F
eeder have followed their recent Best
Of with their first new studio album
in five years. Here, guitarist/frontman
Grant Nicholas pinpoints five
standout guitar moments from Tallulah...KYOTO
“This was one of the last songs I wrote
for Tallulah. I really wanted a classic riff-
driven anthemic song to lift the dynamic
in the second half of the album. It’s classic
old-school Feeder with a slight homage to
70s rock. Lyrically, it’s about my love affair
with Japan and Japanese culture. The main
guitar tone was created using my usual
Tone Benders, Big Muff and Pete Cornish
fuzz boxes. All the guitars were recorded
at my studio, the Treehouse, through a Vox
blue-speaker AC30, a Fender Hot Rod
DeVille and a Marshall JMP 50-watt head.
My main guitars were a 1959 Jazzmaster, aTHE PLAYLIST
ALBUM SPOTLIGHT
FEEDER TALLULAH
INTERVIEW JOSH GARDNER PHOTOGRAPHY ELEANOR JANEGrant Nicholas of Feeder picks his
guitar highlights from the Welsh/
Japanese rockers’ 10th studio
album, Tal lul ahcustom ESP guitar that was made for me –
it’s basically an SG-Mustang – and a Gibson
J-45 and 1964 Guild M-20.”FEAR OF FLYING
“I really like the blend of distorted and
chorus guitars on this. I tend to use chorus
guitar sounds quite a bit in general and
used a Memory Man to create this sound.
Again, I used the Fender ’59 Jazzmaster,
ESP custom and a Rebirth relic Jazz/Tele-
style custom guitar that Taka loaned me.”LONELY HOLLOW DAYS
“This is the only real acoustic song on the
album and has my usual fingerpicked style.
I’ve always loved Nick Drake and his music
has influenced me a lot over the years. This
fingerpicked folk style features a lot on my
solo album Yorktown Heights and the mini-
album Black Clouds. I wanted the song to
have an organic honesty and feel. This was
recorded on my 1967 Gibson J-45.”TALLULAH
“This sound was created using a tracked
acoustic and electric guitar part, whichset the mood for the song, which I had
originally written on acoustic guitar.
Again, this was recorded mainly with a
Gibson J-45 and Fender 1959 Jazzmaster.
I used my usual Vox and Fender DeVille
combination, with some Marshall added
in the heavier sections.”WINDMILL
“This is a real nod to my earlier Feeder tone
and arrangement. I found myself journeying
back to Polythene and tried to create an
anthemic landscape with a big guitar
dynamic that just lifts you up and fills
the space. It touches on escapism, the
human mind and the vastness of the
universe. I remember writing some of the
lyrics on the Kent coastline, while waiting
to play the Wheels And Fins Festival, on
our tour bus. Guitar-wise, it was mainly
my trusty ’59 Jazzmaster and the ESP
custom through a cranked up Marshall
1970s JMP 50, which I’ve been using
since recording Swim and Polythene and
is on pretty much all the Feeder stuff.”Feeder’s Tallulah is out 9 August on Believe16NEW MUSIC