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The Feelers: Feeling Their Way To Success - Page 2

© Anne-Marie de Bruin

"I guess it's an exaggeration- people are always more willing to go on about negative things than positive things, you know what I mean? Like, just when things start to happen for someone, a lot of people say, 'they haven't done the hard yards- they've only been around for a year.' But that's not true, we've been struggling for about 5 or 6 years and I have been since I was 11 when I decided I wanted to be in a band. As long as people come to our gigs we don't care what people write in articles or whatever."

Do you think it's a case of the old NZ 'tall poppy syndrome' then? You know the attitude where you build someone up, then cut them down again?

"Yep definitely- it happens to everyone. People who thought we were great when we had a demo tape now maybe don't because we have a good quality recording. A lot of people want to be alternative and their idea of it is being into what no-one else is into, so they always pick and choose things that no-one else likes because it sounds terrible. But if something sounds good they think 'Everyone else will be into this, so I've got to be alternative,' but there's nothing really alternative about that because there's lots of people doing it!"

I know you must have told this story many times, but how did the band get together?

"I knew James when we were 7 year olds, we went to the same primary school and it was just by circumstance that we both ended up musical and enjoying the same sort of music. We were both in other bands but this band was the most fun. Then I got a phone call from this guy who had tracked down my number because he'd heard that I played the drums and guitar and he asked if I wanted to be in a band. So I went to a band practice and Matt was there and I kind of liked him. I didn't like the other guy's voice too much, so I invited James along and so this guy was playing the guitar and James was singing but eventually this guy kind of p**ed us off so we all quit the band and did our own thing together. We didn't want to kick him out but we all kind of left the band and we realised we had our own band and we called it the Feelers."

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