Travis have shared a new single featuring Coldplay‘s Chris Martin and The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers.
The song ‘Raze The Bar’, which is the second track to be lifted from the band’s forthcoming album ‘L.A. Times’, tells the story of the closure of New York’s much loved Black & White Bar. You can listen to it below.
The Greenwich Village haunt attracted lots of famous bands and scores of local creatives over the years, from The Strokes to graffiti artist Richard Hambleton but it was shut down during the pandemic.
Healy told NME: “Everyone went there, because it was near Irving Plaza and all the bands would always go there. This bar was a hub for poetry, it was all so positive for artists. Then they had to shut it and the landlord went in one night and ripped every single bit of the bar out and whitewashed it so that nobody could ever have the bar again. So the song is like an imaginary last night in the bar.”
Speaking about how the collaboration came about, Healy added: “I called up Chris, I was having a moment of ‘I fucking don’t know how to order the record’. I’d listened to it too much. I had a running order but I needed some fresh ears so I called Chris and we drove up the Pacific Coast highway and listened to it.
“He had lots and lots of comments to make and he picked out that particular song. He was like ‘Oh My God it’s fucking amazing’. So we go back to the house and he goes to the piano and he starts playing it. I was like, ‘You should sing on it’. He was like, ‘Yeah I’ll sing but you should get more people to sing on it as well’. So I called up Brandon and he was like ‘sure’. So the both of them came in and sung on it.
He went on: “They’re barely audible but it was more the spirit of the thing. It has like a big chorus with a big gang of people. It’s a really, really nice song.”
Meanwhile, Travis are due to support The Killers across their 16 date UK and Ireland arena tour later this summer.
“It’s gonna be great. We’ve been friends for years and years now and Ronnie [Vannucci Jr.] and Brandon are the sweetest guys,” Healy said.
“It’s nice to be a support band again too. I love being a support band. It reminds me of when we supported Oasis [on the ‘Be Here Now’ Tour in 1997]. We went on every single night to blow them off the stage which is what a good support band should be doing. You go on, the other band watch you from the wings going, ‘Fuck’. And then they come on and do a better show because of it.”
He continued: “I did say to Brandon, ‘I hope you know we’ll go on every single night and try and blow you off the stage’ and he was laughing. He was like, ‘Bring it on’, so it should be brilliant. They’re great guys.”
The release of ‘L.A. Times’, which is out on July 12 and can be pre-ordered/pre-saved here, comes 25 years after Travis’ landmark LP ‘The Man Who’ catapulted the four-piece into the commercial stratosphere, spending 11 weeks at Number One in the UK albums chart. It also earned them a legendary headline slot at Glastonbury.
Travis previously performed ‘The Man Who’ in full in 2018 and while they have no plans to do so again this year, Healy recently said he is potentially eyeing up a 30th anniversary tour of their 1997 debut album ‘Good Feeling’.
“That’d be fucking great,” he added. “That would be a good album to do. In 2027, fucking hell could you imagine? [After all this time] I’m amazed we’re still getting away with it.”