News

The catch-up #102

15th Jul 2010

Welcome to the latest catch-up Q&A, in which Rich discusses album progress, the band's recent gigs and eaing lobster with Jay-Z and Beyonce in Chiswick. As ever, do leave your comments below.

Hi Rich, how's it going?
It's going great, thanks. We've been doing loads. Was the last catch-up just before the Isle of Man?

It was indeed.
That gig was brilliant. It was the first big show we'd done like that in probably over a year. It was quite full-on, because we'd been in the studio all week before it, working on the album. The Friday was the last day and we wanted to make the most of it, so we were there with James from the Freemasons until about 4.30am on the Saturday morning.

Crikey.
Exactly. I drove home and it was like that episode of the Simpsons where Homer gets two jobs, and when he gets in from one, he goes to bed and the alarm goes off immediately for him to go to the next one. I was in bed for about half an hour, then straight to the airport to go to the Isle of Man.  

But it went well?
It really did. Quite surprisingly. Calvin Harris also played and he was very good.  

Do you know him through Sophie?
Yeah, I do. He's a lovely guy and very talented at what he does. I've been speaking to him about his techniques of production, actually, in a similar way that we were talking to the Freemasons guys.

Did you have a big night out in Douglas?
We had a few drinks, yeah. And we went down to the beach in the day. It was nice.

Two men on the beach in the Isle of Man

What else have you been up to?
We did a photo shoot for Love Music, Love Food, which is a Teenage Cancer Trust thing. That was a lot of fun. Their website is definitely worth a look.

What's the campaign about?
It's a fundraising thing where they're taking pictures of various people with their favourite foods, which I think they're eventually going to auction off.

What food are you pictured with?
Well, I would have had sushi or fish and chips. In fact, I sent them quite a long list. But because they've been doing it for over a year, most of the foods that I would've chosen had already gone. So I ended up with a rocket, mozzarella and parma ham salad.

Sounds nice.
Well that's actually my favourite pizza topping. I would've gone for fish and chips, really, but my wife had already had that one, sadly.

Did you get to eat the food afterwards.
Actually, they were spraying it and stuff, like they do with proper food photography. So it wasn't that appealing by the end.

Any other excitements in the past few weeks?
I popped over to New York with Sophie, who was singing at Pride over there. And we did a show for Chris Evans' Children in Need fundraiser.

Of course. How was that?
It was really good fun. It was a lovely bunch of people. We were playing in a tipi in the garden of his pub, to about 60 people. They were really up for it. I think we were booked to play for half an hour, but we ended up playing for about 75 minutes. We just kept going.

Will that ever appear online or anything?
I'm not sure. I think they did record it, and they might end up playing it on Radio 2. And then after that we did Cornbury festival, which was lovely. It was a good moment for us, because the sun was out and we had a massive crowd and it just went down really well. We've been away for a while now, so it was quite encouraging to see that people still care!

"Good evening Cornbury!"

Did you play new songs to them?
Yeah, we played a couple of new ones. They went down well. It was just a really fun day. We spent pretty much three years on the road non-stop, and although we're obviously very lucky and we love what we do, it does get a bit tiring. But having the break that we've had means we're definitely ready to really enjoy it now. It feels like a lot of fun again.

Didn't Dan play at some UK Music event recently?
Yes, surrounded by lots of MPs in St James Park. I talked to Feargal Sharkey from the Undertones who's lobbying the government for UK music these days. And we did the Chiswick House festival for the third year running last week. We love that festival.

The novelty hasn't worn off?
The novelty of free lobster and oysters and stuff never wears off! We did it a bit differently this year, with guests - so Sinead got up and Sophie got up, and we did a couple of Paul Young's songs with him, which went down really well.

What did you eat this year?
I ate two entire lobsters. I felt like a pig. It was a really good day out. The line-up was really good too. Mumford & Sons played a great set and Mark Ronson showcase his new stuff. But the big excitement really was during Hot Chip, who were excellent, when Jay-Z and Beyoncé turned up. In Chiswick! That turned a few heads!

What were they doing there?
I think that link may have been to do with Mark Ronson. I think Jay-Z's management company might manage him. Or possibly he was there for Hot Chip, as Jay-Z watched the whole of their set. It really was quite surreal seeing them walk in. They were surrounded by security which is probably fair enough, because I'm sure everybody would've wanted to say hello and talk to them, so they wouldn't have had any peace. It must be quite strange being them.

So, where are you at with the album?
We've done half of it, and we're in discussions about singles at the moment. And then we're putting in dates to record the rest of it soon. But it's written and arranged, so it shouldn't be too difficult to do it. We're really happy with where we're at.

And you've got three gigs in four days this week.
I know! It's like the old days. And we've got a stag party the day before the first gig in Epsom too. So it's going to be a pretty full-on week. I remember we did the Glastonbury Abbey show after Owen's stag do and that was quite messy. But it'll be fun to do the shows.

Right, readers' questions from Facebook. Jazz asks how you're feeling? Do you see what she's done there?
I do! I'm feeling fine.

Angela Dyas would like to know if she's related to you.
Why would she think that?

She doesn't say.
Well, it is possible, only because my father was adopted. So I'm not actually really a Jones by blood. My father was put in an orphanage when he was a baby and he was adopted by the Jones when he was about 5. So, who knows? I'm definitely related to some people that I don't know about.

Simon would like to know your favourite bar in Meribel.
The classic, really, the Rond Pont. We had the best times there. It's the best apres ski place because it's on the piste, halfway down. We played there on new year's eve a couple of times, and we've done our big piste shows there too. So there's a lot of history for us there.

Karen says that you all wore cameras at the end of one of the Water Rats shows. She'd like to know if it came out OK and whether we'll get to see it.
I haven't seen it yet, so I don't know. It was a friend of ours, who wanted to try this experiment. Basically, the idea was that it's an interactive movie of us playing the song, filmed with cameras at our eye line, with one camera at the back of the crowd too. So you can choose which angle you want to watch from. That's the idea anyway. But, as I say, I haven't seen anything yet. Maybe it just didn't work!

Comments

Showing 1 to 5 of 5

From	Comment
charlieb 17/07/10	Had a great time at Epsom. Had my photo taken with Dan. Thank you xx
missgeepee 17/07/10	I went to the Epsom gig, was amazing got to met dan and kevin, saw rich but didn't get to talk to him, there all gentlemen cheers for your time rich xxx
kimiyo 16/07/10	Good to see a pic of Cornbury. I could listen to the gig on BBC Oxford but they didn't put any the Feeling pix on the site. Dan and Ciaran are so cool on the beach. The sea is very beautiful. I searched the site of LMLF, but not The Feeling, yet. A bit funny to see pix of sushi.
beanie 15/07/10	Thank you for your time Rich!!! You are truly the best :) A big hug from Sweden xxx
bigbird75 15/07/10	Thanks Rich Have a great gig at Epsom today!! xx

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