For Fran Healy’s new album, “Wreckorder,” the singer best known as fronting the band Travis got a ringer to play bass on the song “As It Comes.”
Healy says it was on a whim that he shot Sir Paul McCartney an e-mail, saying, “Would you mind? Here’s the track. If you have a minute, give it a listen. Love you to play bass on it.”
So how does he think having the man who basically defined the bass sound for pop music affected Travis bassist Dougie Payne?
“I hope he feels really jealous,” jokes Healy.
Healy hasn’t spoken with any of his band-mates recently enough to know what they think about his solo debut, but the songs don’t stray too far from the polished pop constructions he perfected with Travis. He says the band will reconvene next month.
“I always looked at being in a band like being married, and it is kind of like being married to three guys,” says Healy. “Unlike being married, you can actually go off and have ‘affairs’ with other musicians, and that’s a good thing. It’s cross-pollination and it makes it exciting and it makes it interesting, and I think that will definitely feed back into Travis in a really good way.”
Especially when one of the musicians you’re cross-pollinating with is a Beatle!
