Cover Story: The Feelies • Be Kind, Rewind
- The Feelies (photo by Doug Seymour)
When most rock bands release a new album, it’s usually the hard-won result of weeks, months, sometimes even years of careful consideration and execution. But New Jersey quintet The Feelies recently stumbled on a new, more reckless method of adding a new volume to its seven-album catalog, simply by not viewing it as a viable new collection of material at all. It sounds slapdash-crazy, he knows, chuckles guitarist/backing vocalist Bill Million, while discussing the outfit’s surprise Rewind effort. But hear him out. As he tells it, this collection of cover songs spanning the band’s nearly five-decade-long career was never actually intended to be an official release. But the project, as projects often do, took on a life of its own.
“The genesis of Rewind was just the fact that we had done a cover song (Patti Smith’s signature ‘Dancing Barefoot’). I thought it would be nice if it was available to the fans of our band on the streaming services, so it was nothing more than that,” explains Million, who, at a business-savvy 71, has kept track of the ever-evolving music industry since issuing the first Feelies CD-and-cassette outing for famed Stiff Records— the edgy, influential Crazy Rhythms — way back in 1980. But that debut happened to feature an early jitter-jangled take on The Beatles’ “Everybody’s Got Something To Hide (Except Me and My Monkey),” and the deeper he delved into band history, the more forgotten covers he unearthed — enough, eventually, for a full-length album for longtime record label Bar/None. A version of Bob Dylan doing Ron Wood’s “Seven Days” from 2016. A run-through of The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black,” originally included as a bonus cut for a 1990 Crazy Rhythms reissue, bookended by another number from the same year, “I Wanna Sleep in Your Arms” by The Modern Lovers. Rewind wound up including a second Beatles homage (“She Said, She Said,” from 1986), a Doors genuflection (“Take It As It Comes”), and two from Neil Young (1986’s “Sedan Delivery,” and 1990’s “Barstool Blues”) initially planned as merely a streamed “Dancing Barefoot” B-side. “So a lot of these songs that are on here were available in other forms,” Million says. “Popping up in promos, EPs, or Record Store Day exclusives. And it was Bar/None itself, he adds, that suggested the Patti Smith b/w Neil Young Spotify addition, before green-lighting an entire covers package.
“So Rewind just grew into something much bigger than it was originally intended,” cedes Million, who has stayed in close contact over the years with Feelies co-founder, vocalist/co-guitarist Glenn Mercer, even through a 17-year sign-off that ended with a 2008 reunion concert with Sonic Youth in Battery Park. Courtesy of their imprint, “It then grew into ‘Hey — why don’t you guys put it out on vinyl? And on CD again?” Mercer, in fact, hadn’t planned on talking about it, but his Feelies partner was happy to step up to the publicity plate — not to promote Rewind, as such, Million clarifies. “But just to announce it, to get it out there that it’s available. Because who would know about it unless it popped up on somebody’s Spotify list?” Because you never know just how important, even crucial, your musical influences will become in the future. The busy dual-guitar interplay of Crazy Rhythms would affect later keen-eared artists like R.E.M.’s Peter Buck; Buck would return the favor by producing The Feelies’ sophomore set, The Good Earth, in 1985. So Million was glad to recount a few of his to complement Rewind’s reluctant birth announcement, cautioning that he didn’t want Feelies fans to “think that they were getting something that the band just recorded last week…”
ILLINOIS ENTERTAINER: Prior to forming The Feelies way back in ’76, what were you initially planning on for a career?
BILL MILLION: Well, probably a musician, and that’s it. Which I’m still doing now. So I guess with a lot of things, you enter into those things and you don’t give it any kind of forethought. Well, some do, but I didn’t, because with me, I’d go to shows almost every weekend, whether it was in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, or wherever we had to travel to. It was only a 45-minute drive to New York City back then, but it’s a lot longer now because the traffic has just gotten pretty bad.
IE: What key, formative shows did you catch back then?
BM: Well, it started with The Stones. And I went to Woodstock, saw the Bangladesh concert at Madison Square Garden, and I became a big Stooges and MC5 fan, so I’d travel a lot to see those groups. I saw them quite a bit, and more often than not, it worked out well, because The Stooges would open up for The MC5. So there was a lot of that, with a lot of different bands around at that time.
IE: And I like the footnote that by the time punk actually broke, you and your bandmates were already over it, and moving on to more inventive instrumental artists like Philip Glass, Brian Eno, and Steve Reich.
BM: Yeah. And I think a lot of that was because of us being into The Stones and The MC5, and even to some extent The Velvet Underground. But with The Stooges, it was almost like we’d been down this road before, we’d already seen it, and those guys were really a lot better than what we were (then) hearing. So it was really a case of just moving on to something else, and discovering what else was out there.
IE: And another curious footnote: There was actually a deal in place to have legendary composer Philip Glass produce your debut?
BM: Yeah! Well, it wasn’t a formalized deal, but we met with him. And I think after meeting with him and talking for a while, at some point he kind of realized, “Wow! You guys sound like you know exactly what you want to do. So I don’t think you need ME!” That’s really what it all came down to. But it was great meeting him.
IE: What did you learn from him and his repetitive composing style?
BM: Well, it was him and Steve Reich. We were always into repetition in music, even with The Velvet Underground, and a song like “What Goes On.” Dave (Weckerman, percussionist) always points out that it was probably the first song he remembers playing with Glenn and me, and it’s one of those songs that can really go on for quite a long time, and you can get just completely lost in it. And I think that’s the same thing with Philip Glass and Steve Reich. And I attended a show at at The Bottom Line in new York with Steve Reich, and it was almost like a master class where you have these repetitious patterns that can start out very simple, but as they go along, you just start adding these parts — and one part slides into the next part, until after awhile you’re just completely enveloped with it. And you DO kind of get lost, so it’s a pretty cool effect.
IE: And The Feelies were using twin Stratocasters at the time, right? Which in and of itself was pretty unique in the punk era.
BM: Yes, we did. In the early years of the band, we were just trying to find our way and what we wanted to do. But that became a key point — we found that the two guitars and what our drummer (the late Anton Fier) was doing at the time were literally canceling certain sounds out. So that’s when we started exploring adding percussion, so you weren’t losing the dynamics of a cymbal, because you still maintained it by adding a percussion instrument. And we still do that to this day, and it could be anything — it could be a wine glass, or it could be a TV set, or just whatever’s around.
IE: What I’m really curious about is the 17 years you took off from music until The Feelies reunited in 2008 for a concert with Sonic Youth. Did you switch to a parallel career?
BM: Well, not really a career. I found a JOB. Because I was married and I had three sons, a lot of things come into play when you have a family, just dealing with the nuts and bolts of it. So I found a job working in physical security and kind of got interested in that, and I put my guitars away for quite a while. And the good thing about that whole time period was that I was able to reset, so when the time came, music felt so much better to me. It felt right, like, ‘Now’s the time to get back involved with this!’ And Glenn and I had stayed in touch for a number of years throughout, and we’d get requests every now and then for a film (soundtrack cut) or some other licensing request. The other part of it was that, with the band, we didn’t actually break up; we didn’t depart on bad terms. But I had a number of things going on personally, and I had a lot of issues just getting through a (live) set and concentrating on what the band was doing onstage. And that’s when I knew. When I’m looking down at the set list and thinking, “I only have three more songs to get through”? I think I realized that it was time to step away for a while and just see how it played out. And I think that with The Feelies, that’s still collectively the approach that kind of carries us — we’re not compelled to move on anything until we feel like we actually ARE. So there could be long periods of time between, say, making a record, for example. And I guess, in that regard, I get the sense that we’re probably coming up on a time when we’re going to start working on recording again.
IE: What did your security gig entail?
BM: It was the kind of security where you need an optical scan, so I worked for Walt Disney World, and it was more like computer-generated physical security. Like, if someone went through a door or entered a space that they weren’t supposed to, it would go to your actual Security Department, and then they would deal with it. I just made it all work. But I stopped working there a couple of years ago. And we had lived in Florida for about 30 years, so my wife and I moved to Greenville, South Carolina, and that’s where we’re still living now. It’s kind of in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and we’re about 45 minutes south of Asheville, and my oldest son is a teacher up there, so he and his wife live there now. But he actually just came back this weekend, and we saw Wilco on Friday night. But Asheville’s got a pretty good music scene, too, and — like I said — it’s only 45 minutes up the road.
IE: But none of your kids chose music as a career? The apples all fell far from The Feelies tree?
BM: They all found different careers. I mean, they still PLAY guitar. But not as an active professional pursuit.
IE: And so much has changed since you and I both got into the business in the late ‘70s, what kid in their right mind would enthusiastically choose to become a professional musician or a rock journalist these days? But we got into it at kind of a magical time….
BM: Yes. And I always find it funny the way a lot of folks will define ‘success.’ I mean, for us, with The Feelies, we always feel like we ARE pretty successful, because everything’s not measured by how much money you made, or the shows you played, or how many albums you put out. It’s all about your own interpretation, and I’m pretty comfortable with our interpretation. For instance, out in San Francisco, we met the brewmaster for Anchor Steam beer. And I didn’t know him, personally, but he was a big Feelies fan, and he invited us out. So we played at some venue that had a swimming pool, and then we were invited by this brewmaster to come and tour the Anchor Brewery. Then he gave us this grand tour and then gave us about 12 cases of Anchor beer that we put in our motor home, which actually at the time was really something, because on the East Coast, stores could only get a single case of Anchor Steam, But he loaded us up, so we always loved playing San Francisco, San Francisco and Berkeley. And we had some other interesting shows like that. We played Carnegie Hall, because I guess the guy that owns the City Winery does this charity event once a year, and he’ll pick an artist, and one year it could be Bruce Springsteen, so all these other artists will come and play a Springsteen song. So we were asked by R.E.M. to play Carnegie Hall with other artists, so we did that. And it’s kind of a surreal thing — you’re playing at this historic venue, but you’re just playing one song. Then we were invited by the artist Dan Graham, who has since passed away, to play his American debut retrospective at the Whitney, so we played an acoustic set at the Whitney Museum of Art. So gigs like that always make things interesting to me.
IE: And the late Lou Reed took you under his wing. He was remarkably kind to me every time I interviewed him.
BM: Yeah. And it was kind of interesting how it happened. We were asked to play at this radio station’s Christmas party, and there were a bunch of people that were playing, and Lou was one of ‘em. And somewhere along the line, we weren’t going to do it. But we said, “If Lou plays with us, we’ll do it.” Or something like that. But it was a joke — we didn’t expect Lou Reed to play with us. We didn’t even know if he knew who we were! But one thing led to another, and before we knew it, he was calling us on the telephone, and with us being such big Velvet Underground fans, it really took us by surprise. So we chatted with him, and then we played quite a few songs together, and I think he enjoyed himself, and I think he really liked us, because then he invited us out on his “New York” tour that he was getting ready to go on. And the thing with Lou that was interesting was that he always had this reputation for being a curmudgeon. But with us, he was very protective. I mean, he was playing these great venues, like all these Fox Theaters, but there was one night where I guess the venue’s management told him that his show was running late and that there was some technical difficulty, and that The Feelies probably wouldn’t get a soundcheck. But he stood his ground, and said, “Look — if The Feelies don’t get a soundcheck, then I’m not playing.” And there were a lot of incidents like that, where he wanted to make sure that we were happy. But he just took a liking to us, and he told us, “I can’t think of any other band out there exactly like you-you guys have got it!”
IE: And you’ve met Patti Smith, too?
BM: Yes. We played with Patti Smith at the Village Green in New York City, and then she was there the night we played Carnegie Hall for the R.E.M. tribute, as well. And one of our roadies, one of our guitar techs, we got him involved in music, and he went on to work with Patti Smith, and he still does.
IE: Patti Smith once told me that the one thing she respects above all else is a neighborhood Chinese laundry’s habit of returning her blouses to her the same way, every conscientious time, carefully, almost lovingly wrapped in delicate tissue paper and tied with string. It’s all about pride in doing your work, whatever your job happens to be. I always loved that.
BM: Yes. And this is maybe what Patti was getting at, or that might be her point – and it’s like, What IS art? The guy cooking your meal could be art — it’s the same thing. But then Patti was married to Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith, too, an incredible artist in his own right.
IE: When did some bands start just phoning it in? Or will they only get back to you after they’ve consulted ‘The Team’? And who — or what — IS The Team?
BM: They still do (phone it in). And yeah, music seems to have created a corporate board table, in a lot of respects. And with music, there are a couple of parallel worlds, and we’re certainly not part of that one, the one with the Grammys and everything. There’s just no connection whatsoever. And you’re like, “I guess we’ll send The Team out on a mission!”
IE: Like the survivors are forced to do in HBO’s dystopian series **The Last of Us! Could The Team handle that?
BM: Yeah! I mentioned earlier that I was up in Asheville, and my daughter-in-law said, “You like it here? Let’s go for a drive.” So we went out and had our breakfast, and she took us down to these different areas along the French Broad River, and that was the first image that kind of hit me — it looks like it could have been shot in The Last Of Us, just by how high the water came over some of these buildings. There were a number of these fast food places, like Moe’s, where they just had the outer stanchions and roof left — everything else was just completely wiped away, and you could see right through the building. It was completely just wiped away and gutted, with cars just stacked up in the river where they had flooded down, all from when Hurricane Helene went through and hit South Carolina and the western part of North Carolina (in September of 2024). And they’re still dealing with it. But that was the first thing I thought of, like, “Whoa! They could have filmed The Last Of Us here!” But fortunately for us, we don’t have to worry about (radical weather events) like that on the road, because we no longer tour.
IE: As a Dad — or just as a human being — do you fear the pending future?
BM: Umm, I usually lean optimistically, with the caveat of …well, you know what the reality is, right? I recently had a discussion with Jim Sullivan, a Boston Globe music writer, and it was about kind of the same thing. And for me, I look at my three sons and the way they conduct themselves, and what their goals are, and how they look at things politically, and they’re all really smart, so I have hope. And I’ve had this conversation with people in the band that have children, like Glenn and his wife, and we look at our children, and that’s the reason for optimism, if that makes any sense. They have an awareness of things that need to be corrected. And hopefully, they can move that forward, but that’s how social change happens.
IE: Did you ever get to meet Bob Dylan? Or The Rolling Stones?
BM: No, and no, although I’ve seen The Stones many times, and I also saw The Doors, and even Jimi Hendrix. But we PLAYED with Dylan — we opened up for him at U Mass, but with a very specific set of guidelines. It was like, 20,000 people, and they told us, “When Mr. Dylan gets here, do not make any eye contact, there will be no cameras, no photographs, and do not talk to him.” Like that sort of thing, you know? So the answer is no, but I’ve SEEN him.
IE: Are there any White Whales, cover-wise, that you’d like to attempt?
BM: Well, with our approach to covers, first of all, we’re fans of what we play. So we’ll try something, but I think whenever you play someone else’s music, oftentimes you add something to it, or you take something away from it. And if you do it for a while, it kind of sticks, and I think it becomes a part of who you are. And down the road, it may end up as some piece influencing your own creation. And I think that’s just the nature of music — there are songs that we do where I can think, “Yeah — this probably grew out of the Zuma period, because when we were touring around the country, we listened to Neil Young’s Zuma a lot, and we really liked the sound of that record. So years go by, and you could come up with an original piece of music, but it actually grew out of that. I know there was one piece of music we did where Dave thought it definitely sounded like The Velvet Underground, while Glenn thought that it sounded like some sort of Southern tent-revival-footstomp song, like something the Chickasaw Mud Puppies might do. So everybody here thinks differently, but ultimately, I think you just take these things in, and they inhabit you in a way. And that’s kind of cool. But we’ve tried some things, and sometimes we discard them if they just don’t have any staying power. But we have tried quite a few different songs.
IE: But you add some subtle twists to your versions, too. As on Patti Smith’s “Dancing Barefoot,” there’s an extra undulating whip crack in the guitar line that enlivens the whole song.
BM: Yeah. Brenda (bassist, vocalist on said track) kind of pointed that out, and when we started doing the song, we hadn’t really heard it in quite a while. First of all, the chord progression is not the quiet song that Patti had, nor is it even the U2 version. But we just reinterpreted it as we played it, and then I think the chords may have been inverted, because it’s not quite the same pattern anymore, and obviously the tempo is a lot quicker.
IE: But over the years, have you ever heard any truly unique covers of your own work in The Feelies?
BM: Yes. I have heard some…err, interesting covers. There was one, by this woman and this man, and it seemed like they might have worked at a bar or a tap room. But they were sitting in this big hallway area, and he was playing a ukulele and she was playing one of those weird electronic instruments that has a stylus and a little screen. But they did a version of “Original Love.” And there was this one band from the Philippines called The Sleepyheads that did “Fa Ce-La,” and I know that Real Estate covered The Feelies in some of their shows, and it was interesting to hear that. But then I heard one Japanese group did “Raised Eyebrows” off of Crazy Rhythms, which was already really interesting because it was a really different approach to putting a song together. But they kind of stuck to it, and they actually did a pretty true version.
IE: But now, in terms of legacy, you have to look back on nearly five decades of odds-defying Feelies history with a tangible surge of pride, right? Like, “Wow! I can’t believe I DID it! And that it’s lasted this long!”
BM: Well, I remember reading an interview with Les Paul, and he’d gotten in a really bad car accident, and he was in the hospital for a really long time. And he had his arm set so he could continue to play guitar. Afterward, he developed arthritis in his fingers, but not in all of them, so he kind of taught himself to play with fewer fingers. The takeaway from that is that there are always things that you’re going to encounter in life, and you’ll have two ways to go. And his way was, “I’m just going to keep going forward and do what I really want to do.” So it was kind of an inspirational interview for me, with a lot of takeaways, especially the older you get. I know with the band that we don’t travel so much anymore, because there’s nothing more unpleasant than sitting in a little van and making even a five-hour drive, so I can’t even imagine how hard it would be touring the country again. So we kind of make it work, but according to who WE are. We just keep going forward, on our terms.
-Tom Lanham
Category: Cover Story, Featured, Features, Monthly
