Travis bass player Dougie Payne on the best pub in Glasgow and his decadent Christmas plans

It’s a cliche, but I always imagine that rock stars survive on vodka and fags.

Not so, when it comes to Dougie Payne - bassist, songwriter and backing vocalist with Scottish band, Travis. He’s a proper foodie.

Thus, he’s the ideal spokesperson to talk about the group’s first beer, Raze the Bar, which is named after a song on their new album, L.A. Times, and released to coincide with their current UK tour - also called Raze the Bar - which started in Leeds, and will culminate in a homecoming gig at Glasgow’s OVO Hydro on December 21.

This booze has been launched in partnership with London brewery, Signature Brew, who have released similar collaborations with the likes of Mogwai, The Libertines, and IDLES, among others.

When I speak to Payne, he’s in ‘a weird carpark in Manchester’, waiting to be let into that evening’s venue for soundcheck.

I ask him why they haven’t released a whisky, since every celeb seems to do that these days, from Beyonce to Del Amitri. It seems I missed the memo, as they did one earlier this year, and it sold out fast.

“They made a beautiful 26-year-old Springbank whisky with a lovely kind of pencil drawing label of our The Man Who album” he says. “I'm not a whisky drinker, but it was delicious.”

When it comes to the beer, the guys - Payne, as well as Fran Healy, Andy Dunlop and Neil Primrose - all got a say in the taste. The result, according to the brewery, is a ‘crisp, refreshing Helles with a soft malt backbone, delicate spice and lemon zest flavours from Bavarian hops’.

Sounds fancy. However, there was unexpected inspiration, and it’s from nothing as hip as craft ale.

“We went to the brewery and met the guys. They’re very skilled chaps and showed us the process. Their enthusiasm was quite contagious and they asked us what we wanted the beer to taste like,” says Payne. “When we first got together, we rehearsed above the Horseshoe Bar in Glasgow. Neil, our drummer, worked there, and it’s an institution. We had a little room, up the top, above the bar, where we’d get hot and sweaty and try and get good. Then we’d come downstairs - we were on the dole at the time - and, if we were particularly flush, we'd buy a pint, and it was always Tennent’s. I know that beer people would be like ‘oh’, but I maintain that a cold pint of Tennent’s is the best beer. If they sold it in Italy, it’d be priced up like Moretti or something.”

The Signature Brewery team seemed okay with that suggestion, though they said they'd make it ‘a little more complex’.

Travis group portrait in 1997 | Getty Images

Anyway, the new song, Raze the Bar, which has guest vocals from Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Brandon Flowers from the Killers, is an homage to the Black and White Bar in New York, which closed a few years ago.

It sounds like this pub was the centre of the music universe in the Nineties and Noughties.

“The song is an imaginary last night in that bar. It was the coolest in the world. The Strokes hung out there, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Whenever we were passing through, we’d go to this bar, and we even filmed a video there a few years ago,” says Payne. “During lockdown, the landlord hiked the prices up, and they had to close it. Johnny, the owner, and his friends got a truck and went in one night and took every scrap of decor, tiles, beer taps, bar, everything, out of the place, so the landlord couldn’t just sell it on. The whole bar is somewhere, hidden away in storage basically.”

The song has a nostalgic almost Christmassy vibe, though Payne says that’s ‘accidental’.

“I have a thing about what I call convivial music,” he says. “You're kind of a couple of drinks deep with your mates and you sing along. The album is like a selection box of emotions. Each song has a specific, directed emotion, and that's what we're always like. When we go into the studio, we're not thinking really about making an album, we're thinking about making each song. While you're making the song, that song is the universe - you're putting all your energy and concentration into elevating it to be the best it can possibly be. And that's all you're concentrating on. You're not thinking about radio play or the industry, it’s just focused on that song, and that's all there is.”

I wonder what the crowd wants, when Travis is on tour. Are they into the newer songs, or do they request all the oldies, like Writing to Reach You, which came out back in 1999.

“I mean, we've got 10 albums and probably about 150 songs. So we've got to include as much as we can in the two hours that we're on stage. The songs that people really want to hear are Sing, Why Does It Always Rain on Me? and Driftwood. They're perennials, and then we'll put in new stuff as well,” he says. “We're playing about four or five new songs at the moment. They’re great to play and going down amazingly, because they've been doing quite well on the radio. When you've got a new record, it's like introducing new people to a party. Sometimes they get on, and sometimes it's a bit tricky squeezing them in there. But they have really made friends with the old ones, and they get on well.”

Speaking of which, once the UK tour is complete, Payne will be heading home to Glasgow, to spend time with his extended family before heading on the US leg of the Raze the Bar tour.

He’s a big fan of the city’s burgeoning food scene.

“One of the best restaurants is Cail Bruich - that’s incredible. There’s also the fantastic Celentano’s, by the Necropolis,” he says. “Being in the West End is so great. There are so many good Glasgow restaurants now. I lived in London for years, and in New York, so I was away for a long time, but when I came back, it was like, ‘oh, wow’”.

Dougie Payne | Getty Images

However, they won’t be eating out this Christmas. Payne will be cooking with his current partner, Sam, and, I imagine, spending some time with his two sons, including 16-year-old Freddie and 12-year-old Theodore, whose mum is his ex-wife, actor Kelly Macdonald.

Anyway, his house sounds like the most convivial place to be.

“The first thing I make is my Yule log, on December 22. That's the start of the process. I do a lot of Delia Smith recipes, a gingerbread stuffing from Nigella, and her Coca-Cola ham, as well as Nigel Slater’s perfect roast potatoes,” Payne says. “My sister is an amazing baker, so she brings the desserts. My partner, Sam, makes cured salmon, and we have oysters. It tends to be a bit of an open house, so we have about 16 people. Then, on Boxing Day, there’s beef Wellington.”

And, no doubt, this is washed down with plenty of excellent beer.

www.signaturebrew.co.uk