Your new album Boy Cried Wolf is out on October 7th – was it easy for you to write and record?
It was a pleasure, actually. We had a really good time writing and recording this one. I mean, we left Universal at the end of 2011 and we’d had a very difficult time with our third album, so having some time on our own again just gave us a chance to rediscover ourselves musically. We met up in our studio and started playing music again, and suddenly there was no-one else involved and giving their opinions, which is exactly how it was when we made our first album. Dan also broke up with his partner of five years in the very same week that we left Universal, so he kept writing all these great songs… The whole album’s really about going through the struggle of a break-up while at the same time being excited by the newfound sense of freedom. We recorded it in our own studio, and then at the beginning of this year we got a deal with BMG, who just said ‘we really love it, we’ll put it out!’ and they were brilliant about it. We’ve been touring this year and playing festivals, and it’s all just really fun again – we almost feel like a new band.
What’s your favourite track on the album?
It really varies… At the moment it’s probably I Just Do, because we’ve been rehearsing it live ready for our tour and it’s just so much fun to play. It’s got a vibe that’s somewhere between The Beatles and Elton John, with a sprinkling of Pink Floyd.
Are you excited about your tour?
Yeah, we’re really excited. We haven’t done a headline tour for two years, so it’s gonna be great to get back on the road after a really good summer of festivals. We can’t wait to play a lot of the new stuff, though obviously we’ll still be playing all the old hit singles! We’re definitely not gonna decide that we won’t play any of the hits – we want to please the crowd! We’re also only going to start playing tracks from the new album once the album’s actually been released. It doesn’t even matter if it’s a really good song – if I go to a gig and the band plays something that I’ve never heard before I never really like it!
What’s the best thing about playing live?
It’s just a really amazing and immediate experience. We’ve loved playing music since we were kids, but when you’re on a stage and getting all the energy from a crowd… You get those moments when it all just clicks in and you’re having a great gig, it’s just such an amazing experience.
What’s your favourite song to play live?
I still love playing Sewn. I’ve never gotten bored of it, because it’s got such a great dynamic and a great progressive outro. It always feels really good to play that song. I also still love playing Love It When You Call. A little while ago we did an outdoor gig for Manchester Pride, and there was a really good and energetic crowd there. At the end of the show they sprayed all this ticker tape over the crowd (which always looks fantastic), and I always feel like moments like that are the end credits to some movie about the band or about my life, because every time that happens we flash back to some moment from our past. It just reminded me of when Dan and I were living together, and I was sat on the couch in the front room and I started playing the chords to Love It When You Call (which hadn’t been written yet) on the guitar. He ran into the room and started bashing the piano, and we wrote the whole song in about five minutes. He was even half-laughing as he was singing it, because it’s just a fun pop song! At the time we were very skint and living in a student house, and then we get these moments where we’re on stage and the ticker tape is coming down… It’s bizarre.
What made you get into music in the first place?
I just became completely obsessed with it when I was a teenager. I always liked music as a kid, but I never really had the confidence to learn how to play. When I got to about thirteen or fourteen I never did anything else! I was always with my guitar or hanging around the music block in school, so I just carried it on from there.
How would you describe the album in a few sentences?
Urmmm… That’s a really difficult thing to do… I think that there’s a sense of liberation and freedom about the album, and I’ve been told that by a couple of other people who’ve heard the record too. It certainly felt like that when we were making it – it felt free, it felt liberated, and it’s just a consistent record that we’re really proud of. Not everyone will like it, but I hope that people will still understand it, even if they’re not into it.
Who is your ultimate musical icon?
I’m a huge Bowie fan… He’s somebody who’s managed to maintain the same mystique now that he had back in the day, which is impressive when you consider how much reality television has taken over nowadays. The kind of mysterious other-worldliness about our rock stars nowadays has gone, because it’s just so easy to find out what they’re doing. I’ve never met him, and to be honest I’d rather not – I’d like to keep the mystique! I mean, even when he released his new album this year, nobody (including his press people) knew about it until the day he uploaded the first single! Everyone involved in the project kept it quiet, which is amazing. Maybe there was just such a spirit behind the project that people were like ‘you know what, I am going to keep this a secret’… Who knows?
What’s best song The Feeling have ever written?
Well, maybe we haven’t written it yet… Haha! It’s hard, because we’re proud of all of them – sometimes we’ll think that a song isn’t that great, but then we’ll meet someone and they’ll tell us that it’s their favourite song and that it means so much to them. A lot of stuff on the new album is up there, but I really like a song called Leave Me Out of It from our last album. It was a duet with my wife, Sophie Ellis-Bextor – the song felt like it didn’t make sense being sung by one person, so we immediately started producing it in a way that we knew would fit her voice. It’s still The Feeling, but it’s sonically different because of Sophie – I love it.
Which song do you wish you’d written?
God Only Knows by The Beach Boys. It’s an absolutely perfect pop song. There are loads of other incredible songs that I love, like Hurt by Nine Inch Nails, but God Only Knows is just a great pop song. It’s musically brilliant, the lyrics are simple yet brilliant and it’s all still so emotional – it’s as close to perfect as you could possibly get.
Can you describe yourself in three words?
Urmmm… I’m drawing a total blank here! I should probably have bass in there… Let’s go with Father, Bass Player!