Travis frontman Fran Healy says he "lost his life" at the height of the band’s success because of how famous he became.
The 47-year-old Scottish singer and his bandmates – Andy Dunlop, Dougie Payne and Neil Primrose – topped the charts in 1999 with their hit second album ‘The Man Who’ and the popularity of singles such as ‘Driftwood’, ‘Turn’ and ‘Why Does It Always Rain On Me?’ made the group a household name in the UK.
Fran admits fame didn’t sit comfortably with him and he struggled with the loss of anonymity in his everyday life.
Speaking to Music Week magazine, he said: "I didn’t enjoy the attention. I wonder sometimes why people want to do this crazy job. And why did I want to do it? Because when I got it, I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is mental’. You lose your life a little bit. You can’t really have a life when you’re up at the top of Mount Everest, the air is thin up there and it’s very hard to breathe."
With success came a demand for more concerts and more music and Fran believes the band made a collective mistake by not taking a break after extensively touring ‘The Man Who’ around the world, including a memorable appearance at the 1999 Glastonbury Festival.
Instead, they came off the road and went back into the studio to make third LP ‘The Invisible Band’, which was released in 2001, and headed back on tour which had negative consequences for the foursome.
Fran said: "It was quite tough because we rolled over from ‘The Man Who’, but we didn’t get a break. We had a week off and then went into the studio and started recording ‘The Invisible Band’.
"Then we were back on the road, and the end of that tour was when Neil broke his neck. Not stopping had really knocked the s*** out of us and I could feel something bad was about to happen, because everyone was beginning to get a little bit out of control."
Travis are scheduled to release their ninth studio album, ’10 Songs’, in October 2020.