By: Matt Warnock
There is a fad that emerged in the ‘90s of older bands getting back together to do reunion tours, farewell tours, 2nd farewell tours, 3rd farewell tours, bringing the same old thing to their fans and charging tons of money for tickets. The focus seemed to be on making ends meet and buying a bigger house than the music. But, there are some bands that have gotten back together in recent years who have kept the focus on the music, and even more importantly, written and recorded new material for their fans to enjoy, old and new alike.
One of these bands is New Jersey’s The Feelies, who release four critically acclaimed albums in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, before going their separate ways in 1992. After spending 16 years on other projects, the band reunited in 2008, performing with Sonic Youth at a concert in New York. Not only did the band get back together to perform their classic songs, they also headed into the studio to record an album of entirely new tracks, 2011’s Here Before.
Guitar International recently sat down with Feelies guitarist Glenn Mercer to talk about the band’s new album, changes in the music industry and Fender guitars.
Glenn Mercer Photo: Fumie Ishii
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Matt Warnock: The Feelies were on hiatus for a while but you got back together in 2008. What was the catalyst for reuniting the band at this time?
Glenn Mercer: I guess it was around maybe 2000 when Bill and I talked, and I more or less invited him to come over and jam when he happened to be around these parts. His son was going to school in Jersey so I knew he’d be coming up fairly regularly. So it was a casual thing really. Then, coinciding with that we had a lot of offers to play, a lot of requests for licensing our songs, a lot of internet activity about the band, so there seemed to be a lot of interest for the band at that time.
When we went into it, we knew we didn’t want it to be a reunion show of just our old stuff. We wanted to remain fresh and we knew that if we did this reunion then we’d have to write and record new songs. This all came together when we opened for Sonic Youth in Battery Park in New York in 2008. It just seemed like the right time to get back together and to start working on some new music.
Matt: When you got back together, was there a difference between how you wrote songs today as compared to back in the ‘70s and ‘80s?
Glenn Mercer: It’s different in that we don’t get together as much as we used to, we all live in different cities now. That made it a bit more difficult, and that’s the reason why it took a few years to bring the new album together. The first few years were just playing live and getting our chemistry up to speed. From that point, it took almost another year between songwriting, rehearsing, arranging and recording to get it all worked out.
Also, we kind of relied on demos more than we had in the past, sending stuff back and forth. We did more homework, so when we did get together we had more efficient use of our time and could just get right down to working on the material.
Matt: For your fans who have followed you since your first four records, what can you tell them about how this new record is going to sound compared to those albums?
Glenn Mercer: What I’ve been hearing back from people is that it sounds like we picked up right where we left off. There are also some strains that could have fit on our previous albums, such as the acoustic stuff which sounds a bit like Good Earth, and the overdriven, faster, punkier songs that might have come from Crazy Rhythms. We tried to touch a wide variety of bases with this album. There are 13 songs. We usually do about 9 with a cover, so it’s got a little bit more variety to it.
The Feelies Photo: Doug Seymour
Matt: Are you planning on doing a summer tour this year to promote the new album?
Glenn Mercer: Right now we have a handful of shows booked from Spring to the Summer. Beyond that, we’re just seeing what comes our way, just taking it one gig at a time. It’s hard for us to do an extended tour these days with families, and of course the economics of touring makes it hard to put together a long tour in this kind of climate.
Matt: Right, it seems like the music industry is a whole new universe compared to what it was back in the ‘80s when you were releasing your first records. What are some of the biggest differences that you’ve noticed in the industry now that you guys are back working together?
Glenn Mercer: Probably the biggest is that a lot of people are not buying records anymore. A lot of bands make it up with touring and merchandising, but we don’t really have that opportunity, so it’s harder for us to make things happen because of illegal filesharing and downloading. Another thing is that there aren’t as many venues to play as there used to be. In the ‘80s there were a lot more clubs, you could travel from town to town, especially small, College towns, and always find a place to play. Now, I think it’s like it was back in the ‘70s and early ‘80s where it was harder to hit places between the big cities.
Matt: What guitars did you use on this album?
Glenn Mercer: I play Fenders, couple of Teles, couple of Strats, couple of modified Teles with humbuckers and hotrails. All Fenders, even the amps that I like to use are all made by Fender.
Matt: With the Feelies getting back together, are you putting your solo career on hold for the moment while you focus on the band?
Glenn Mercer: Well, I really didn’t consider it a solo career. Most of it was getting my studio together, so if you’re going to spend money on equipment you want to put it to good use. At the same time, I’d been reconnecting with ex-Feelies that I hadn’t seen for years and years, so I wanted to bring them together to work on that solo album. I got everyone on there except for Bill and Keith, the original bass player. I’m not really thinking about that anymore, any new songs will go to the Feelies, it just seemed like a cool project to put together, the solo album, since I had the songs written and the equipment to record them and release them.
Feelies Photo: Fumie Ishii
