Interview
The Feeling: "Old-fashioned when it comes to recording"
The five members of the successful pop band The Feeling are a figurehead of British culture. They unite excellent songwriting - that their idols Elton John or Queen are renowned for - with a fine London accent, perfect etiquette and dapper clothes. At their numerous live performances, they spread infectious vitality - without ever seeming affected or shallow. Their new second album "Join With Us", that will be released in Germany on April 25, reached at first go number one of the British chart. In the NDR2 interview, the five late-twentysomethings talked about their vices and dreams in neon writing, but best about music. Here is the complete text:
In your first single "I Thought It Was Over", there occurs the fall of the the Berlin Wall. At the time you were still children. Do you have any memories of it?
Frontman Dan Gillespie Sells: Yes, a lot of memories! It was something that concerned the whole world, it was definitely in the main news when I was young. There were books about it when we were at school.
Bassist Richard Jones: They distributed those books to everyone at school. I was eleven or something then. Yes, that influenced the lyrics.
Dan: It brought up the whole idea of the song. I remember what it was like to watch TV at the age of eleven. The whole mood of the time made me want to write about it.
Have you been to Germany often?
Dan: Yes. He (points to drummer Paul Stewart) was here shortly after the wall had fallen, when he was a little football player.
Paul: Yes, that's right. We lived at a family's in East Berlin. And they took me and my father who was there with me to the wall - with a hammer. We knocked out a piece and took it home. And they were so proud to be able to say "This is the past, take a piece of it". I've still got it.
On the cover of your new album, you can see a lot of crazy things. Is it true they're all yours?
Together: No.
Keyboarder Ciaran Jeremiah: Dan once said that but it's a lie. It's a huge exaggeration.
Dan: I never said that!
Paul: But we do have a few things that are similar to those on the cover.
Dan: Yes, it's based on stuff...
Paul: ... that we've got and like. But the photo was taken at the other end of the country, so it was impossible to get all our things there, to get them photographed. So we said: "Find similar things and take pictues of those."
But Dan, you are addicted to Ebay, that's true, isn't it?
Dan: Yes. My house looks like the cover of the album. Yes, it's quite a mess. I've got a lot of things. I just like buying extraordinary things, crazy objects and nice stuff for the house. When I was on tour, I bought a new house...
Richard: Not on Ebay.
Dan: Right.
Paul: But you would have if you could have.
Dan: Yes. And then I found myself arranging the whole house again with stuff that I'd purchased by auction.
Paul: I would love to have a badge that says: "This house was constructed by Ebay." I would hang it above the door or something. Because that's what it is: the ktichen, the bathroom - all from Ebay. We dig it!
Your album is called "Join With Us". Whom are you inviting?
Dan: Everyone! Nice people, good people, freaks, circus people, invented people. Just everyone and everybody - as long as they are special.
You, in turn, have been invited by Bon Jovi to tour Great Britain with them. Do you think the two bands fit together well?
Richard: "The Bon Jovi"? "Bon Feeling"?
Dan: I think so. In different countries, bands are perceived in a different way. And in Great Britain, we've got a similar audience. Otherwise, they wouldn't have asked us.
Ciaran: Maybe they picked us because they think their audience hates us. And when Bon Jovi finally get out, the fans will be really happy. (laughter)
Between touring with your debut album and working on its successor, you had less than two weeks off. What did you do in this short period of time?
Richard: I think we were all ill.
Paul: Yes. So we just hung round.
Dan: I wanted to wash my clothes. Rather boring. (laughs)
Richard: A year and a half's washing in twelve days.
Dan: A lot of trousers. (laughter)
Why didn't you feel the urge to do something other than music?
Richard: Because we hadn't done precisely that for so long. We hadn't recorded anything for long, for more than a year and half no new music. That's why we were really excited when we could finally do that. We had a lot of ideas, but no space or time to develop them. So we were determined to continue that.
Your new songs sound older, more classical than the tracks of your first album. Do you think it has to do with them developing in the halls of Bradley House?
Dan: Maybe.
Richard: It must have something to do with it, doesn't it? It is an inspiring place.
Dan: We work in a really old-fashioned way when it comes to recording an album. Then it's just us five doing what we're doing without thinking about it. If something develops into a certain direction, that actually happens more coincidentally.
As The Feeling, you have performed more than 200 concerts. Did you have a favourite audience? Which one would you describe as "The Greatest Show On Earth"?
Dan and Richard: (sigh) The Greatest Show On Earth...
Richard: There were quite a few.
Dan: I don't know. I think the big gigs. Wembley Stadium was great. We took part in the Diana tribute concert at Wembley Stadium. That may have been one of the best things we've done.
Richard: The Isle of Wight festival was great too.
Dan: Yes, the audience there is amazing. Festivals are our kind of thing anyway, we enjoy that a lot. That's why we're looking forward to doing some again in the summer-
On your homepage, there is a gap between the tour dates until June. Do you get holidays now, finally?
Everybody: No.
Richard: We're doing such things as we're doing right now, promotion. We're flying to Japan and all over Europe.
Paul: Yes, and we'll have more performances too, but those aren't announced yet. But as soon as they're confirmed, they'll appear online.
So busy all the time?
Paul: All the time, yes.
Have you got other interests besides music?
Paul: Yes, of course.
Richard: Ciaran, what are your interests?
Ciaran: Hmmh...
Dan: He hasn't got any. (laughter)
Richard: Okay, apart from Ciaran. He is personfied music.
Dan: I like films. Of course, there are other things apart from music that I like, but all that has to do with films is the most fun to me.
Richard: And Kevin? You like to read...
Kevin (is guitarist with The Feeling and Ciaran's brother, editor's note): Hmmh...
Dan: That hurts the most! (laughter)
Kevin: Plugging the hair in my nose.
Dan: Plugging the hair in your nose is not a hobby!
Richard: I like cooking. Especially seafood, fish. And apart from that: going out with friends, having a drink. That's what I spend a lot of time with, in bars.
Paul: I like cars and alcohol. The problem is that the two things don't go together well. So that's why I have to spend one day doing this and the other doing that.
Dan, you said once that being cool gets less important the older you are. What is possible today that seemed impossible - with the coolness in mind?
Dan: A lot of things. Being cool often keeps you from having fun. This worrying what people think about you also influences your creativity or your happiness or something. I think you can be happier about things being the way they are when you get older.
Paul: He used to have the habit of shaving his chest because he thought it was uncool to have a hairy one. And look at it now! (points to Dan's chest hair, editor's note)
Dan: That's not true, he made that up. That's some credible myth, you mustn't start that!
Paul: Why not?
Dan: People will only start to believe it.
Richard: I want to see what will happen when we're in Japan, if they'll all want to talk about your chest.
Dan: Oh, great. Thanks!
Richard: The story about the nipples lasted for a while too.
Paul: Oh, that wasn't true either?
Dan: No, I've got two nipples.
Richard: He said in an interview he had six and then we were asked about it all over the world again and again.
Dan: That's terrible. If someone makes up a rumour, it'll spread to everywhere. It's so ridiculous.
You started as a cover band by the name "Superfly". Why did you called yourselves that?
Richard: Well, it was a disco cover band originally and didn't have much to do with the five of us.
Dan: And it wasn't exactly what it all started with. It was just one of the things we did together in the 13 years that we've known each other. One of the things that made us play together was our work in the French Alps: ten shows a week as a cover band in some hotel bars and clubs. That's what we did for years.
Did you ever play a cover song after that?
Paul: Yes, we tend to put one in at most concerts.
Kevin: We swore never to do it again but they follow us.
Dan: We're often asked to cover songs, above all by British radio stations. It seems to be fashionable there somehow.
Which songs for example?
Dan: Oh we did a lot of cover songs.
Richard: We still play "Video Killed The Radio Star" by the Buggles. It's a good song, it's still fun, even after having sung it a hundred times. I still like it.
Paul: And on our last tour we played "Electric Dreams" (a Oakley/Moroder production for the Eighties comedy by the same name, editor's note), because it was fun.
Ciaran: A terrible film. And what's even more terrible is I remember watching it.
Richard: We were young then.
Ciaran: VERY young. (laughter)
Which one do you think was the worst song you ever covered?
Paul: Well, we've got some songs we hate.
Richard: I've never been a friend of rock'n'roll medleys. I mean, I don't mind rock'n'roll in general but it was just an excuse to fill 15 minutes with the same chords.
Paul: Which songs were they? "Great Balls of Fire".
Ciaran: "Johnny, Be Good", "Jailhouse Rock" (the others nod)
Dan: They all sounded the same.
Richard: They're all good songs but not when we play them.
Paul: We should have left them alone. Now we've ruined them for us.
Who came up with the name "The Feeling"?
Richard: That would be me then. We were looking for a name because we had a gig but no name. I was in Paris shortly before it all started and sat in the car with my wife when we saw this bar above which it said "The Feeling" in neon writing. It seemed to match the music well, sounded like the name of a band that should have existed in the Seventies. And now we've got our own neon writing! We use it on the album cover.
Paul: And we did not steal it from the bar.
And didn't buy it on Ebay?
Richard: No. (laughter) But we will sell it on there!
Please tell us how you got to your producer!
Richard: Richard Niles? Not from Ebay. Google!
Paul: The second best website.
Richard: It all seems to be connected to the Internet. Well, we actually wanted to work with Trevor Horn because we're great fans of this, we met him and talked to him. But he reacted only very slowly. So we started to analyse what we liked about his production. And that was above all the orchestral arrangements. And on each of those tracks, there was Richard Niles on it too. So we googled his name, found his website which had his number on the bottom. We dialled it and he picked up! And he lived in Chiswick, only 20 minutes from our London studio where we were just working on some recordings. And a week and a half after that, we did the orchestra recordings. It was very easy.
And you all live in London?
Dan: Yes. More or less.
How do you live? Alone or with your partner? In a house or a flat?
Kevin: We all live with our partners. Dan's got room mates. Well not room mates, not ten guys in one room. (laughs)
Dan: No. I've got a house. With people who live in the house with me. Lodgers. But they're also my friends. I like to live with a lot of people, therefore I bought a big house.
Kevin: It's like a hostel.
Paul: Richard's got a little son.
Richard: I live with my family.
Paul: I've got a dog. And Kevin's got things and people that keep him awake in the night. I've got roaches and mice - and a partner.
Paul: Thank God you added the last part. What about you, Kevin?
Kevin: I also live with my partner. And we've got someone who doesn't like hearing our noise through the ceiling.
Paul: Oh.
Kevin: But we try to clear that up.
Richard, you mentioned your family. You are married to singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor and used to be in her band - before it all started for The Feeling. Doesn't she feel insulted that you're now touring with the boys instead?
Richard: No. No, because when we got together, I met her when I was in her band, we decided not to work together anyway. Since then I've played on some recordings and did a few other things for her but in general, I think you should keep work and private things apart. It's not a good combination otherwise.
Was there ever an alternative to making music?
Richard: I tried to work at a supermarket. But they said no.
Paul: Same for me too.
Dan: I would like to be the pilote of a helicopter.
Paul: That was what I wanted to be! You wanted to be a tree surgeon.
Dan: Yes I wanted to be that too. But now I've decided that pilote of a helicopter is something that I'd like to do in the future.
Richard: When I was a child, I wanted to be that too.
Dan: He wanted it as a child, I want it now.
Ciaran: Quite different: Tree surgeon and helicopter pilote...
Paul: "Flying doctor"! (laughter)
Richard: He could climb down to the trees.
Ciaran: I wanted to be Michael Jackson.
Paul: You've got the same colour of skin.
Ciaran: Thank you. It never worked out anyway. I don't know why.
Richard: You've tried.
But most of you studied. Which subjects?
Richard: All subjects that had to do with music. We can't do anything else.
Dan: True. We're not good at other things. (laughter) It's the way it is.
Whom would you have liked to be in a band with - apart from the four others?
Richard: Dead or alive? Wow. Jimi Hendrix on guitar. Bonham on drums (Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, editor's note), who else? Curtis Mayfield? No, probably not.
Paul: Why not - from my point of view as a drummer - just six bassists, dead and alive. Do you need anything else in a band?
Richard: Just bass and drums?
Paul: Yes, but a lot of bassists. And drums.
Ciaran: Jacko could be in the band too.
Richard: Jacko, yes. And Prince is singing. I wouldn't even be in the band.
Paul: No, you're just standing on the sides and cheering. Or doing percussion. That'd be cool. But who else should be there? Kevin Moon maybe?
Ciaran: Mozart for the strings.
Dan: I would like Elvis.
RIchard: Elvis is a good frontman.
Dan: Elvis would be fantastic, he would definitely be in my band.
Richard: What about Roy Orbison?
Dan: He could sing background.
Would you like to have lived in a different time?
Ciaran: Well that depends on how much money I'd have. If you'd lived in the late 19th century with an incredible amount of money, that'd have been great. As a poor person, on the other hand, you'd be nothing but dirt. I would like to have lived as someone super rich at the end of the 19th century.
Paul: Was it ever great to be poor? When was that?
Ciaran: As far as I can judge it, it's OK to live as an average citizen in the 20th in Western world. 200 years earlier, it was quite horrible.
Dan: I would like to have been my age in the middle of the 20th century.
Paul: In the Fifties?
Dan:Yes. I would have liked so much to be a teenager in the late Fifties and then experience the Sixties as a young man.
Richard: Why Fifties?
Dan: Because things started to change then. Rock'n'roll emerged.
Paul: Then you would sound like my dad now.
Dan: Yes, I know.
Paul: (with disguised voice) I was there, I was there! You don't understand what it was like then, with the Beatles. I stood in line for four hours to buy their album. He doesn't actually talk the way I do now. Never mind.
Dan, is it true you went to school with Amy Winehouse?
Dan: Yes, she went to my secondary school. The brother of a friend was friends with her. Personally I didn't have anything to do with her because she's a few years younger than me.
Are you concerned about how she is at the moment?
Dan: Yes, but it is worrying, isn't it? And I'm just as concerned how the world reacts to her. Of course I'm worried about her as an individuum, on the other hand I don't know her that well. I'm concerned about the message she transmits to the rest of the world.
Richard: She got into this spiral. That's happened to a lot of people before her, starting with Marilyn Monroe. And some people just love to see others break. And she makes it worse because she takes part in it. This spiral is always unhealthy. But it's always existed in pop culture. Just terrible. The same goes for Britney Spears, she is losing the ground beneath her feet too.
What else are you concerned about?
Ciaran: The end of the world.
Dan: Well, a kind of decline of reason. It concerns be when logic and reason are left aside in some parts of the world, if arguments there are based on such strange, extreme convictions and ideas that words can't express it. I'm concerned that the world seems to be moving into this direction a bit. Some parts anyway.
Finally, back to more optimistic thoughts: What do you plan for the future?
Ciaran: The end of the world.
Paul: Oh, I'm a bit depressed right now, I don't know. Maybe I can just have a break to lie down?! (laughter)
Kevin: At the moment we get to know what our schedule will look like until the end of the year. The dates are dripping in.
Dan: Yes, we will perform a lot, for example at festivals. Then there's the tour with Bon Jovi, we're flying to Japan, need to prepare our own England tour in November,... There's so much to do!
Then have great fun - and thank you very much for the interview!
The interview was done by NDR2 reporter Kirsa Kurz on 02.04.2008 in Hamburg.