Travis’ Fran Healy Is Happy To Hang Around: My Laptop

The yearning voice and sullen temperament behind the languid and lush Scottish outfit Travis, Fran Healy has been laying low of late. The primary task on his to-do list: commune with his diverse surroundings while recording his first solo effort in New York, Vermont and (mostly) Berlin. Whether the new Wreckorder (Ryko) benefits from that far-flung trio of locales—or guest appearances from Neko Case and Paul McCartney—is largely irrelevant to anyone who’s not already smitten by Healy’s majestically restrained brand of mope-rock understatement. The 10-song collection occasionally recalls the quieter moments on the already-pretty-quiet The Invisible Band, Travis’ 2001 LP. Only here, Healy turns even more insular as he’s left to stew in his own introspective juices. Healy will be guest-editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.

Healy: Sadly, I’m addicted to my computer. I use it for everything. Even a table to rest my salad on. It’s a MacBook Pro. I bought my first Mac in 1998. I still have it. I still have all the Macs I’ve been through over the years. Until the dawn of internet as we know it, I never wrote many letters. I wrote a lot in my journal, but the volume of written correspondence has shot through the roof in the last 10 years. I don’t really like emails. Emails are like cars. People become different behind the wheel of a car in the same sort of way they become different behind an email address. People will say things in email they would never dare say face to face, much like when someone gives you the finger when they get road rage. There’s a certain protection. In any case the websites I visit the most are The Guardian, The Daily Beast and The Daily Wh.at. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and all these social-network things I do because it’s an easy way to hear from people who like the band, but I dont think I would be on it if I weren’t in a band.

Video after the jump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfysymHCo4s