And the Hello and welcome to the Soa to Jaker podcast this is Simon Barber here as always with my co-host Brian O'Connor

and joining us today is an Ivan novello winning singer and musician, principal songwriter

for one of the most beloved and enduring Scottish bands of all time, Travis.

As this episode reaches you, here in the band's on a UK tour to celebrate the coming of age

of The Man Who, the album that shot them to stardom, we are chuffed to welcome the great Fran Healy to the show.

Fran joined us from LA and it was really lovely to finally get to speak to him.

We've admired his death songwriting skills for many years, haven't we?

Yeah, we've always had a lot of time for Travis I don't think

Fran gets anywhere near the appreciation he deserves as a songwriter. Not at all now

and he's just got that knack as any of just plucking those sweet melodies and

those huge choruses out of thin air.

And there's an emotional directness to his lyrics as well that I've always found very

affecting and I think it's why they became so popular and he's thinking with such passion too.

Yeah and I think as a band they've kind of gone about things the right way haven't they if you know what I mean?

Definitely.

They're like four friends, they enjoy each other, they make music together, they've had this huge period of commercial success,

but then they didn't really allow it to knock them off kilter.

Yeah, where other bands perhaps started to believe their own hype, they just kind of got on with it.

And you know, to this day 20 odd years after they form

they're still writing great songs aren't they and making solid records?

Yeah I'd love to know the secret because we're sick of the bloody sight of each other.

Fran Hebe was actually born in Stafford, England in 1973, but raised in Glasgow, Scotland.

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