neil Primrose breaking his back – along the way.

“You’re not quite friends, you’re more than that but you’re not quite brothers,” reflects Healy.

“Instead you’re in-between that. When we come offstage we’re very close, like a football team that’s been together for 30 years. It’s very sweet and very rare. If you’re in a band it’s like you’re in formaldehyde because it keeps your spirits in the same place.”

Staying in the same place is is not something that finds too much favour with Healy, having previously lived in London and Berlin.

The singer says he may head in the same direction as his son and leave Los Angeles, as he “doesn’t feel settled anywhere”.

However life in LA does have benefits. Both Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and Killers singer Brandon Flowers live nearby, for instance, and so were roped into adding vocals on Raze the Bar – a song about a famed New York bar that hosted many a rock singer over the years.

A quick message to Flowers – a long-time fan of the band – saw him help out while the two bands toured together earlier this year.

Healy drily said the Killers are “a rocket-flying high and we’re a submarine under the surface” when comparing styles.

When seeking advice on L.A. Times, he gave Martin a call for advice and ended up with him on the record, although their first encounter in LA gave the Coldplay singer a shock.

Healy said: “Chris is an old friend – we’d go round his and Gwyneth’s place when our kids were babies, and then we lost touch a bit when I moved to Berlin.

“A while back I was dropping Clay off at a gig and I didn’t realise it was Chris’s son’s gig. I’m driving out the car park and I saw Chris walking across it with Dakota [Johnson].

“So I wound the window down, put on the broadest Glasgow accent I could manage and went ‘hoi – you!’ He jumped a mile.”

That good-natured Glasgow spirit remains present in Healy, as anyone who saw their joyful secret set at TRNSMT would testify.

Then there was their recent jaunt around the city on a bus, stopping to perform songs every so often.

It is a playful wit the singer hopes he never loses.

“I identity more as a Glaswegian before I’m Scottish,” he said. “We did the Quay sessions at the BBC the other day and it was like a greenhouse in there.

“So I’m sweating with the lights on – about 40 minutes in I went outside to get some air and there’s a wee guy with a fag going past.

“He just looks at me, and goes ‘son, you look like I just dragged you out the Clyde’. That’s the sort of thing you get here.

“I love that I carry that with me everywhere I go.”