Birth name Neil Primrose Associated acts Travis Occupation(s) Musician Name Neil Primrose | Instruments Drums, percussion Role Drummer Years active 1990–present Music group Travis | |
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Born 20 February 1972 (age 52)
Cumbernauld, Scotland ( 1972-02-20 ) Genres Rock, Britpop, Alternative Rock Albums The Man Who, The Boy with No Name, The Invisible Band, Singles, Ode to J Smith Similar People Andy Dunlop, Dougie Payne, Fran Healy, Jason Falkner | ||
Neil Primrose (born 20 February 1972, Cumbernauld, Scotland) is the drummer of the Scottish rock quartet Travis.
Biography
Primrose's father was a power station engineer, so his family moved wherever the job took him. A posting to Middlesbrough was followed by a series of moves across the northeast of England that spanned the first ten years of Primrose's life. Returning to Glasgow in 1981, he grew fonder of drums and music in general. At age 15 in high school he was playing drums with friends in local bands. From the age of 17, the next step was going for as many auditions as possible and looking for like-minded players to form a group. This led to Primrose joining the band 'Glass Onion' with Andy Dunlop along with brothers Chris and Geoff Martyn in the early 90's. After years of touring and looking for success, the line-up changed with Fran Healy eventually joining the line-up and the group then splitting with the Martyn brothers and bringing Dougie Payne in for bass guitar. Eventually, the name for the band was changed to Travis.
Unlike the other three members of the band, Primrose was not a student at the Glasgow School of Art instead working various jobs and studying Computer Science for a pre-degree course. Initially, Travis rehearsed in the Horseshoe Bar where Primrose and Healy had met for the first time. The material for their first two albums was, in part, written and refined here. Travis moved to London in late spring 1996 and lived, rehearsed and toured from their North London base for many years. Travis' début album Good Feeling was released in 1997 with positive review, but lukewarm performance in the charts. Their 1999 follow-up, The Man Who, proved to be far more successful, selling millions of copies worldwide, shortly followed by The Invisible Band in 2001. In this period, Travis had several UK hit singles, including Sing and Why Does It Always Rain On Me?.
Before the recording of Travis' fourth album, 12 Memories, Primrose suffered a life-threatening spine injury while he was swimming on holiday in France. This led to the cancellation of several subsequent tour dates – most significantly a headline slot at V Festival. Primrose made a full recovery and was back on stage and recording with the band within months – including Isle of Wight Festival and Live 8 in 2005.
As of 2016, Travis have released four more albums and continue to tour worldwide. They are one of the few bands from the post Brit-pop era still playing and touring.
Primrose has played drums on the Canadian musician Ron Sexsmith's seventh album Retriever and other individual album tracks, along with albums by Jamie Scott, Yusaf Islam, Magne F and Cyril Paulus. In Scotland, Primrose plays with the MOVE Project along with various artists on the Wild Biscuit label. He has also played on various artist sessions produced by Martin Terefe. Currently, Primrose is touring with Travis to promote their newest album, Everything At Once. Primrose has used Ludwig Drums, Yamaha Drums, Sabian Cymbals, Promark drumsticks and Remo drumheads.
Primrose is the only member of Travis that is not a vocalist. He does however speak on the B-side of Flowers In the Window called "No Cigar", saying "No Cigar, Dobber".
He is married to Esther, and has two daughters, Lola, who was born in April 2000 and Isla, born in 2002.
Primrose supports Rangers.