Scottish alternative rockers Travis, since the start of their career, have always been the picture of calm. Ten years on, the band has found its place in the UK and paved the way for future artists such as Keane and Snow Patrol.

Even though they haven't been able to break into America, they've got high hopes for their latest album Ode To J. IGN caught up with lead singer Francis Healy and bassist Dougie Payne to talk about their latest album, their new recording styles and the other side of Travis.

Unlike their other albums, Ode To J took a relatively short time to come together. The band, which didn’t have the songs stored up, say the reason it all happened so fast is because they were organised before they hit the recording studio. Says Francis: “We gave ourselves five weeks to write the album and two weeks to record it. Just because we spent two-and-a-half years sort of flapping about in the studio doing the last record, we felt that this time, we wanted to do it really fast.”

He adds, “We were inspired by doing a BBC production that asked 11 bands to come and record one song from the Sgt Pepper's record, but use all the old technology. We were asked to do this. They got Geoff Emerick, who was the Beatles engineer, to engineer it. And after doing this, we did ‘Lovely Rita’ – it's on YouTube, it's quite funny – but after doing this, we all thought, ‘Let's do something that fast!’ All we need to do is have all the songs arranged and written and once they're all arranged and written and rehearsed, just go in and record the thing.”

The most brilliant part of this recording is that they recorded in on tape. Payne says, “It’s exciting putting it to tape, because you are getting a take rather than putting bits and pieces together in Pro Tools. There's no safety net. If a take's going well, you start getting those nerves of, is somebody going to mess up? And that's a really good way to record music actually, because you get more of a performance.”

And Travis likes this style of recording so much that their future albums will be along the same lines. Healy adds, “I think from now on, we'll always record on tape. We might go on to 24-track, because it's very difficult to record on 16-track…it's a weird technical, convoluted thing... And there's only one person in the UK that can set up this machine, because it's old.” Payne adds, “It's a shame, the kind of losing of a technology that worked so well.”