{"id":21317,"date":"2023-02-28T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-28T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=21317"},"modified":"2023-02-24T10:41:35","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T10:41:35","slug":"dr-feelgoods-gordon-russell-interview-exclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=21317","title":{"rendered":"Dr Feelgoods Gordon Russell Interview exclusive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Having snuck into my Top 10 albums of 2022 with \u2018Damn Right!\u2019, Dr Feelgood produced the goods against the odds. A great album of 11 new songs that live up to the band\u2019s name. So, it seemed like the right moment to ask returning guitarist Gordon Russell for an interview on all things Feelgood. He very kindly took the time to answer my questions. Read on\u2026<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Hi Martin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks for the good album review and it’s a pleasure to do this. Here we go<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did you come to rejoin the band?<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think\u00a0things had stagnated for a few years in\u00a0the\u00a0band. Same show, no new album or even new songs so they were looking for a change.The pandemic was a good time for the guys to turn things around so they asked me if I’d like to rejoin, I was delighted of course<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does it differ, playing with Phil and Kevin now, than the first time around?<\/mark> The live clips on YouTube seem to be joyous. I live in France and hope to catch one of your gigs here later this year.<\/mark>\u00a0I often replaced Steve when he took his holidays, so we have played together quite a bit over the years.\u00a0But it’s no different than before. Phi and Kevin are the best\u00a0rhythm\u00a0section and we all still have good energy, so it works. Yes, we have lots of fun onstage which makes it fun for the audience to watch too. We will be playing in France later this year. Dates are still to be announced but yes do come and see us.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Robert Kane does a great job of doing his own thing, rather than emulating Lee. No disrespect to anyone else, but the two of you seem to have clicked with the songwriting on \u2018Damn Right!\u2019. As I said in my album review, the songs show influences from Wilko and Gypie while keeping your style of playing. It sounds like Feelgood, not a tribute, which was a very pleasant shock for me! How did the two of you approach writing? Had you already written some ideas before rejoining the band?<\/mark> Glad you like our album. Robert and I started\u00a0writing as soon as I was back in. We didn’t plan to record so soon, but it was just a natural\u00a0thing to do, and it worked immediately.\u00a0 As most songwriters will tell you there is no set way to write songs. But with us, sometimes Robert would send lyrics my way to complete songs and sometimes I would send him riffs or ideas to\u00a0finish.\u00a0 We had a similar vision so it all came together quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are there already some songs for another album, or are you just enjoying the gigs at the moment? The band certainly doesn\u2019t look like slowing down.<\/mark> We’re not thinking about another album at the moment but I always have new riffs and song ideas. So I’m sure they’ll come out when needed.We certainly do enjoy touring and playing so while people keep coming to our shows we’ll keep doing it. All the shows we’ve done so far this year have been sold out which is great!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The end of \u2018Last Call\u2019 is lovely, the band were obviously loving playing it together. Was most of the album recorded essentially live? <\/mark>Last Call is 100% live! We did that one evening after\u00a0dinner in\u00a0one take. It was a magic moment. We recorded all the songs in 4 days!\u00a0 And Dave Bronze our producer mixed\u00a0it in two days\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a couple of weeks later. So pretty quick work. All the rhythm tracks, eg bass, drums and rhythm guitar are completely live. Robert added the vocals and harmonica after and I added the guitar solos after too. I did most of the solos in one take because I wanted them to sound live and be in the moment. Also Dave our producer wouldn’t let me do them again. Ha (laughs)<\/p>\n\n\n

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In preparation for the gigs, did you listen to \u2018Doctor\u2019s Orders\u2019 again? If so, how did it sound?<\/mark> I still enjoy it, even if the band at the time felt that some of the rough edges got lost in the mix.<\/mark> Not really. I didn’t like it at the time because as you say, we thought it a\u00a0bit too clean. But when I listen back to it now (that’s very occasionally) I think it’s a good album. Some fun songs there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does playing with Robert differ from playing with Lee?<\/mark> Both very different but both excellent frontmen and very easy to work with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you tell us about your guitar and amp set-up? Does it differ when in the studio?<\/mark> Pretty much the same. Live I use a G&L ASAT deluxe as my main guitar. I do a few numbers on slide guitar where I use my very old\u00a0Burns Trisonic. I also have a Fender Telecaster standing by as a spare.\u00a0The amplifier I’m using at the moment is a Fender Hot Rod Deville 2×12. I also have Fender Hot Rod Deville 4×10 which comes out occasionally.\u00a0I have a small pedal board which consists of a Boss Stage Tuner, A Boss Blues Driver for solos and a TC Electronic analogue\u00a0delay which is on for a couple of the more bluesy songs. For the album, I used my 2 stage guitars on everything. Although it was the Fender Telecaster for the solo on Mary Ann. The amplifier I used on every song was a Vox AC 30 except for the song Put\u00a0Your Money where Your\u00a0Mouth Is, which is a borrowed Orange amp. Hardly any effects recording except a tremolo for the song I Need a Doctor and a fuzz box for Mary Ann. That’s it really. Quite basic.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Catch Dr Feelgood on the road at a town near you soon. Dates are regularly added on their Facebook <\/a>page<\/p>\nAuthor: Martin Chamarette<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having snuck into my Top 10 albums of 2022 with \u2018Damn Right!\u2019, Dr Feelgood produced the goods against the odds. A great album of 11 new songs that live up to the band\u2019s name. So, it seemed like the right moment to ask returning guitarist Gordon Russell for an interview on all things Feelgood. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21322,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21317\/revisions\/21322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}