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You've released one mini-album ('Swim') and two full-length albums ('Polythene'
and 'Yesterday Went Too Soon') and you're quite successful in the UK and
America. Now you have to, in a way, start all over again in Holland. How does that feel?
"It knocks your ego a bit. We've been around for a long time, seven years
and the reason we're not popular over here is that we spent a long time, a
year, in America. I've seen every place there is in America! The thing is, a
lot of bands go to America for two weeks, hate it, and try Europe. We did it
the other way around, so we spent such a long time in America and are only
now trying to get people to hear about us in Europe.
We were meant to come to Holland last year, supporting Creed –who I don't
like- but after a couple of gigs the singer decided he had a bit of a sore
throat. [cynical] Thumbs up, great, yeah! It would have been a great thing
for us you know, to get people to know about us then before we would do
[London Calling]. Now, tonight, there will be, like, seven people there
going ‘yeah [applauds]! Who are you?'. It will be strange because the last
gig we did before this one was seven-thousand people and a big PA system,
and then to go and do this… I'm not saying I hate to play small venues,
because I don't, but it is weird to have to, you know, adjust..."
You are partly from Wales [Grant and drummer Jon Lee are from Wales] but are
you consciously staying away from that Welsh music scene that's happening at
the moment?
"Well, we could just jump on the Welsh bandwagon, and I could go ‘yeah I'm
from Wales' but we don't. We're just doing our own thing. I've lived in
Wales for twenty years but now I live in London, and that's where Feeder
started. And, like, the Manic Street Preachers, although they are from
Wales, they started in London and James [Dean Bradfield] moved to London so…
I am proud to be Welsh though, but you know… I like the Manics a lot more
than the Stereophonics, a lot more. What's funny too is that a lot of Manics
fans like us as well. We have fans too that come to gigs with tiaras and
stuff. And that's just the boys!"
Do you get recognised a lot?
"Sometimes. You'll be buying underwear and they'll go ‘you're Grant from
Feeder!' and then just to shock them I'll buy a thong- but quickly slip
boxershorts in my pockets! I've had it once that there were some fans
waiting outside my house which is strange. But it is nice when fans come up
to you. Especially when they tell you how much they like you! I need fans to
praise me because the rest of the band won't! They'll tell me when they
don't like a song but they never ever praise me! But you know, when they
come in to record a song that shows that they like the song."
Is recording the best thing about being in a band?
"Yeah. I don't really like touring. Going into the studio and record songs
is the best part of being in a band. I do like the gig-part of touring, but
I don't like the rest of it. A lot of it is just waiting around for hours,
and I just always need to be busy doing something. So I'd rather do
interviews, you know, talking to you here in the sun. I also get very lonely
on tour because I miss spending time with my friends. Not that the band
aren't friends, but spending weeks crammed together in a tourbus..."
And you don't even have a wife and kids at home!
"Exactly. I wouldn't be able to do it. Jon met his girlfriend on the
American tour and she's just had a baby six months ago. Taka [Hirose,
bassist] has been married for years and has two children. I don't know how
he does it… Luckily last year we were in the UK quite a lot. I do eventually
want to settle down, get married and have kids and I don't know how I could
go on tour if I've got kids because then I'll miss seeing them grow up. So
if I get married it will be the end of Feeder. Or not. But after this we
won't be touring for while, apart from some festivals in the UK, because we
will be working on our third album. I don't know when it will be out, maybe
at the end of this year or maybe next year."
Your lyrics are a kind of diary, so isn't it scary to share that with the world?
"Well, it's not always my own diary. Many times it's just about someone
close to me. For me, writing lyrics is like walking around with a camera: I
look around and just take in everything. Sometimes lyrics come very quickly
and sometimes writing lyrics is very hard. It's very difficult because I
want to say something simple in a good way. Someone like John Lennon, his
lyrics were very simple but very good. And I'm never satisfied. If I have
written a new song I'll like it for about two weeks, you know, I'll go ‘oh
this is brilliant' and then I don't like it anymore. So I never listen to my
own records, because I want to move on. Unless I've made a mistake and want
to better myself. But I just want to move on so I never listen to my own
songs. And also, maybe it happens to you that you hear a song and you think
it's perfect and want to write a song just like that, well, I have that too.
I always think everybody else's songs are better than mine."
So if the press slag off a Feeder song, how do you feel about that?
"I take it personally yeah, of course. It's nice when they write good stuff
about you, but I do take it personally when they slag Feeder off. You see,
they'll never say ‘good song but the drummer's shit'. They'll always say
stuff like ‘the lyrics are crap, the singer can't sing'. But negative press
is better than no press at all. But when fans then come up to you and say
they love your stuff it gives you great confidence and an ego-boost.
It does hurt a lot more though when someone close to you criticises your
stuff than when some magazine slags you off. What I find is that there is
always one magazine that stands out in paying attention to you. In the
beginning, when we were quite a metal band, Kerrang! has been very good to
us and now that we've exposed more of our indie-pop side we don't appear in
Kerrang! anymore but more in magazines like Select and NME."
And tabloids?
"No! No stories about ‘Feeder singer caught naked in toilet with singer All
Saints at Brit Awards'! That's because I do very normal things. Sometimes
I'm on the bus or underground in London and someone will go ‘you're in
Feeder, why are you taking the bus?'. It's not that I could not afford more,
it's just that I don't want to. What people don't realise is that if you're
in a band, you can get a lot of money one year and have no income the next.
So I also don't go to very trendy clubs- because I can't get in! They'll be
at the door going ‘who are you?'! But I did go to the Brit Awards and the
NME Awards.
There was once a story in the Kerrang! though, about me being on the tourbus
in America with an underage girl, doing some obscene thing with a
crack-pipe, you know, crack cocaine. People were like ‘is that true?' and
I'm like ‘no of course not!'. It was a cricket-bat."
What would you be doing if you weren't in Feeder?
"Oh God I don't know… [thinks hard] I really don't know. I've had plenty of
jobs before Feeder, so it's not that I can't hold down a nine-to-five job. I
could be making clay-heads, be a hair-dresser or a clothing designer –which
you probably think is pretty strange if you look at my shabby clothes [Grant
is unshaven “because we were on tour with Skunk Anansie” and is wearing very
dirty jeans and a dirty shirt]! I like things that have to do with art and
fashion.
I also aspire to be a marine-biologist, but I'm terrified of deep waters and
sharks so I'd be swimming around with harpoons. It would never work.
I would never want to be a tattoo-artist though. I wouldn't be able to do
something so… permanent to a person. Do you have a tattoo? Neither do I. Do
you want one? I've always wanted one and when I was nineteen I was always
thinking ‘but what if I'm thirty…' and now that I am nearly thirty I'm still
thinking like that. So I could never be a tattoo-artist.
But being in a band is great, it's something I always wanted to do ever
since I was little. And I know this sounds silly, but I've always dreamed of
being on Top Of The Pops, which we've done twice now so that's great."
Even if the other bands playing are Five and Westlife?
"Yeah but we're also a boyband! Just a very old one! And we also dance on
stage. We are a very visual band, especially Taka, who's this mad Japanese
guy! But bands like that have always been around. The Osmonds for instance
were like that! I don't think boybands are the future of music but they have
been around for a very long time."
Will Feeder be around for long time? How about in ten years' time?
"Ten years? I really don't know. Five years from now we will still be
touring, yeah, but ten years? I don't want to be like U2 who go on forever.
I want to end gracefully while people still like us. I don't want to end up
like ‘the guy who used to be with Feeder –look what happened to him', you
know. I want to be able to look back and be proud to say to my kids: ‘I was
in Feeder'.
I will always keep on doing something that has to do with music, perhaps be
a producer. And I've already had people come up to me and ask me to write a
song for them, but I won't be a manager. I want to produce. Before Feeder
I've worked in a studio a couple of years, so...
Am I talking too much? I think I'm talking too much. I'll shut up now.
You'll have to forgive me because I've been on the bus for three days
non-stop! But all this has just been lies. Apart from the All Saints bit
though."
http://www.kindamuzik.net/interview/feeder/feeder/379/
Meer Feeder op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/feeder
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