The Feelers: Strike Three

The feelers enjoyed a five times platinum start to their career with 'Supersystem' back in 1998/9. The album entered the charts as a gold record and stayed there a full year. The follow up 'Communicate' made double platinum sales (making for over 100,000 copies sold over the two albums), bouncing around the charts for 35 weeks in 2001.

'Playground Battle' the third album from the feelers is on sale and they could be forgiven for feeling slightly nervous about whether they are still the market darling - still relevant, still the hit machine that spawned Pressure Man, Float, Astronaut and the hugely successful, edgy ballad Venus.

The lyrics quoted on the contents page of this issue reflect a not so rare moment of introspection from James Reid, lead singer and songwriter. The musings of an angst-ridden writer worried about a fall from grace?

"Really I was telling myself - don't be such a nana!" Reid chuckles, to peels of laughter from the others present - bassist Matthew Thomas and drummer Hamish Gee.

"Basically it's like, 'Pull your head out and, yeah, have a bit of fun'," he adds.

His self-directed message delivered, Reid set about writing 'Playground Battle', a return to a more raw, rock-based style after 'Supersystem's dance flirtations and the smooth accuracy of 'Communicate'.

This time around, the band adopted a "less is more" attitude and with Reid writing continuously, the "whole thing came naturally" according to Thomas.

Enlisting the help of producer Greg Havers (Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals and Catatonia), who Reid met in London, the band locked themselves away at York Street Studios in Auckland in August and set to work.

"I think there's only one producer in Wales and it's him, as far as I'm aware. The only Welsh act he hasn't produced is Tom Jones, but he did actually drum for Tom Jones at one point," says Gee.

In contrast with the band's second album 'Communicate', produced by Gil Norton, Havers concentrated on reproducing the live feel of their music for 'Playground Battle'.

"He [Havers] was really fast whereas Gil was quite thorough - 'pedantic' was the word I was going to go for, but he was - in a good way! But where Gil would have gone for nine takes, and then you'd probably end up using the first one anyway, Greg would say 'I think that's the one'," says Gee.

Says Reid: "I think we knocked the whole album out in about 28 days. There was a lot of pre-production that took place prior to the recording..."

Gee interjects: "Hang on - a lot of pre-production? We went into the studio for one day with some Heineken and recorded 19 songs, listened back to them and said 'Yep, we can use that!', (gales of laughter). So, actually 29 days."

Says Gee: "This album was a case of us being more pedantic about the music than the producer because we had been spending a lot of time with our own home equipment being pedantic about things. He was like, 'Sounds good, move on.' We almost considered calling the album 'Sounds good - carry on!'"

"I found it a bit hard at times going through and playing the bass track," says Thomas.

"I'd get to the end and he says 'what do you think of that?' and I'd say 'On that last bit I might have been playing a bit behind the bar,' and he'd go 'Sounded good to me - just leave it.' By the end of it, I was playing it through just once and he'd be saying, 'Yeah that's good!'" he laughs.

"Apart from the differences between Greg and Gil's producing, the last album, was kind of nice and perfect whereas this one's got a bit more attitude, raw and live - a bit more like we actually play live I think," he finishes.

The new album was released at the end of November and predictably shipped gold, with the first single Larger Than Life, already doing the business on the airwaves. The band decided the track, a rock anthem with the big hook, should be the first radio song.

"I think all three times we've gone out with something that's a bit more ballsy - just to start with. I think the exact term that we used in this room was 'ball-tearer', says Gee, while the others groan and squirm uncomfortably.

The feelers are preparing for their summer tour around New Zealand with Elemeno P and Steriogram. They head to Asia in March, having made valuable contacts in Hong Kong, and plan to tour Europe, the parts where 'Communicate' was released, in June/July next year.

With a four-plus-one album deal, the feelers are just over halfway towards the end of their contract with Warner Music NZ. They signed a separate publishing contract with Festival Mushroom in Melbourne about the time they were recording their first album with Warners, but are under no illusion about the economics of the music business. The record label funds the cost of their albums to be recouped from sales.

"I don't think anyone's ever come near recouping the money," says Gee.

"Not with the amount of bills that get put on you for all sorts of things. Every little cent gets billed to the band for some reason," adds Reid.

"Tim retired hurt, emotionally scarred" laughs Reid, but the band insists the split was amicable.

"I think that deep down he knew that there wasn't too much more he could do for us here and he had other things he wanted to do. We've all sort of delegated ourselves a bit of work each," says Gee.

"I'm looking after the live stuff, bookings etc. James is doing the overseas liaison and legal, and Matt is going to design the best looking website you've ever seen."

While many of the tracks from 'Playground Battle' have war-like titles (witness Fallout Shelter, Weapons of War and Military Precision), the album is more about conflict in a personal sense, about relationships and the dynamics therein. After 10 years together the feelers still seem an unlikely trio with the more reserved Reid being continually lampooned by the larger-than-life Gee and the eccentric Thomas. Do they still like each other?

"What do you mean? We never liked each other to start with! I think we put it down to professional courtesy," laughs Reid.

"To be honest, it gets easier, I think," says Gee. "You get more used to what pisses each other off. We've worked out how tolerant we are of each other's idiosyncrasies, whereas 10 years ago we were three different people with three completely different ideas about where the band might go - now we've found common ground."

To paraphrase Thin Lizzy: 'The boys are back in town!'