INTERVIEW: The Feeling
- Posted on February 21, 2008 4:00 PM
- 0 comments
Interview by Katie Spain.
We heard you live on Jo Whiley’s show a few weeks back; lovely job of the Kelly Rowland cover. Were you throwing some Kelly Rowland moves during the song?
It’s quite hard to do that when you are playing.
We were sitting on stalls.
I was thinking of the moves in my head to give me inspiration.
Let’s talk releases before we get into the fan questions. Your new album came out on February 18th and your single was out just before Valentines Day. It was recorded at Bradley House. I imagine it wasn’t as relaxing as it all sounds?
The thing is it was! We had a really nice time. It was brilliant; I want to go back there now. I am kind of ready to make the next record.
We had such a nice time. It was like we were Lords of the Manor. It was weird. It was a big old mansion and we had it all to ourselves.
I think that the recording process can be quite a difficult sort of experience and it can be quite stressful. It depends what you make of it though. We really wanted to avoid it being anything like that, which is why we got ourselves a place like that to live in!
We didn’t want to be in a studio as such. We got all our equipment in there and did it ourselves.
Are you going to be playing your new tunes on the festival circuit this year?
We will be at festivals but we are touring in March first. That will be the first time that we get to air them properly
Are there any particular gigs that you are looking forward to?
I think that the Shepherds Bush gigs will be good. It’s amazing, one of my favourite venues.
Do you enjoy touring? Some bands prefer to be writing and recording.
I always enjoy touring.
Yeah. Playing live is half of what you do as a band. You are making music in the moment and it is that teetering on the edge of disaster and that makes it quite exciting.
Whenever we do tour, we are lucky enough to have a nice bus and stuff like that! We are looked after. It is often like a mini holiday.
What is The Feeling tour bus like?
It smells of fresh bread and coffee every morning.
Really?
No, not really! If we could design one, then maybe. In reality the last one that we had looked like a 90s gay bar. The décor was all metallic and…
Jazzy.
At least it was an attempt at looking cool. The one before that looked like a holiday camp!
Yeah! It had that ‘It’s a kind of magic’ 80s Queen décor.
Most people just say they have a van that they chuck everything into.
We used to do that.
The epitome of tour vans has to be Pricilla Queen of the Desert.
With the stiletto on the roof? It doesn’t work in Yorkshire.
You talked a lot about the food you had at Bradley House with Jo Whiley. Are you guy’s good cooks?
I can cook a mean pasta/rice combo. Bit of tuna, cheese and sauce. You will be full for a week!
Carbohydrate central!
You might as well throw in some bread, chips and extra flour.
I love cooking. I find it relaxing. I like to cook as an event, as opposed to general everyday cooking. Dan’s good at throwing loads of stuff in and coming up with a meal.
Have you had a pop at BBQs?
Yeah, Dan used to have BBQ parties almost everyday in the summer.
Yeah, it’s the easiest way to cook!
Lat Valentines Day, I cooked a Jamie Oliver recipe. Honeymoon Pasta. It’s not that hard.
If you do it right, then that’s brilliant. But if you get it wrong…
It doesn’t matter though! As a lady, even if it wasn’t that great, there is an element of effort in it.
But is she is being sick for the next week…
You’re not going to poison her! It won’t go that wrong.
What’s the most romantic thing that you have ever done for anyone?
I’m rubbish at being romantic…
Held the door open for someone once!
I proposed! It was at a petrol station though and I said ‘oi, do you want to get married?’
Last Christmas I bought my wife some diamond earrings. I put them in the mouth of a giant rubber duck. When she opened her Christmas present, she was like, ‘oh, thanks.’
Why did you have a rubber duck handy?
I bought it! I didn’t just have one.
It came free with the earrings.
I read a Pop World interview with you where you chatted about Eurovision. Is it something you would have a crack at?
I think that one day it might well happen. Why not? It needs to change. It used to be cool with decent people doing it.
We are so bad at it now…
Well, Jordan tried out for it.
Apparently Morrisey wanted to do it. How amazing would that be?
What is your most memorable gig you have ever been to as an audience member?
I saw Prince at the O2 recently. It was a good gig as he did all the hits. I think in a lot of his shows, he did loads of really boring jams, but I went on a good night. A lot of people were disappointed by that tour but I loved it.
If you go to a show advertised as greatest hits but you get an hour and a half of funk jamming, it’s not what you want. A lot of those funk jam moments, he was just wondering about the place. I got song after song after song though!
We played at Coachella last year and the day finished with Rage against the Machine. It was their reformation gigs. It was incredible.
What was good with the Rage gig was that we went into the mosh pit. They hadn’t done a gig for about eight years. Paul came in his sandals.
Yeah, well, it was so hot. I was really excited about Rage and a bit drunk. All of a sudden, I thought, hang on. By then though, we were in a really good position. If I had left, I would never have got back in. Then the mosh started happening…
…one went…he was trying to look for it across the floor.
I realized that this was going to happen so I put them on my hands. I was using them to bat people. Then I put them back on my feet and lost them both.
Fan Questions
Dolly says Dan, when you are writing lyrics, do you have an idea in your head about how you want it to sound or are you constantly surprised by what the others bring to the table to flesh it out?
I do the lyrics last. The melody is normally already there. I am always finishing the lyric at the end.
Sabrina wants to know, since the tap dancing has been all over the news recently, what kind of dance should a fan of The Feeling learn first to dance to your songs?
The dance of joy which is a dance that we do.
Yeah, any dance which is created spontaneously while feeling joy through music…
...is the dance of joy.
Big Chris says there are obviously many benefits to what you do, but are there any negative sides to your increasing fame?
Um, there are negative sides, everyone talks about you. It makes you bitter and insecure.
You have to avoid the obsession of finding out about what all the reviews say.
Do you care about what the reviews say?
Well, you try not to. It’s human nature though. You don’t care as much when they say a nice thing as it doesn’t affect you as much as a scathing comment.
Kat wants to know whether you would cut your hair and grow a beard and pretend that you had never heard of The Feeling if suddenly your music went really bad and everyone hated you.
We tend to all cut our hair fairly regularly.
It’s hard to say though…if we had hate marches.
Yeah, it depends on how awful people thought we were.
If the music was really bad, we wouldn’t release it in the first place.
What about with Jason Donavan? He went from being a massive teen star to basically being laughed at over night. It all just went like that. That must be really horrible.
We’re not really that famous so we don’t have that much to lose really! Our music is famous but I don’t think that we are.
Jenna wants to know who is the most annoying person on the tour bus?
Our tour manager; he is always trying to wake us up to do a gig.
Alec wants to know what the most number of plectrums you have used at a gig as they do tend to go flying!
I throw at least two in to the audience. We did about two hundred gigs so that means there are four hundred plectrums out there.
He said do you have an endorsement agreement with Dunlop?
I need one. I do constantly throw them away. I have to change between plectrum and finger style quite quickly so I just flick it off.
Sometimes he just flicks it off!
I find that the best thing to do when you are on stage with a large crowd of people, just flick it off. Get it done quickly. And if it goes into the audience, then, well…you might be lucky to catch it.
Liz wants to know if aliens landed on earth and erased all but one of your memories, which memory would you keep?
I like the questions!
I’d remember how to say the word ‘beer.’
It would be very confusing to keep one memory.
I would remember my name.
Remembering where you live?
But no-one would let you in!
I would like to remember this question so that I can try and answer it!
The Feeling's new album is out now!
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