THE FEELINGFill Our Little Worlds Up Again
by Craig Ablitt
Here’s some things we know about The Feeling: 1) They were the most played band on UK radio in 2006. 2) ‘Never Be Lonely’, ‘Fill My Little World’, ‘Sewn’ and ‘Love It When You Call’ were all major chart hits. 3) They scooped the ‘Songwriters of the Year’ award at the Ivor Novello’s last year. 4) They’ve played the new Wembley Stadium. 5) Their debut album Twelve Stops and Home has been bought by more than 800 000 people in Britain alone. 6) The subsequent tour to support the album shifted more than 115 000 tickets. 7) Their leader Dan Gillespie Sells is a singer and not a salesman. 8) They have a new album out this month called Join With Us. 8) The week before release, bassist Richard Jones gave an interview to Craig Ablitt.
“Yeah, it’s been an amazing journey so far for us and quite difficult to explain because it was such a whirlwind year,” Jones shares. “We went from leading relatively normal lives and suddenly we were touring non-stop, more and more people were coming to the shows and it all just kept getting bigger and bigger,” he attempts to surmise. “There were some moments that stood out though, like the Diana Memorial gig at Wembley Stadium and playing to 50 000 people at the Isle Of Wight Festival. It’s been quite a jump to playing pubs in Liverpool to shows like that in the space of a year.”
This amazing leap in fortunes is testament to the songwriting abilities of singer Dan Gillespie Sells and his knack of being able to write a song with ‘top ten’ written all over it. So what of album number two? With the band’s MySpace claiming them to be indie as well as classic rock, can we expect them to lean towards less commercial sensibilities or more of the ELO meets Supertramp pop variety that led them to their initial success? Thankfully for existing fans, it’s the latter.
“Musically, all we’ve ever been able to do is write what comes naturally and the core of what we do is still the same, in the sense that we like music that is based around the song and the melody,” Jones explains. “Therefore we could never have made a completely different album. At the same time we don’t go out with the intentions of making music for commercial success as it probably wouldn’t have worked and I doubt we would have liked it anyway.”
“Yeah, it’s been an amazing journey so far for us and quite difficult to explain because it was such a whirlwind year,” Jones shares. “We went from leading relatively normal lives and suddenly we were touring non-stop, more and more people were coming to the shows and it all just kept getting bigger and bigger,” he attempts to surmise. “There were some moments that stood out though, like the Diana Memorial gig at Wembley Stadium and playing to 50 000 people at the Isle Of Wight Festival. It’s been quite a jump to playing pubs in Liverpool to shows like that in the space of a year.”
This amazing leap in fortunes is testament to the songwriting abilities of singer Dan Gillespie Sells and his knack of being able to write a song with ‘top ten’ written all over it. So what of album number two? With the band’s MySpace claiming them to be indie as well as classic rock, can we expect them to lean towards less commercial sensibilities or more of the ELO meets Supertramp pop variety that led them to their initial success? Thankfully for existing fans, it’s the latter.
“Musically, all we’ve ever been able to do is write what comes naturally and the core of what we do is still the same, in the sense that we like music that is based around the song and the melody,” Jones explains. “Therefore we could never have made a completely different album. At the same time we don’t go out with the intentions of making music for commercial success as it probably wouldn’t have worked and I doubt we would have liked it anyway.”
Whether or not Jones likes it, The Feeling are a pop act, which is of course nothing to be ashamed of. In the eyes of the more serious music buyer however, the credibility factor of producing songs that some would claim take no risks musically is somewhat of a cardinal sin and is a subject that Jones along with his bandmates evidently find as a constant source of annoyance when concerning their art.“We get asked a lot of questions about this credibility thing,” he grunts. “To us, we just make the tunes and then go and play them. It’s more about what people say rather than what is actually true. We got wound up when we read a review of our first album that claimed we weren’t genuine and were dreamt up in a boardroom,” he adds in a disgruntled manner. “Perhaps people just want to feel like that because they don’t understand how a band can want to play radio friendly pop and be a rock band. The truth is; we just do.”
Regardless of opinion on The Feeling, there are few people who can claim that one of their chart hits hasn’t found its way into their subconscious and with album number two, the only thing that concerns the successful five-piece is being able to maintain their popularity and remain in the minds of the record buying public for as long as they’ll have them, beginning with Join With Us.
“Sure, it’d be amazing to headline Wembley Stadium or play the O2 Arena, but there aren’t many bands that can manage to be able to do what we’re doing for ten or twenty years; making albums people want to listen to. That’s our dream.”
So can Join With Us do this for The Feeling? “I don’t know,” shrugs Jones. “I don’t think it’s down to what we as a band term as good music because so many great albums I’ve loved down there years haven’t done well, but we can walk away from the recording of this album knowing we couldn’t have done it any differently.”
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