Q & A: Bill Million/The Feelies
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How do you think the band has evolved? When you talk about always trying to improve specific songs . . . how have you changed overall?
I think with Here Before, we actually decided to go with the 13 songs we picked. We actually had more that we may work on in the future, but we thought those 13 songs allowed us to go into a direction where we could use more varied tempos than we had in the past, and to try some other things that we hadn't done. It just seemed much more interesting to us to be able to do that.
How are changes in the music industry in the last 20 years impacting the band? The rise of digital recording and mp3s?
We recorded Here Before digitally. We were kinda surprised—initially we wondered if we should record analog, but we recorded digitally and we're quite pleased with the result.
I know what you mean about mp3s, people downloading a song here, a song there . . . we've always been interested in a body of music, how songs sound together. I know that the CD or LP market always drove that. And I still think there's a big place for that. I really don't listen to mp3s, I don't put headphones on my ears to listen to music. I do have a mp3 player, but I listen to it in my house through my stereo system.
As part of this series of weekend live dates you're playing this spring and summer, you're coming to Daniel Street in Milford. How did you happen to hook up with that club?
We played there once before, and while it wasn't real crowded, the audience we had there was great, and the band really liked playing there. It's a good fit for us.
Are you getting younger audiences at your current shows, or mostly people who have listened to you back when?
It's actually been a pretty broad spectrum of ages, which is kind of cool. Rock has always been limited to a pretty youthful audience, unlike other forms of music, which tend to span generations. Obviously, there are a lot of people who listened to the band when we started, but there are a lot of young people, too.
Daniel Street is one of the last dates on your current live schedule. Do you hope to do more performing this year?
We get a lot of offers actually, but we really don't like to travel too much. Touring is not something that we have any interest in. We like to really get something out of our playing, and we want our audience to as well, and long stints on the road just detract. That was never a good fit for us—I can't say that we've toured extensively, compared to bands like R.E.M. or U2. We like to keep the show experience more special.
Q & A: Bill Million/The Feelies
