Fran Healy tired of playing second fiddle to Radiohead

Travis have produced their fourth album, 12 Memories, themselves, after earlier records made with Steve Lillywhite and Nigel Godrich, and wrote and recorded almost all of it in two weeks in a makeshift studio on the Isle of Mull. Asked by Joan Anderman of the Boston Globe why they did without a producer, Fran Healy points at Radiohead.

To be honest I was fed up playing second fiddle to Radiohead. We're like Nigel's part-time lover.

Fran Healy¹

Godrich, one of Healy's best friends, was so worn out after Kid A that Travis ended up as his therapists. Healy thinks he missed them all the same. He played Godrich some of the new record in the car, and Godrich asked why they had not been writing like this when he was producing them.