Feeder
The formation of Feeder was a gradual one. Beginning with only a mere two members – guitarist/lyricist/vocalist/heart-throb, Grant Nicholas and drummer, Jon Lee – the pair soon joined up with bassist Taka Hirose after performing under various guises, and undertaking a worryingly stealthy path to notoriety. Yet, once being christened Feeder, it seemed as if everything was to fall in their favour.
Echo signed the trio in 1995, prompting the original releases of their debut-EP, ‘Two Colours’, and a cult, mini-album, ‘Swim’ – both enough evidence to the press, late-evening radio-stations and kidz alike that something was brewing from the instrumental creation of this Welsh/Japanese hybrid. Mid-1997 boded similarly well, from it emerging their first full-length effort, ‘Polythene’, and later in the period the single ‘High’, still to this day one of their commercial-breakthroughs, establishing the band a reputation in both the UK and overseas.
The far more refined follow-up ‘Yesterday Went Too Soon’ was the second LP-proper, and surfaced in 1999, bringing with it a top-30 single, ‘Insomniac’, and a title-track that would earn them a ‘Top Of The Pops’ appearance and a ‘the next big thing’ tag. By the time the fruits of their following, new material were unveiled – the radio-adorning ‘Buck Rogers’ – things had hit fever-pitch, and the track rocketed into the top-5, as did its associated album, ‘Echo Park’: yet another indication of the band’s searing progression and straight-ahead vision.
With further hit-singles – ‘Turn’, ‘Seven Days In The Sun’ – and a swelling in crowd-numbers at gigs, December made way for the band’s greatest triumph yet – ‘Just A Day’, their biggest single. Tragic that around its release, drummer Jon Lee was found dead in his Miami home on January 7th 2001, after committing suicide. Mysteries still lay around the motives for such a shocking, saddening action by Lee, but it was decided by all concerned that Feeder’s continued working would have been Jon’s main wish.
So, with the aid of Mark Richardson, formerly of Skunk Anansie, the band recorded their second, successive album with producer Gil Norton (Pixies, etc.). The project was eventually titled ‘Comfort In Sound’, and arose in 2002 to critical acclaim and fan-adoration, hence its achievement of 100,000 unit-sales in just three days after its release-date. Already fast-approaching Platinum status in the UK alone, its twelve tracks were a mature acceptance of the devastating circumstances that the band had recently found themselves within, and a chance to move on and further test their own artistic-integrity.
With interest greater than ever over a band that have never slowed down nor taken the all-too-typical de-tour up their own anuses so commonly employed by musicians these days, Feeder’s greatest strength is their own perseverance and affinity towards producing music with songs and energy both placed on an equal footing. Long may they continue their reign.
OFFICIAL SITE: The band\'s main web-portal, and as easy-to-operate, frequently-updated and pretty as they come. Yummy...