Issue 155

Pushing your senses

14th May 2007

Feeder's lead vocalist, Grant Nicholas, is passionate about music. He claims it's what has helped the band through the tough times, and to be fair, the band's history is the stuff of movies.

It's difficult, if not impossible, to talk about Feeder without mentioning the tragic suicide of their drummer, Jon Lee, in 2002, at the very height of their success. "He could mesmerize you with his drumming ability", Nicholas says of Lee.

After six months of lying low, the band decided to persevere - "It's what Jon would have wanted" insists Nicholas - releasing the album 'Comfort in Sound' which was hailed by the Guardian as possessing "an unquenchable spirit."

Loyal fans, grateful to Grant Nicholas, bassist Taka Hirose, and new drummer Mark Richardson formerly of Skunk Anansie, for carrying on the band, went on to vote Feeder's first four albums into a top 100 list of British rock albums in Kerrang! in early 2005.

The band have gone on to have 19 UK Top 40 singles, 5 UK Top 10 albums, and are regular attendees at British festivals such as Reading, Leeds and Glastonbury. This year, we are lucky enough to welcome the Newport natives to the Fflam festival, back in their home country of Wales.

Likened to Smashing Pumpkins and The Pixies, the band released their debut album, Polythene, in 1997, fraught with dark emotional lyrics, but also containing upbeat tracks such as My Perfect Day. An appearance at Reading, and a US tour followed, but it wasn't until 2001 that Feeder achieved mainstream success with the breakthrough single 'Buck Rogers'.

The success of the single lead the band to adopt a more commercial sound, but they retained their dark, emotional side on songs such as 'Oxygen' and 'Turn'. Following the release of Echo Park in 2001, the band embarked upon a sell-out tour and various festival appearances.

There had seemed to be no stopping Feeder, until Lee took his own life. The album that followed, Comfort in Sound, is laden with Nicholas' own grief, loss and depression, was likened to a latter day U2 and achieved critical acclaim and platinum sales.

The band's fifth album, Pushing the Senses shot to number 2 on the album chart. They then went on to headline the Download festival, support U2 on their Vertigo tour, and appear at Live 8 in Edinburgh.

An album of their singles was released last May, which again went platinum, and which also included some new material, that Nicholas says 'hint at where we're going'.

Having sold three and a half million albums, headlined many a festival and supported some of the biggest acts in music, Feeder are undeniably a band to contend with, and their consistent faith in their music can only point towards a positive future for such a talented and passionate band.

Kate Fletcher