‘I’ve a Feeling this summer’s going to be massive...’
WHILE MANY of us were obliged to turn our homes into virtual pop-up pubs during the long dry months of lockdown, pop star Dan Gillespie Sells had no such problem. His house, in London’s East End, was actually once a fine old Hackney tavern.
“Live here, work here, party here,” says Dan, 43, with a grin.
“I was very lucky this happened to be my set-up before Covid.”
As well as the recording studio he built there, the singer has vintage Japanese dolls, kitsch Babycham glasses, retro 1960s vases, old wireless radios, porcelain dogs… and the Ivor Novello award for Songwriters of the Year that he won in 2007 with his band The Feeling.
Their debut album Twelve Stops And Home, a shimmering confection of silky pop melodies and wry, knowing lyrics, sold a million in the UK alone.
All four singles – Fill My Little World, Sewn, Never Be Lonely, and Love Itwhenyou Call – were huge chart hits and the future looked set fair for a band who fitted snugly into a thriving British indie-pop scene. Only things didn’t quite work out like that.
“It was difficult,” Dan admits. “Maintaining such success was complicated.”
As he points out, The Feeling’s second album, Join with Us, “still sold shedloads and went to Number One,” but there was only one hit single, I Thought It Was Over.
“It was the third album [2011’s Together We Were Made] that tested us,” he says. “We hadn’t stopped touring for years and I’d run out of things to write about.”
Five years on, British radio had changed and bands like The Feeling were no longer welcome. “The media landscape completely shifted. That’s when we left Island Records and decided to be a bit more experimental.”
Out of that came albums four and five, but 2016 saw a hiatus for the band.
Although Dan feels those dark days are behind him – given the return to form of new album, Loss Hope Love, released next month – at the time he was plunged into the depression he alludes to on the stand-out track Lost.
“I’m very lucky, I’ve suffered one big bout of depression in my life. Everything else has been very minor.
“This was a proper depression, where you get the absolute loss of any sensation, except for the numbness that comes with it.where you can’t even get out of bed.
“The hardest part was when music ceased to be my place of solace.
“My piano has always been my therapist
From million-selling indie darling to the dark days of depression, The Feeling frontman Dan Gillespie Sells tells MICK WALL he’s come out the other side a stronger artist, with a future in theatre and an upcoming tour with his band. and there was a point in which that was actually stressing me out.
“I was like, ‘Oh God, this is supposed to be the thing I do to balance myself.’ And actually, it had turned into my job.”
He continued: “I just allowed time to get me out of it. I stoically carried on living my life through this fog. It felt endless. It stayed like that for about eight months. Then it just lifted without me noticing. Suddenly, I was living my life and laughing again. “I could enjoy music and all the things I’d previously enjoyed. I always believed there was a silver lining.”
A large part of that silver lining came from writing the music for Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, a stage musical based on the real-life story of 16-year-old schoolboy Jamie, as he overcomes bullying and homophobia to become a drag queen. Transferred to the West End in 2017 and toured around the world, the 2021 movie version starred dazzling newcomer Max Harwood, supported by Sarah Lancashire and Richard E Grant.
Dan said: “We all remember what it was like to be 16, a bit insecure, nervous about stepping out into the world. That’s what made the audience connect with it.”
Writing for the musical rebooted his creative energy, he says. “I had characters to write for, I wasn’t endlessly trying to express my own thoughts and feelings.
“That gets exhausting. The musical is another version of me trying things out – it’s taken me all over the world again.”
And working with the other band members on the soundtrack rekindled his enthusiasm for The
Feeling.
He explained:
“We re-signed with Island Records and decided to do a pop album again.”
The future has never looked brighter – or busier.
“I’m working with
David Baddiel on a musical, based on one of his kids’ books.
“There are a couple of
TV projects in development, a movie in development and four other musicals in various stages of production. But I never think it’s going to happen until I see it on the stage – then I go, ‘Okay. It happened’.”
This autumn The Feeling embark on their first UK tour for four years and will be warming up with festival dates this summer, including bill-topping shows next weekend and in August for the Foodies Festival in aid of Musicians Against Homelessness, with all proceeds going to Crisis. There are 12 Foodies Festival events in the UK.
Dan said: “We have been raring to get out there and play live again.
“This summer is going to be a massive celebration.”
‘I had characters to write for, I wasn’t endlessly trying to express my own thoughts. That gets exhausting. The musical is another version of me trying things out and it’s taken me all over the world again’
● The Feeling headline Foodies Festival in Brighton next Saturday – details at foodiesfestival.com. Their new album Loss Hope Love is released on May 6