Travel singer to visit Darfur

Travis lead singer Fran Healy is to visit the devastated Darfur region with his fiancee, photographer Nora Kryst, in a trip organised by Save The Children to highlight the importance of the Band Aid 20 campaign, he revealed today.

The Band Aid 20 single is being released on Monday, a re-recording of the 1984 record Do They Know It’s Christmas? which was organised and written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure in response to that year’s terrible famine in Ethiopia.

The focus this year is the brutal conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Speaking to the Press Association at the west London studio where Travis are working on their next album, Healy hit back at critics of the new version.

“When the record came out and went to radio, there was absolute fury it seemed – bile sprayed forth about how awful it is and how terrible it is and blah blah blah... “

He went on: “The song was played so many times on the radio, and I bet you every single person who’s commented negatively on the record hadn’t been listening to the original.

“They were comparing it to a memory, to all their memories, not just of that song, but of their childhood and their whole history and if you’re re-recording a song and basically saying to people ’times have changed, we’ve moved on’, that is hard to take.

“I’d probably feel the same way had I not played on it.

“This is disgraceful. The clear message is that it’s not about the song – it never was in the beginning about the song – but it is what makes the song special and unlike any other.”

Paying tribute to Dizzee Rascal’s contribution to the record, Healy, 31, continued: “The thing is, this song is for the new generation of 11, 12, 13-year-olds who know Joss Stone, Dizzee Rascal, the Sugababes.

“Dizzee’s rap is fantastic, it’s fabulous – ‘you ain’t gotta feel guilt just selfless, give a little help to the helpless’. What a brilliant line, help to the helpless – I’d never heard that used ever.”

Explaining where the money raised by the record will be going, the singer added: “For the people that don’t know what’s going on there, there’s a civil war going on and black Africans are being persecuted.

“If you saw the Panorama programme the other week, it was horrific. Villages have been bombed, and many people have died.

“So all these people when they get wind of an attack, they just leave their villages and they are all congregating in the Darfur region in hundreds of refugee camps, with as many as 30,000 people in certain refugee camps.

“And they’re all dotted around there. They don’t have clean water, they don’t have food, and it’s very difficult to get aid to them. That’s where a lot of the money’s going to be going.”

Healy said he decided to travel to Darfur after speaking with Midge Ure about his trip to Ethiopia.

“I’d seen the Band Aid story, and that he’d recently been out to Africa with Save The Children.

“On that TV programme where he was out in Ethiopia, it also showed 20 years ago when they were out there.

“And we were all kind of talking about the Band Aid thing and how creative it had been.

“And I thought it would be good to go out. Someone needs to go out to give the song a little bit of background, to say ‘This is why the song is coming out. It’s not all about nostalgia. It’s not a big nostalgia trip to remember our childhoods in the 80s’.”

Currently in the middle of his vaccinations for the trip, Healy expressed some nerves about the visit.

“The thing is, out there the folk are so traumatised by war, I don’t know what to expect.

“I hope good will and kindness will manage to cut through that horror.

“I’m going with Save The Children. Nora’s coming. Me and her are going over and I think some people with cameras.”

Healy also drew attention to a new book being published on the same day the Band Aid record is released.

“At the same time as the Band Aid song is coming out, just by pure coincidence there is a book coming out by Rough Guide, called The Rough Guide To A Better World.

“It’s a book that tells you all about charities, and it answers all the questions that any cynical person might have.

“It’s coming out nationwide on Monday, and you can get it in any Post Office and it’s free.

“It’s a really amazing book ... so when you’re in getting your stamps, sending Christmas cards, just pick one up.”

He added: “I think it’s wise that this Band Aid song is not just for Christmas. It’s may be something that could start everyone off again, and maybe thinking about what they can do to make things a little bit better.

“People think cynically that charity records are all about washed up old stars trying to re-start their careers. It’s the cynical way of looking at it, but of course you can look at it that way.”

Healy is travelling to Darfur on December 10 for six days.