Neil Primrose (musician)
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Neil Primrose (born 20 February 1972) is the drummer of the Scottish rock band Travis.


Early life

Primrose was born in
Cumbernauld Cumbernauld (; ) is a large town in the Shires of Scotland, historic county of Dunbartonshire and council area of North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is the tenth List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, most-populous locality in Scotl ...
. His father, a power station engineer, was posted to
Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ), colloquially known as Boro, is a port town in the Borough of Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. Lying to the south of the River Tees, Middlesbrough forms part of the Teesside Built up area, built-up area and the Tees Va ...
, and this was followed by a series of moves across the northeast of England during the first ten years of Primrose's life. At the age of 15 at high school in Glasgow he was playing drums with friends in local bands.


Career


Travis (1989–present)

In 1989 at the age of 17, Primrose started his drumming career when he was going for as many auditions as possible and looking for like-minded players to form a group. This led to him joining the band ''Glass Onion'' with Andy Dunlop along with brothers Chris and Geoff Martyn in 1990. After a while of looking for success, the line-up changed with Fran Healy joining the line-up in 1991 and the group then splitting with the Martyn brothers and Dougie Payne soon joining the band as the bassist in 1994. Eventually, the name of 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 The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; ) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, and design. These are all awa ...
instead working various jobs and studying Computer Science for a pre-degree course. Initially, Travis rehearsed in
The Horse Shoe Bar The Horse Shoe Bar (or Horseshoe Bar) is a public house on Drury Street, Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the ...
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 ''The Invisible Band'' is the third studio album by the Scottish rock band Travis, produced by Nigel Godrich. It was released on 11 June 2001 in the United Kingdom by Independiente and a day later in the United States by Epic Records. The son ...
in 2001. During this period, Travis had several UK hit singles, including "
Sing Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define singi ...
" and " Why Does It Always Rain on Me?". Before the recording of Travis' fourth album, ''
12 Memories ''12 Memories'' is the fourth studio album from Scottish alternative rock band Travis. The album was released on 11 October 2003 on Epic Records. In comparison to their other works, the album is more lyrically dark, focusing on issues such as ...
'', 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 V Festival, often referred to as V Fest or simply V, was an annual music festival held in the United Kingdom during the third weekend in August. The event was held at two parks simultaneously which shared the same bill; artists performed at one ...
. Primrose made a full recovery and was back on stage and
recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, re ...
with the band within months – including
Isle of Wight Festival The Isle of Wight Festival is a British music festival which takes place annually in Newport, Isle of Wight, Newport on the Isle of Wight, England. It was originally a Counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture event held from 1968 to 1970. Th ...
and
Live 8 Live 8 was a string of benefit concerts that took place on 2 July 2005, in the G8 states and South Africa. They were timed to precede the G8 conference and summit held at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Scotland, from 6–8 July 2005 ...
in 2005. In 2024, Travis released their 10th studio album.


Other projects

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.


Personal life

Primrose is married to Esther, and has two daughters. In 2007, Primrose gained his first racing licence and has since driven in many racing events including the Le Mans Classic and the SPA 25Hr FunCup.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Primrose, Neil Travis (band) members 1972 births Scottish rock drummers Scottish male drummers Living people People from Cumbernauld 21st-century British drummers Britcar drivers