Interview: Grant Nicholas

 

As the frontman to rock megastars Feeder, best known for the 90’s hit ‘Buck Rodgers’, Grant Nicholas is no stranger to Nottingham, in 2011 the band headlined the second stage at the Splendour Festival, and they’ve also played at the City’s most popular rock venue.

“I’ve played Rock City as well with Feeder, I love playing in Nottingham”.

Now he is coming back to town minus his bandmates having decided to go it alone with a solo tour and it seems his local fans had a large part to play in the venue he’ll be rocking up at.

“I had some of my fans from Nottingham come to see me and they told me I should play at The Bodega”

Play there he will. Grant will bring his tour to the DHP venue on 20th February and admits that performing a solo acoustic show is a huge change from performing with his band.

“It’s much more intimate and there is a different atmosphere when playing without a band, there’s definitely a different dynamic as well”.

This tour will be a great chance for fans to come and enjoy a more stripped down, laid back sound from Grant in the intimate setting of The Bodega and to enjoy tracks from the singers debut solo album, ‘Yorktown Heights’, in which the performer decided to take things back to basics.

“I’ve stripped it down, I wanted something away from Feeder. I have always written songs for Feeder and wanted to do something different. I wanted the it to be the kind of album you could play around a campfire”

Grant points out that the album also shows the kind of performers that have influenced him over his career.

“It does show my influences from the sixties and seventies such as Tom Petty, Nick Drake and James Taylor”

He also admits that he is enjoying the difference in performing

“As a songwriter it’s nice to perform somthing more acoustic without the big band in the background”.

The album, which was released last summer, features artwork from the singers daughter Hana, so how did that come about?

“I took some photos on my phone, Hana did a rough sketch of one of the pictures and did an awesome job so I asked her to do a couple more of the same picture. Then I sat down with her and asked her if she’d like to do the whole album. So she did”.