Travis' Fran Healy reveals how he convinced Bono to sing his iconic line on Band Aid 20

Fran Healy and Dougie Payne from Scottish band Travis joined Garry Spence on Clyde 1 recently to talk about their new song 'Gaslight', and reminisced about how Fran managed to get Bono to feature on Band Aid 20, which they were involved in 20 years ago.

Back in 2004, 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' was re-recorded to raise money for charity, featuring a line-up including The Darkness' Justin Hawkins, Keane, Dizzee Rascal, Busted, Feeder, Paul McCartney, Robbie Williams, and of course Bono, however it could have been very different if it hadn't been for Fran.

As the Travis lead singer explained: "There was a big thing that day at AIR Studios (in London) about who's going to sing that line. ‘Well tonight thank God it's them,’ You know that line, the Bono line?"

"Bono wasn't there and Justin Hawkins wanted that line because they were like flying high at the time, and I remember with Nigel (Godrich - producer) going, 'I love Justin, he's brilliant'. But I was like, 'that's Bono's line, he has to sing that line'."

Fran went on to explain how he ended up calling Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn, to get Bono's phone number, and decided to cold-call the U2 frontman.

"He picked up the phone and he's like, ‘Hello’. And I'm like, ‘Bono, it's Fran here, Fran from Travis’."

Fran continued: "You need to come right now and sing this line. He’s like: ‘What are you talking about?’ And I’m like ‘we're doing this song and it's your line and the whole world's press is outside and they're waiting for you to walk through the door and do this!'

“And he’s like: ‘Oh my wife’s going to kill me’," but in the end, Bono was at the recording studio in two hours, flying in from Dublin, and of course his version of the line made the final cut.

While Travis are best-known for their songs 'Why Does It Always Rain on Me?', 'Sing' and 'Driftwood' they have just released their latest song 'Gaslight', which you can hear on Clyde 1.

'Gaslight' will feature on their 10th studio album due out in July called 'L.A. Times'.

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