Founding member of Travis Dougie Payne tells the Guide about what keeps his band's desire to tour after two decades of unprecedented success and why a good but sedate time will no doubt be in store in Bournemouth.

By Patrick Gough

HAVING bestrode the charts 20 years ago with a succession of unforgettable singles and albums, Travis are back.

The Scottish band play the Wave 105 Night Air stage, at Boscombe Pier tonight (19) alongside the Kaiser Chiefs, Calum Scott and Imani Williams.

Travis, made up of Fran Healy, Andy Dunlop, Dougie Payne and Neil Primrose, are one of Britain’s most successful bands of the last two decades, clocking up 18 Top 40 hits and eight albums, two of which won “Best British Album” at the Brit Awards.

One of these, The Man Who, went nine times platinum selling more than three million copies in the UK alone and making it one of the biggest selling albums ever. They’re probably best known for the hits Driftwood, Writing To Reach You, Sing and Why Does It Always Rain On Me.

Travis followed the release of The Man Who with an extensive 237-gig world tour, including headlining the 2000 Glastonbury, T in the Park and V Festivals, and a US tour leg with Oasis.

In Los Angeles, an appearance of the band at an in-store signing forced police to close Sunset Strip. The Man Who was said to be the inspiration for bands such as Coldplay and Starsailor. The band now release their records through their own label.

Founding member and bassist Dougie Payne, 43, gave an exclusive interview with the Bournemouth Daily Echo.

Dougie, from Glasgow, met the band's singer, Fran Healy at the Glasgow School of Art.

They teamed up to form Glass Onion (named after a Beatles' song), later renaming themselves Travis. Originally Payne was not part of Glass Onion, which featured two other members, but when they left he was asked to play for the band.

The band can expect a different audience playing the air festival, many of whom won't be a usual Travis audience. So what exactly can they expect?

Dougie, who is married to the actress Kelly Macdonald of Trainspotting fame, said: “We really love the festival scene. We have a lot of festivals on this summer and we always have a good time at festivals.

“It’s a special atmosphere and environment because you have people there for the weekend and are more open and more ready to have a good time and respond. Masses of people come prepared to sing and that is what makes a show special.

“Any show is honestly about 90 percent audience and 10 percent band, I would say. Any band can get up and do their thing, we do it every night but the audience can take things from good to special, and festivals are great for that. We always have a good time at festivals.

“ I also think it gives a chance to perform to people that wouldn’t normally buy a ticket to come see us, and that’s a really special things as well because people will go ‘oh hang on, these are alright’.”

This weekend's Bournemouth Air Festival will see a number of impressive sights in the sky including the Red Arrows, a B25Mitchell Bomber, and Strike Master. Are there any planespotters in the band?

“It’s funny, Neil our drummer he’s pretty obsessed about anything that goes fast. It’s classic, classic drummer stuff, he’s a racing driver, he’s a rally driver, and he test drives these super-fast cars called Lolas and drives Porsches.

“He is unbelievable at recognising a plane, they’ll be at like 20,000 feet and he’ll go ‘that’s a…’ actually I don’t know the names of any planes. He absolutely can spot a plane just by its outline.”

Dougie and family live in Glasgow with their two children, after five years on and off in New York while his actress wife starred in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.With the band members now being family men, touring isn't so easy, Dougie said.

“It's not easy to bring them on tour," he says.

"Family will come to sporadic shows every so often. Touring isn’t really a good environment for children. It’s late nights and all that. The kids will come to certain shows.

“We played a festival in Edinburgh a wee while ago and I took Freddie, my eldest boy who is eight and he was actually six at the time, but he was standing at side stage with my Mum and Dad and he had his ear defenders on, and he was only about ten feet away from me.

“So I was standing there doing my thing, and he kept taking his ear defenders off. So half the time I was doing the rock star thing and half the time, shouting “Freddie, Freddie, put them back on!”

“That was a weird sort of moment parenting and then being on stage.”

And sadly there aren't too any rock 'n' roll Bournemouth related memories, anecdotes or confessions Dougie has to share.

“Confessions? No wild nights in Bournemouth. It’s all been very sedated. It’s all been very mellow. Bournemouth is quite a mellow place, am I right?

“Hopefully we’ll have some confessions after the Wave 105 Night Air.”

n Everything At Once, the new album by Travis, is out now. Featuring a co-write with Keane’s Tim Rice-Oxley and vocal contributions from tenor Alfie Boe and Mancunian singer-songwriter Josephine Oniyama, Everything at Once clocks in at a pacy 33 minutes. The new single is Idlewild with Oniyama.

n Kaiser Chiefs, Calum Scott and Imani will also be performing at Night Air tonight.

Tomorrow it will be the turn of Sunset on the Beach with Halo. Confirmed acts are Example & DJ Wire, Blonde, Jaguar Skills and Majestic.

Book tickets at bhlivetickets.co.uk

Air Festival brochures are on sale from a list of outlets. Go to seetickets.com/event/programmes-for-the-2016-bournemouth-air-festival/official-souvenir-programme/990312.