When Fran Healy hit a wall writing songs for the new Travis album, he decided to bring things full circle. “Chris has made a few good records in his time so I sent him a text and asked him if he wanted to go for a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway,” says the Ivor Novello-winning songwriter, recalling the intervention made by the frontman of the biggest band in the world . “So I drove up to his house and he jumped in the car and we went for a drive up the coast.
He listened to the record with me in the car as we drove, because I was at the point that I was becoming blind to it.” An hour later, Healy was finishing off a new song with his pal at the piano in Chris Martin’s Los Angeles home, bringing the connection between all-conquering stadium rockers Coldplay and the band who inspired them to a creative fulcrum, three decades later. Chris Martin has spoken in the past about how Glasgow Brit-winners Travis were “the band who invented my band and many others” with their 1997 debut album Good Feeling and its hugely influential 1999 follow up smash The Man Who.
“He’s a sweet, sweet man, Chris. He was like: ‘Turn it down, man, it can’t be too loud.’ He’s protective of his ears.
He’s very Yoda about his stuff. A purist.” The result of their coastal collaboration can be heard on Raze The Bar, the second single from Travis’ forthcoming new album, LA Times, released this summer.
Martin provides backing vocals on the track alongside Brandon Flowers of Th.