Following the release of the stunning animated video for ‘A Ghost’, frontman Fran Healy returns to the director’s chair with the video for Travis’ new track, ‘Valentine’. The track is the third to be taken from their eagerly anticipated new album, ’10 Songs’, which will be released on October 9thon BMG.
The striking video is directed by Fran and shot by Newton Thomas Segal, with lighting design by Queens Of The Stone Age’s lighting technician, Gigi Pedron, in Aspect Lighting’s car park in LA.
Fran said of the video conception, “The idea came from the lyric, “If I lie here, I might die here, I may lay here for a while.” I saw me lying on the ground for the duration using our drone to look down on me and maybe have stuff happen while I lay there.” He continues, “It expanded from here to have lights and a second camera. Again, Covid-19 made this a tricky shoot and not being able to shoot with the band meant getting stunt doubles in who I’ve dressed as ghosts and now in this, they look like urban guerrillas with their balaclavas, shades and black clothes!”
Written by Fran Healy and co-produced by Fran and Robin Baynton, ‘Valentine’ possesses a sizzling energy and a spark that burns bright in the contrast between Fran’s soft, soothing vocals and Andy Dunlop’s heavy guitar lines. Of the track Fran said, “’Valentine’ was recorded as a predominately live performance in December 2019 at Rak studios in London. It’s the closest Travis have gotten sonically to our debut album, ‘Good Feeling’. Alex Harvey-esque.”
A limited-edition 10’ vinyl of the song, with artwork etched on the flip side by the acclaimed artist Douglas Gordon, is available to pre-order exclusively on the band’s official store. Fans will also be in with a chance of receiving a specially numbered copy (limited to 300). These will be randomly allocated after purchase.
Co-produced by both Fran and Baynton (Coldplay, Florence & The Machine), and recorded at RAK Studios as 2019 turned into 2020, ’10 Songs’ is an album about the way life comes at love and what love does to weather those challenges. It’s grown-up. There’s sizzling synergy in abundance, and many of its songs benefit from the almost psychic sense of mutual attunement that comes from being in a band whose line-up hasn’t changed in its entire collective lifetime.
It’s been twenty-five years since the four members of Travis – Fran Healy, AndyDunlop, Dougie Payne, Neil Primrose – first set foot in a Glaswegian rehearsalroom. At various points along the trajectory between then and now, the band have sold millions of albums, they’ve been the subject of the award-winning feature length documentary ‘Almost Fashionable’ and Fran has elicited acclaim from Paul McCartney, Elton John and Graham Nash – all songwriters whose ability to divine a timeless melody out of thin air has sustained them through the decades.
‘10 Songs’ is yet another example of work that shows why Travis are one of the UK’s best. The album comes available as Standard CD, Heavyweight vinyl plus Deluxe 2CD and Deluxe 2LP (red and blue vinyl) including 10 Demos. In addition to the limited edition 10” of ‘Valentine’, the band’s official store features exclusive album merch bundles with limited signed art prints. Pre-Order 10 Songs HERE.