THE FEELING // Bristol Academy:

Dan Gillespie-Sells - Vocals & Guitar
Richard Jones - Bass
Ciaran Jeremiah - Guitar
Kevin Jeremiah - Keyboards
Paul Stewart - Drums

Biography
Touted by their own record company as 'the new gods of cool', English five piece soft-rock band 'The Feeling' would probably be happier just to consider themselves successful purveyors of singalong guitar-driven pop. Having learnt their craft pounding out covers to drunken skiers in a resort in the French Alps, they have capitalised on the success of their debut album, '12 Stops and Home', to release a second album, 'Join With Us' in February 2008. And the band's mission statement as stated by Dan Gillespie Sells, their sharply coiffured front-man, has always been nice and simple: "All we wanted was to write popular songs and be in a band, but at the same time not be crap!" "You can get away with murder in pop music," says Dan. "We like getting away with murder. We like great big choruses with great, big, hooks!"

The engine room of the group - drummer Paul Stewart, guitarist Kevin Jeremiah and keyboardist Ciaran Jeremiah - had been schoolmates in Sussex, and met singer Dan Gillespie Sells and bassist Richard Jones years later in Croydon. In what has been called their 'Hamburg era' - likening it to the time the Beatles spent living and gigging in that fair German stadt - the band cut their teeth as proper gigging musicians playing covers every night to entertain the apres-ski crowd in France. They'd play two gigs a night, in two different venues, and these being their pre-fame days, they had to lug their own gear about between performances. As their singer later said, 'That was bloody hard work, for bugger all money. But we did it because we loved it. And we still do'.

The Feeling are pop and proud - they're reclaiming the term. I had the pleasure of photographing them at the Bristol Carling Academy not so long ago, and here are the results!

<< Back