Beyond the breakthrough: the feelers

With their debut album, the feelers were the local rock phenomenon of 1998. Now they're facing the pressure of the big follow-up. GRAHAM REID talks to them about life behind the success story - and what phase two holds.

The interview becomes a very free-ranging conversation with James Reid and Hamish Gee of the feelers while Matt Thomas holidays down in Akaroa. It covers the many merits of Thailand's Mekong whisky, drinking in Bali and taking Michael Jackson down south and getting a few Speights into him to put a bit of colour in his cheeks. Lots of laughs.

Reid and Gee, back in promo-mode before the release of their second album Communicate, are in good form. They are relaxed and chatty, and modest about their remarkable achievements. Their debut album supersystem sold a whopping 68,000 copies.

But they laugh about the size of their Visa bills and a recent magazine story which said Reid had suffered a nervous breakdown. A joke was taken seriously.

They are also serious behind the smiles. Gee - cheerfully unshaven and barefoot - is earthy and candid, Reid is more circumspect, perhaps as a result of the media pasting at the time of their debut. Some music journalists who for years asserted that major labels should sign locals and spend money on them swiped at the feelers and their company Warners for that very thing.

Reid puts some of it down to that old Canterbury v Auckland thing, "when everyone was up here working their arses off trying to get deals. And suddenly we're there. To an extent we expected it, but of course we were annoyed and thought, 'Give us a chance and let the music speak for itself'."

"It surprised me," says Gee. "We were the same band as before but the record company spent money and we had a more polished product. We came up here to play on some small stage at the Big Day Out one year and went to 95bFM to do interviews. They were playing one of our songs, which actually ended up a single. I don't think they've played anything once we got recorded."

"Still, it hasn't fazed the major labels' investment in local acts," says Reid, noting that Stellar, Zed, the feelers and others have been very profitable.

With Communicate the feelers are on "the difficult second album" and know that expectation is high. They're also aware some still will them to fail, and already they are being set against Stellar, who are now releasing their second album after a big-selling debut.

"It hadn't even occurred to us there's a competition," says Gee, noting they know the Stellar-fellers with whom they've played in the past. "I'm hoping everyone is going to buy both albums. They might buy one, then save up before they go and buy ... Stellar!"

More laughter, then the serious business. Communicate is a crucial album for them but comes with considerable advance credentials.

Recorded in Auckland's York St and at Dave (Eurythmics) Stewart's Church Studios in London, where Radiohead, Travis and Coldplay took up recording residency, it was produced by Gil Norton, whose credits include pop-smart albums by Counting Crows and indie-cred bands such as the Foo Fighters and the Pixies.

It's nice to have influential friends, but how does a band out of this country get a gun like Norton?

Gee: "We sat down with the A&R guy from the record company in Australia and he said, 'Who would you like?' I had no idea how far we could go with that idea, so said 'Gil Norton'. We sent him some demos and he enjoyed what he heard, which was an ego boost for us. Obviously these guys don't do it if they don't want to."

Then Reid played a club gig in London which Norton, engineer Danton Supple (who has recorded Seal, Morrissey, U2 and Bush) and mixer Chris Sheldon (Radiohead, Foo Fighters) attended. That was the turning point because they saw Reid could play and sing and "hasn't just used the auto-tune in the studio," says Gee.

"Then it was get onto his schedule and let the lawyers do the rest," says Reid.

When they got to Church Studios - the walls dauntingly lined with Stewart's awards for his non-Eurythmics work - they pulled an album of material from their 50-song demo list.

Gee: "We hadn't wanted to get someone who was just a top 40 person and might make it too polished, or someone who'd make it sound too grunge or crusty. There's a middle ground and we had faith Gil would suss that."

Their demos were fairly cruisy ("We thought it was going to be a bit Travis/Coldplay," says Gee), then as Norton pushed them they felt it becoming a hard-core album.

"He was experimenting and getting us to an edge, then bringing us back," says Reid. "Then we found that middle ground. Most of the time working with him it was a three-way process, with Danton starting with the question, 'What sound or mood do we want here?' Then we'd find that sound."

Sonically, Communicate is a leap ahead from supersystem, which was certainly radio-friendly and, as with Zed and Stellar, delivered them to an audience waiting to be tapped. The downside? "That we weren't as underground as you wanted it to be!" says Reid with a nod to Gee.

"Then the cheque comes and you say, bugger the underground," laughs Gee.

Yes, the feelers became stars but the last three years - while enjoyable and more than what they could have hoped - have come at some small cost like the loss of privacy.

"When you're a bit of a show pony it doesn't really matter," says Reid with a shrug. "But you get recognised when you are out being a silly bugger."

"And people want to say negative things," says Gee. "Like, 'Look at that Reid, what a drunk, and he's got fat! Been eating pies and watching Star Trek all day'."

"And eating babies," laughs Reid, who does appear to be carrying a few more kilos these days.

Gee says the trick is stay close to Shortland Street people, the media is more interested in them, and All Blacks: "I was out with a Shortland Street actor the other night and he was vomiting out his window on Ponsonby Rd, and no one gave a damn what I was doing in the passenger seat."

The band is now seasoned and savvy. The next few months will see the album launch and media blitz, there'll be touring in Australia and here, and thumbscrews put on people in the parent company in the States and Britain to commit to a release. It's been good so far and, Reid says, the music is better because he has a clearer understanding of how to write, and what he wants to say.

"There's more to find out behind the truth. You can look at things at face value, but if you get behind it that's where your full enjoyment is going to be. Like, I got a lot more out of the recording process because I understand how everything works now. That's a cool thing."

"And musically and lyrically it's a more open and honest album than the last," says Gee. "Best of all it's captured what we sound like live."

* Communicate is released on Friday.