Alan Perrott.
After a quarter of a century, The Feelers reveal at one point they were living in their car but they were driven to succeed, writes
ine Lives’’ had done it again. The name had been earned through his habit of leaving and rejoining the band, but no matter, Tim Skedden was a mate, so the rest of The Feelers would laugh it off.
This time though, having worked hard to build a strong Christchurch following, the band had thought they’d cracked it. A local label was dangling a recording contract.
Everyone was crowded into an office, gagging to sign and already hearing themselves on the radio. But Nine Lives never showed and the deal fell through. It turned out he couldn’t find a carpark, had a panic attack, then went back home to bed.
In hindsight, it was the best possible outcome.
If they had signed, The Feelers may not have been signed to Warner Music and not released five No 1 albums along with 21 charting singles including three No 1s. That’s more than a quarter of a million sales in New Zealand and an unguessable number of gigs.
Gigs they’re still adding to, what with a 25th-anniversary tour kicking off and another album under way.
That makes The
Feelers – their ‘‘out of nowhere’’ arrival in Auckland and subsequent radio ubiquity – an excellent study in ‘‘how to become a rock star’’.
And regardless of what you might think of their music, they are undoubted fair-dinkum rock stars, locally at least.
But if you’re planning on trying this yourself, you’ll first need several essential ingredients: ridiculously supportive families, some degree of natural aptitude, and more luck than anyone deserves. Otherwise, nah.
So … James Reid and Hamish Gee, the backbone, brains and withered livers of The Feelers, grew up either side of a quiet corner in Yaldhurst, a suburb nestled between Christchurch Airport and the men’s prison. Reid was a performer from birth. His wider family held annual feasts with music and performance, and as a 4-year-old he ended up squeezed behind his dad John’s guitar, warbling choruses of Glen Campbell’s Rhinestone Cowboy.
Music was huge for the family. Reid’s brother Donald’s band (Written in Red) practised at their home, and as well as his dad, his grandparents played instruments, too. Reid soaked everything up, before taking a shine to the drums then guitar. He’s even tried acting.
Around the corner, Gee rose to music differently.
It was 1985, he was 10, and his stepfather Colin Atkinson had announced they were going to see Dire Straits. This turned out to mean jumping into his builder’s van, finding an empty house, then lugging deck chairs on to the roof so they could peer over the Lancaster Park fence in relative comfort.
The experience changed everything and, on the way home, young Gee was already demanding drums and a guitar on the basis that it not only looked fun, 70,000 people paying $25 each meant he could make millions.
Not only did he receive both instruments the next day, his dad began building a shed where he could clatter away as far from the family as possible.
The pair shared a classroom as 7-year-olds but they barely knew each other and Reid was sent to boarding school.
By their early teens they were busking during school holidays, and it wasn’t long before a mutual friend, Hamish Woodley, brought them together.
By now Gee was at Christchurch Boys’ where he was part of the school band. Woodley had been ‘‘asked to leave’’, but he would still don his uniform and take an old guitar into Gee’s English class where he’d tell the teacher that his slacker mate was late for his guitar lesson with Mr Henderson.
Then they’d trot into town ‘‘for a busk’’.
Gee’s school band somehow scored a gig at the Caledonian Hotel. This was the big-time, even if they changed their name every time they played, and were all underage.
As usual, the intensive planning sessions were held at their local KFC.
The day before the gig, Reid turned up to play them his new song, Time. He was now at Christ’s College and had moved to guitar after his father ‘‘donated’’ his drums.
‘‘I remember you started playing,’’ says Gee, ‘‘and for the first three seconds I was slightly embarrassed’’.
‘‘You can’t sing and play a guitar at the top of your lungs in KFC at three in the afternoon. But then people started turning heads and saying, ‘this guy is very good’. So, I think, yeah, you were definitely in the band from that point.’’
Not that he’d been invited to the Caledonian; when he climbed on stage everyone assumed someone else had asked him along.
This was the stuff though, especially for wide-eyed 16-year-olds. ‘‘So exciting, and so different to busking, people were actually listening. Then
we started getting a lot