Over the course of about 25 years, Scottish rock band Travis has sold millions of albums internationally as a replacement for their lineup.
While the ten tracks that make up the band’s last studio album were written before the pandemic, the appearance of COVID-19 nevertheless had an effect on the procedures for its release.
The last voice of the new album 10 Songs, now available through BMG, recorded on March 13, when the United States began taking the concept of quarantine more seriously and the quartet used generations such as FaceTime to complete the mixing and mastering procedure for their album. . .
The first shelters on the site also had an effect on the band’s ability to make videos and advertise their ninth studio album very well.
After a season in Berlin, Travis singer, songwriter and guitarist Fran Healy moved to Los Angeles, where he lived for about 3 years, where the pandemic forced him to bring a more practical view to the images of the new album.
“The songs were all written. That’s what’s been done. The pandemic has nothing in the songs. All this was done in a domain without COVID. What you see, however, all the illustrations, was done COVID,” Healy said via Skype. earlier this month. ” I was looking for Matisse and looking at some kind of blue paintings, his paper clippings. I think I’d do something like that, use graphic things,” the leader said. this concept that the songs looked like badges. I concept, “Maybe we’re going to replace them with badges and put them on a jacket, make the badges, rent a camera and take the picture. “But when you look at the cover album, it’s my image. I took this image on the steps near the studio looking to locate a well-lit place.
After appearing on the album cover, Healy, a filmmaker and graduate of the Glasgow School of Art, played an even more vital role in filming 10-song videos, making the video for “The Only Thing”.
He went one step further when he went on to make the video for the bachelor “A Ghost”, drawing his own storyboards and, nevertheless, creating the video using an iPad, encouraging him through the rotoscopy that defines the vintage video of 1985 for “Face Me”.
“‘A Ghost’ was the last song written for the album. It was written at the end of December. We tried to sign it in December, but it wasn’t. So we recorded at the birth of March,” Healy said. “While we were filming it, I was trying to think about visuals. I had an image of myself in an alley in Los Angeles playing with guys dressed as ghosts. That was the image. So it was a point of birth,” he said. she continued, pointing to the initial concept of the new video. “But when I got here and the crash happened, I couldn’t film it. Because no one was working. I thought, ‘What do I do? I guess I just take my storyboards that I have drawn and draw others ».
In the end, Healy drew 2500 storyboards, running more than 15 hours a day for almost a month to animate the new video. Unable to locate an entire team and without the ability to film it with his bandmates, Healy finished the new video with his 14-year-old son, who only represented the ghosts of the video, however he filmed his last live action shots with a drone.
It is a video full of references to pop culture for attentive eyes, pointing to films such as It’s A Wonderful Life and Blade Runner while parodying the famous 1942 Edward Hopper who plays Nighthawks.
“The Nighthawks thing because Los Angeles locked it. You drive and literally to Los Angeles, one of the busiest cities in the world, without a car. It’s like a ghost town. It’s like driving through a three-dimensional portrait through Edward Hopper, ” said Healy. “So this is happening in my head. The concept of this video – and I walking through this position where the only other people were the 3 ghosts who followed me in some way. I thought, “Oh, I” I’m going to put the Nighthawks on top. “
At a time when MTV no longer streams music videos on music television, short films have some lost art. But Travis’ “A Ghost” video is a glorious example of how music and photographs can be mixed to boost the narrative, bringing a wonderful song to life by giving context, giving extra meaning to the music and making it all progress.
Although the song was written long before the pandemic, it manages to dominate the global through lyrics like “It’s less hard to be alive / Than hiding under your pillow / While your life goes by”. As so many songs seem to be today, during the time of searching, “A Ghost” has acquired a new meaning.
“Joni Mitchell says composers are like the canary of coal miners. I mean the composers, not the other people who write those jingles and all that. Composers are the smoke detector. They’re in the ear of the track. You can hear, the cargo exercise comes miles before anyone else, ” said Healy. “Some strange things are happening. Take “Waving in the window”. I wrote those lyrics two years ago,” he continued, noting the opening song of the new album. , some other who manages to manipulate today’s global in a strangely prophetic way. “Now all those photographs, videos, videos and pandemic visuals show other people sitting at the windows, greeting the window – they’re all trapped behind a window. F – hell. When I wrote this song, it was like, “What’s this about?”I didn’t know that! But I saw other people greeting the windows. I don’t know why I saw that. But that’s what I saw. “
“The Only Thing” is a pandemic pop masterpiece featuring the melancholy voice of Bangles singer Susanna Hoffs in lyrics that are gently told to any fan of record compilation. His social distance video was made through Healy, a trio of cell phones.
“The bracelets were in that pocket where you’re the most absorbent you’ve ever had when you’re that age, 12, thirteen or 14 years old like me. The bracelets are in my DNA. His voice . . . When you hear that voice, it’s like a time machine. This brings me to an easier time. It calms me down, ” said Healy about his collaboration with Hoffs. “She has something magical and great about her. Every composer has a concept of how something sounds in his head before acting, but when, in spite of everything, we recorded and combined this track, we put the strings on and turned it into the song that is, oh my God, it was much bigger than I thought. . And when I hear it, it makes me smile.
For Healy, living in the United States had a profound effect on the composer.
As he looks around, in the run-up to the 2020 election, Healy is transparent about what he sees in a media landscape driven through social media.
“As a child, I saw America, you were the castle of the hill,” the singer said reverently, and mentioned an early exposure to American pop culture as a formative experience. “Here’s the difference, and it’s very, very simple”. : in the United States, 95% of everything that happens, whether on social media or anything that’s public, is a matter of profit. It’s about making money. Looking around you now, there’s so much unhappiness. All out of greed, is now out of control, ” said Healy. “I’m still hopeful. But I feel like the only way to heal is for everyone to avoid resorting to social media. Get out of there. Go vote. And exercise your right.
Always optimistic, Healy has an undeniable general recommendation for others in turbulent times.
“I made a documentary about my band. It’s almost fashionable. It’s fun and it’s good. I brought a reporter who doesn’t like to go hiking with us. I sought to perceive what was with us, what I thought,” Healy said of the premise of the film. “At the end of the day, it’s about optics. It’s just a matter of purpose. Why not love?” asked the singer rhetorically, laughing. “But one of the things that came out of this was that word “great. “We’re Scots. It’s in our un written constitution. You’re going to have to be great. Just be a great person, ” said Healy. ” So, in this time we live, right now, that would be my message to everyone: just. Be nice. “
I am a Chicago-based announcer who has followed the evolution of the music industry since the mid-1990s with common contributions to WGN Radio and the Daily Herald.
I am a Chicago-based announcer who has followed the evolution of the music industry since the mid-1990s with common contributions to WGN Radio and the Daily Herald. Email: Radiojimryan@gmail. com