The catch-up #93

For our latest Q&A, we caught up with Paul to hear more about The Feeling's third album, as well as news of a TV show The Feeling will be appearing on this month. Do leave your comments below. And if you have a question for Ciaran next time, then please email it to feedback@thefeeling.com. Thanks!

Hello Paul, how are you?
I'm good, thanks.

Where are you?
I'm out walking the dog.

Did you go to Richard's latest club night?
I did, yes. I didn't stay out too late, though. Sinead's away at the moment and I couldn't find anyone to look after the dog. When that happens I have to be home early. Well, not early, I just have to make sure I come home!

Sounds like good preparation for parenthood.
Yes, it probably is.

Although you wouldn't leave a child on its own...
...with a bowl of water and the telly on? No, you wouldn't!

Is Richard becoming a good DJ?
Yeah. I think the thing that brought us together as a band was a love of really great tunes. The kind of things we tend to strive for with our music seems to inform a good choice when you're DJing. I think one of the reasons Sophie and Richard started doing that thing was that they were going to clubs and thinking, "If I was the DJ I'd play these tunes and it'd be much better!"

Did you have a boogie?
I drove, actually.

A sober Paul does not dance?
No, no. I need a good few drinks before I will let loose on the dancefloor.

So, what's happening with this third album of yours?
Well, any day we're going to start making it. We've just been having a holiday. We've lied about doing any work on it yet. We were in the Bahamas the whole time.

That would be disappointing news, were it true.
Ha ha! No, the album is on its way. It's a very long process making an album. I know people sometimes bang together an album in two weeks, but that tends to be after a huge amount of preparation. Like, people say the Beatles recorded certain records in no time, but they'd been writing and gigging the songs for two years beforehand. We care so much about this record and we want it to be the best possible thing it can, so the best thing to do is take our time.

Is the fact you're taking so long over album three a reaction to the speedy recording process of Join With Us.
To a certain degree, yeah. We got so excited and we felt so confident in the material we had, that we made it pretty quickly, with virtually no break. But looking back at that now, there's probably some songs we may have put on the album that weren't on there, replacing some others that were. There's certain things we would've changed if we'd maybe waited just a few more months.

Well, you'll have no such excuses for this one.
Maybe we'll go the other way and take too long!

Music can sometimes be over-thought.
It definitely can, yeah. We're trying very hard not to over-think anything. It's more about having a huge choice of material. Because the more we have to choose from, the better... oh, hang on... there's a big dog fiddling with my dog.

Stop it big dog!
Yeah! It's OK, it's gone now. Anyway, yeah, so for us it's about having a huge choice of material, because obviously the more you have, the more selective you can be about quality. I think we've already got about 20 songs that are demoed up and ready to go. And there's more in the pipeline. All this for an album that will probably only have 10 songs on it. And the material so far is quite varied stylistically, so the more we have, the more we can choose what's going to hang together on an album best.

Do you have a favourite song?
Ooh, well, yeah, there's a new one called Set My World On Fire. It's a very happy, uplifting song. It's got the love. And we do like that.

Has it got a good drum part?
Yeah, it's slightly Afrobeat actually, that one. An interesting turn for us.

Are there some good rhythms on the album?
It's hard to say, until we know what's going to be on there. What will be interesting is when we really nail 13 to 15 songs and decide the album will come out of that lot. Then we'll get together in a room and start learning to play them all live.

Do you think it'll be finished by Christmas?
I don't think it'll be mixed and mastered and completely done by then, no. To be honest, we're working with a couple of other people on this, in the production area. I'm not sure I can go into that yet. But their availability dictates when it's going to happen and when it'll be done by.

So, it's unlikely to be early 2010?
No, not in the first couple of months.

If you had to guess the release date?
I'd say towards the end of Spring. Although I'm not exactly sure when Spring officially finishes! Maybe around Easter time. That sort of time.  But we'll see.

What else have you been up to?
Well, we filmed a Tribute to the Carpenters TV show, where lots of artists came in and each worked out a version of a classic Carpenters track and performed it. We did Solitaire, which was actually a Neil Diamond song originally. Loads of other people did it, like Chrissie Hynde and Beverley Knight. I think that's going to be on ITV1 on November 18th. It was a lot of fun recording it.

Have you been to any gigs recently?
I've been to loads, actually. I think as a musician making music you sometimes forget to go and look at it and listen to other people do it. So recently I've been making a bit more of an effort, and I've seen some brilliant things.

What's been the highlight?
I'm not sure I could give a highlight - they've all been good. I went to see Imelda May at Shepherd's Bush. She was brilliant. She actually injured her back a little while ago, in a very similar way to how Dan did. So she had a metal back brace corset thing on throughout the gig, holding her back straight. And she was on huge amounts of painkillers too. So it was very impressive that the show was so good.

Who else have you seen?
I saw a jazz guy called Ian Shaw, at the 606 Club in Chelsea. He's such an inspiring musician. He made me want to go home and listen to all my favourite music again. He's one of those people that can really re-kindles your love of music in one evening! I also went to see a friend of the band called Andrew McKinney who's a bass player. He's playing with the James Taylor Quartet. They played at Ronnie Scott's and that was a killer gig too.

Sounds like you've been enjoying yourself.
Yeah, going to gigs and seeing friends and fixing cars. The usual! Oh, there's one other thing we did with the band actually, at a member's club in London called the Groucho Club. They have an annual show where their members in the entertainment industry all do a little spot, be it a song or a bit of comedy or whatever. And we were asked to go along and contribute to that.

How was it?
Well, we usually have all of our equipment which we've painstakingly put together over the years, and it's sometimes quite difficult and unsettling to step up onto a stage with a bunch of alien equipment, with no preparation, and play the songs. For example, we'd usually do Fill My Little World with an acoustic guitar, but there wasn't one. So we just had to make it happen. But it was brilliant. It was actually really exciting. Having spent months in the studio, just getting out and playing a couple of tunes really reminds you why you're doing it all. Especially being in a roomful of people cheering as loudly as they could.

Were there some famous faces there?
There were quite a few, yes. We actually heard that Derren Brown is a fan, which was nice. I hope that's true, because I think he's amazing. We all do.

Right, readers' questions. Amy wants to ask what the rest of the band made of your mini-me, and if it's true that you glued it to the dashboard of your car.
I should explain that she gave me a little troll, which she reckons looked like me. Maybe it was the pink hair. And, yes, I glued it to my dashboard, but due to the rather small surface area of its feet, it fell off and I haven't glued it back on.

Where is it now?
It's in my cup holder, as a little surprise for me whenever I try to put a cup in and then it nearly falls out.

Does it look like you?
Exactly like me, yeah. It's uncanny.

Next question is from Lewis who wants to know whether professional drummers in bands use drum machines.
Well, when you see us live, whenever you hear any drums, they're being played live. I guess when he says drum machine he means programming and any kind of sequencer which runs some instrumental parts which we play along with. We do occasionally have a shaker or a tambourine part - basically stuff that we haven't got enough arms to play. But all the drums are played live.

How about in the studio?
We are actually experimenting with some drum programming and different sounds. So you might hear some slightly different noises and stuff on this next record.

The final question is from James who says, as you're an expert in cars, he'd like you to recommend a good mid-priced family car for him.
Hahaha! OK. I would say a 1968 Dodge Charger RT, with the 440 motor.

Will that work well for James in the Sainsburys car park?
Well, yeah. I go everywhere in my car. It just means you get two spaces. You have no choice. And it's big enough for the family and a couple of friends. I believe the 68 Charger has two bench seats, so you can get six people in there, comfortably. And it's got a trunk big enough for about three bodies, so you could have a few more people in there too.

No doubt that's exactly the kind of advice James was looking for.
Yeah. And he says "family" which implies there are kids involved. If you pick your kids up from school in a Dodge Charger they will be the coolest kids in the school, without question. So that is definitely the answer!