Fran Healy is our final guest for Series 4 of I Never Thought It Would Happen
The Scottish musician rounds off our podcast series
For the final episode of Series 4 of I Never Thought It Would Happen, we welcome Fran Healy to the show. Fran is best known as the lead singer and lyricist for the Scottish band Travis and since their debut album was released in 1997, the group have enjoyed extraordinary success. They have sold millions of records around the world and received critical acclaim for their song writing.
Chris asks Fran about his earliest musical memories and Fran reveals that when he was at primary school, he sang a song for Burns Day and won a prize. Despite the early talent he showed, he didn’t sing when he was a teenager because of shyness but eventually became the singer in Travis.
Fran goes on to reference Chris’ band Squeeze as one that all the members of Travis love and in particular their song ‘Cool For Cats’ is a firm favourite. Generally Fran feels less inspired by the music he hears on the radio these days however. His ultimate test for a great new tune is whether he will pull his car over to listen to it properly and find out who wrote it, something he does less and less.
One of the most fascinating stories contained within the episode relates to Neil Primrose, Fran’s bandmate and drummer in Travis. Neil suffered a life-threatening injury while on tour in 2001 which was an intense moment for not only the members of Travis, but the band’s wider crew as well.
Thanks to some extraordinarily quick thinking from the band’s keyboard tech (who was a trained nurse) and an exceptional slice of luck, Neil was gratefully able to make a full recovery and months later was back with the band recording. It was a truly astonishing sequence of events and certainly not a story to be missed in this episode.
This final episode of Series 4 of I Never thought It Would Happen also features a contribution from a musician we have recently supported, Bristol singer-songwriter Lady Nade.
Lady Nade has received different kinds of support from us in recent years — “Help Musicians and Music Minds Matter have been able to provide me with financial, creative and psychological support. The charities are amazing.”
We hope you enjoyed the final episode of Series 4 of I Never Thought It Would Happen. If you would like to listen back to all the fantastic episodes from the previous 12 weeks, please subscribe by following the links provided below.