Feeder back...
Welsh rocker Grant talks song lyric meanings, iconic videos and Dave Grohl’s mum as band return to tour
THEY can name REM, the Foo Fighters, Gary Numan and Coldplay among some of the bands they have worked with over their 25-year career.
With nine studio albums, 41 EP’s and singles and 20 top 40 singles under their belt, Welsh rock band Feeder are now back on tour ahead of a summer of festival appearances.
Grant Nicholas, singer, guitarist and songwriter speaks exclusively about guitar smashing, the iconic Just a Day video and the real meaning behind hit Buck Rogers.
Forming in 1992, albeit under a different moniker, Feeder didn’t achieve chart success until almost nine years later when their third album, Echo Park, was released. The lead single, Buck Rogers became a top five hit and paved the way into mainstream recognition.
However the song’s cryptic yet simplistic lyrics have long been a mystery among fans, and now the 50-year-old (yes, really he’s 50), explains the story behind the best-seller: “It’s a bit of a love song really,” he said. “The whole song was originally written for Gil Norton.
“He was the guy everyone wanted to work with at the time. Everyone thought he was American but he was from Liverpool originally. He worked with so many of my favourite bands – Pixies, Echo and the Bunnymen, Foo Fighters. He was so difficult to get hold of to work with – he was so expensive and so in demand. His wife had heard Feeder and apparently was a fan. She pestered him to work with us. He was working with a US band in a studio and – not naming names – he didn’t think their record had a strong enough single. He asked if I would be interested in writing a song for them.
“I wrote Buck Rogers for them but in the end Gil told me that he wanted to work with Feeder, but insisted we should keep the song as it’s a hit.
“When I wrote it, I had broken up with my girlfriend. She was seeing someone else and I heard he made TV adverts, and was working on stuff for Jaguar cars. So that had been on my mind when I was writing the lyrics.
“Gil said I had to keep the original crazy-guy guide lyrics. So I did, and it went on to be a massive hit. I’ll probably never write another like it. But it’s become a bit of an indie classic now.”
Feeder earned acclaim with their video for Just a Day. As their last single release with drummer Jon Lee, the song sold more than 100,000 copies.
The video shows fans miming to the song in their bedrooms – think vloggers before YouTube existed.
But the hit video was merely a solution to a logistics problem that went on to become one of the most aired in the 2000’s: “We were on tour with REM at the time, so to come back to record a video was difficult.
“The director had this idea after watching You’ve Been Framed. We thought it was completely bizarre but it was an easy way of making a video without us actually being in it.
“It was a gamble – I remember me and Taka (Feeder’s bassist and Grant’s life long friend) sat watching it for the first time, thinking ‘this is either the best video we have made or the worst.’
“But we were lucky, it’s become a bit of a classic. The way it was done was a bit sneaky. It was made from fan video auditions to be in the vid – they didn’t know we would be using the footage in the final cut though.
Fans have generated an online campaign to remake the video with the people from the original, but Grant isn’t too keen: “I worry it could be really good – but it might not.
“It would be funny to see them all now. Even the little kids are all grown up. The little blonde boy on drums is almost 6ft5 now. Towers over me now.”
Feeder have toured with some huge bands, including the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, Stereophonics and headlined the Reading and Leeds festival. But there’s one gig that stands out to Nicholas: “If I were to put a festival on, it would be just like the Slane [Castle] line-up. It was brilliant. I got to hang out with Dave Grohl and his wife there. I even met his mum, I was stood with her during their set. It’s bizarre. She’s really friendly, clearly so proud of him – but who wouldn’t be?
“I went to see them at Wembley when we were still working with Gil and Dave Grohl has even been to see us a few times – he watched us from the side of the stage. I think he quite liked us in the early days.”
We couldn’t end the interview without asking Nicholas exactly why he smashed up his beloved Gibson Jazzmaster on stage at Download Festival – a feat which now only exists in memories as no footage of the moment seems to exist: “I just lost it.” he laughed. “I think the Jimi Hendrix in me fell out. I started so I knew I had to finish. I had Taka looking at me like ‘he’s not gonna do it’.
“I do regret it, but the saving grace is that where it was split, it was repairable and it’s now in my rack on tour with us. Half of that guitar has been brought back to life.
“It was a rock and roll moment. But there is absolutely no footage of it anywhere. We’ve looked. It was before the days of iPhones but someone must have it somewhere.
“It was a different world back then... a very wholesome world!”