Grant Nicholas

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Grant Nicholas is the lead singer of the Indie band Feeder, along with bassist Taka Hirose and drummers Jon Lee and later Mark Richardson.

Feeder came together in London in 1992 when South Walians Grant Nicholas and Jon Lee decamped to London and found bassist Taka Hirose (from Tokyo) in the musicians ads Loot. Taka once worked at Tokyo guitar makers ESP Guitars, and makes his own bass guitars.

[edit] Biography

Grant was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales, on 12 November 1967, but grew up in Chepstow. He was educated at Monmouth School. He performed in public for the first time at the age of 11, and gained 4 'O' levels, including an 'A' in Art.

In school, Grant played the trumpet, and was in his first band, Sweet Leaf (named after a song by Black Sabbath, who were Grant's favourite band in his school years, and the first he saw play live). He was promised his first guitar by his parents, as an incentive to pass his exams. He received the guitar, an Aron Les Paul copy after passing them. Currently, Grant plays Fender Jazzmaster as his main stage instrument, pumping this into Vox AC30s, mashalls, and messa bogies.

After leaving school Grant worked as a bike courier in South Wales, and also played in several bands, including Rain Dancer (whose sound resembled The Waterboys), and Welsh nine-piece Temper Temper, where he met future Feeder drummer Jon Lee. Jon joined Grant when he moved to London to work as a sound engineer.

It was while in London that Grant learnt how to be a song writer and formed Reel (soon to be renamed Feeder) with Jon, and Taka, who was working in London as a graphic designer. A series of Reel recordings surfaced on ebay in early 2006, when the bands name was spelt "Real". The tape was won for £181 by a fan - the highest ever value a Feeder recording has been sold for on the site.

Feeder were soon signed to the Echo label, and the band gave up their day jobs as they began to take off. Their first full-length album Polythene, charted at #65 (with a re-issue at #80) in the UK during 1997, the follow-up Yesterday Went Too Soon reached #8.

Feeder's fame took off in early 2001 with the release of single Buck Rogers, which reached number 5 in the UK singles chart, helping Echo Park, the album from which it was taken, to the same position. The single soon made #1 on the South African airplay chart.

Around this time Nicholas also had success with the re-recording of 'You Don't See The Signs', a collaboration with Producer/Rapper duo Mark B and Blade who had released the original version as their first single. The new version, subtitled the Grant Nicholas Remix, reached #23 in the UK Singles Chart.

However tragically, on 7 January 2002, Jon Lee committed suicide at his Miami home.

The songs Grant had been writing and demoing up to that point were of a slower and more introspective style to much of their previous music, and the resulting album Comfort In Sound became a tribute to Lee. Because of Lee's tragic death from August 2002 Feeder's drummer became the former Skunk Anansie drummer Mark Richardson.

Grant continued this style of writing on the 2005 follow-up, Pushing the Senses, which reached #2 on the UK charts and produced 4 UK Top 30 singles, with the last one being "Tender" and being equally billed with "Shatter" on a AA sided single.

In Feb 2004 the band started recording Pushing The Senses. Doing most of the work at 'The Crypt' in Crouch End London, a studio owned by David Gray. They also did some work at the RAK and Air Studios. The album was produced for the most part by Gil Norton (Foo Fighters). However, Ken Nelson (Coldplay) produced Frequency.

Grant has a long term partner, by the name of Kana. They had their first child, Hanna, in 2005.

During the band's winter tour of 2005, a gig in Brighton was forced to be halted after only six songs when Grant suddenly lost his voice. He was later diagnosed with a severe throat infection with bleeds on his vocal chords.

The gig was soon to be rescheduled along with the rest of the tour, with the tickets for the other dates still valid and new ones issued to the existing ticketholders for the Brighton gig. The gigs took place over a whole week in late March 2006, and the rescheduled dates of the tour were seen as a massive success by the fans and band members alike.

In May 2006 a new single called "Lost and Found" was released, as well as a singles album with two other new tracks, which charted at #2 in the UK after entering at #3, and has already become a minor worldwide and major European success, mainly due to its strong UK debut sales. It also made #1 on the UK iTunes chart.

Feeder completed their current European tour in May 2006, and appeared at a few UK and European summer festivals, which also seen a return to the Reading/Leeds Festivals for the first time in four years, in which they played the main stage.

They performed a few shows in Japan in October and performed three charity gigs (in aid of War Child) in London on the 6th, 7th and 9th of November 2006.

[edit] Trivia

• Grant's nickname to the fans is Spangle, which he got after Jonathan Ross decided to "play on" with his name on a BBC Radio 2 performance/interview, and immediately said Spangle!, it stuck ever since but has not been mentioned very much in recent years. Drummer Mark Richardson calls him "G".

• He carries a book around with him he calls his "Lounge Lizard" and writes in it different events he sees in everyday life to use as song lyric ideas.

• In the 80's, Grant was in a band called "Multi-storey", and called himself "Grantley".

Feeder
Grant Nicholas | Taka Hirose | Mark Richardson
Jon Lee
Discography
Albums and extended plays: Two Colours EP | Swim EP | Polythene | Yesterday Went Too Soon | Echo Park | Swim Rerelease | Comfort in Sound | Picture of Perfect Youth | Pushing the Senses | Feeder The Singles
Singles: Stereo World | Tangerine | Cement | Crash | High | Suffocate | Day in Day Out | Insomnia | Yesterday Went Too Soon | Paperfaces | Buck Rogers | Seven Days in the Sun | Turn | Piece by Piece | Just a Day | Come Back Around | Just the Way I'm Feeling | Forget About Tomorrow | Find the Colour | Comfort In Sound | Tumble And Fall | Feeling A Moment | Pushing the Senses | Shatter / Tender | Lost and Found | Save Us