Feeder’s biggest hit ‘Buck Rogers’ was never intended for the band. Feeder founder Grant Nicholas says that he wrote the song for American band SR-71 but then Feeder decided to use it for themselves.
Check out the Noise11.com Feeder interview:
Grant tells Noise11.com, “We were working with the producer Gil Norton. He did Foo Fighters ‘The Colour and the Shape’, he did three Pixies albums, Echo & The Bunnymen. He was a really successful UK rock producer. His wife was a fan of Feeder. She got him to work with us. Feeder’s name came up, my name came up, the band he was working with, SR-71, they were looking for something or he was looking for something for them. That’s how that song came about. It is incredible that I wrote that one night in my flat after too much wine. Woke up in the morning with that and it became this big hit and it wasn’t even meant to be for Feeder. I do wonder if they had taken the song as it is, as we did it, would it have been a hit for them?’
Check out Feeder’s ‘Buck Rogers’:
Grant says it isn’t even what he considers one of his best songs. “Its not my proudest moment,” he said. “I originally wrote it for another band and it became this crazy demo that I played to our record company and they just went “this is a hit record, you can’t give this away”. That’s how it all came about”.
The song reached no 5 in the UK making it equally Feeder’s highest charting single along with ‘Just The Way I’m Feeling’. “It did definitely launch Feeder’s career into a more commercial market. It’s a fun song. Every band has one. You can’t complain. If you want to get people jumping around at a festival those are the sort of songs that, does it”.
Grant didn’t like ‘Buck Rogers’ so much that on their 2003 tour with Coldplay it wasn’t played until the end of the tour. “We did a tour with Coldplay and I didn’t play it. I refused to play it,” Grant says. “We decided on the last show at Earl’s Court in London (they had the album ‘A Rush of Blood To The Head’) it was just as they started to get really big. We had ‘Comfort and Sound’ out at the same time, so we were doing arenas on our own bat. We decided at the last show to throw in songs like “Just A Day’ and “Buck Rogers” and it went off. We should have played them earlier in the tour”.
SR-7’s biggest hit ‘Right Now’ was released in 2000. They never recorded ‘Buck Rogers’ and Grant isn’t even aware if they even know the song was meant for them. SR-71 broke up in 2010.
Feeder will tour Australia in April.
FEEDER 2025 AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES
Saturday, April 5 – The Rosemount, Perth
Sunday, April 6 – Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide
Wednesday, April 9 – 170 Russell, Melbourne
Thursday, April 10 – Manning Bar, Sydney
Friday, April 11- The Triffid, Brisbane
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