Four years since their last studio album, Scottish rockers Travis have released the first song, 'A Ghost', from their forthcoming record '10 Songs'.
Co-produced by both frontman Fran Healy and Robin 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."There's a song on the record called 'Butterflies', and that's really how I think about songwriting," Fran says. "These things are floating around. And you have to be very quiet, and be very quick, and be very respectful.
"You catch them, you look at them for a little while, and then you set them free again. And that's the whole point of songs. That's the point of songwriting."
'A Ghost' is accompanied by an animated video directed and drawn by Fran, with his son Clay leading the cinematography work – all done while in isolation.
"The video started out as a mocked-up picture of me and three ghosts playing the last chorus of the song in a deserted alleyway," Fran says.
"Just when everything was ready to shoot, the world went into lockdown, so we had this great song with no way to make a video, so I decided to draw it.
"It worked out that it would take around 30 days, with 2,500 drawings. Most of the animation is rotoscoped, and one day I was watching a sequence back and when it got to the end, it flashed and went into live action.
"This was the moment I realised I could shoot the mock-up picture of me playing with my band of ghosts in the alleyway. It was clear that filming the last 47 seconds would save me 10 days of drawing; I could recruit my 14-year-old son Clay as the cameraman as he has a drone, and most importantly, we could film it socially distant.
"It was the most bizarre video shoot I have ever worked on, but it turned out great."
'10 Songs' also features cameos with ynth work from Grandaddy's Jason Lytle, lap steel from Greg Leisz (Beck, Emmylou Harris, Bruce Springsteen) and vocals from Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles that came about from a chance exchange on Twitter.
'10 Songs' is scheduled for release on 9 October, 2020.
10 Songs Track List
1. Waving At The Window2. The Only Thing (feat. Susanna Hoffs)
3. Valentine
4. Butterflies
5. A Million Hearts
6. A Ghost
7. All Fall Down
8. Kissing In The Wind
9. Nina's Song
10. No Love Lost
