Fran Healy & Andy Dunlop of Travis to Tour US & Write Album

Photo: Travis perform in Cleveland for the first time in seven years on April 20, 2009.

Lead singer Fran Healy and guitarist Andy Dunlop of the Scottish band Travis are gearing up to tour the United States, while also writing music for the band's next album. Inspired by Jack Kerouac, author of "On the Road", Healy and Dunlop say that this tour also serves as a way to celebrate Travis' music.

In embarking upon this adventure, Healy is also fulfilling a dream. He said that he has always wanted to travel across the U.S. and try to write a record:

"So, I thought, 'Why don't we take our acoustics and go from venue to venue and then on our downtime try and do a little [writing] here and there and see what we can get together?'"

The tour's name is quite a mouthful, dubbed "A Chronological Acoustical Journey Through The Travis Back Catalogue: Laugh Out Loud Stories, Scottish Accents, Handsome Scottish Men, Naked Torsos." The tour was also inspired by an experience in Austria where Healy was told he would need to perform for 10 minutes for a gig, and then told upon arrival that he would need to play for an hour:

"So I thought, 'We need to have some structure,'" Healy said. "'Let's start with the first song I wrote and end with the last song I wrote, put it all together and make it in chronological order.' It was so successful that people were flipping out. The radio station who was co-promoting it got the most e-mails and calls all about this show, saying it was fantastic. I thought, 'This is a good idea. We should do this properly like a proper tour.' It was nice to have an idea and actually see it go to light."

Fans familiar with the band's music may find the tour setlist a bit peculiar. The first song he offcially wrote and finished was "20", a song Healy wrote when he was 19. Prior to that, however, there were "trickles" of songs that fans will find familiar. Healy explains:

"'She's So Strange,' which is on 'The Man Who,' was one of those songs," Healy said. "Before that, there's another song called 'Safe,' which is on 'The Invisible Band.' It's kind of odd that these songs ended up on albums 10 years later. The first song just kind of popped out. That's kind of cool, isn't it?

"I like to know where songs were written. I like to know how they were written and why they were written. If you come to the show, you'll find out all these things. It's like a lecture. The whole set up is going to be kind of like a lecture. We're going to get a slide projector and a screen, and I'm going to set up the little projector and show pictures and diagrams and have little voiceovers and try to make it as cute as possible. It's kind of like a town hall lecture."

One thing is for sure, fans of the band won't want to miss this show. Sure, they just toured the U.S. this past spring, but this one is an extra special treat that most bands don't make available to their fans. While on tour they'll draw from Travis' extensive catalog of songs written over six albums and numerous EPs and B-sides.

During their spring tour of the U.S. this year, Travis returned to play a gig in Cleveland for the first time in seven years, performing at the House of Blues on April 20. At the show, Fran Healy promised that they wouldn't overlook Cleveland again. Living up to his promise, Healy and Dunlop will be making a stop in Cleveland on October 28th at the Beachland Ballroom.