The Feckers in association with The Feckers Productions are very happy to announce the release of our 2nd album, “Live To Fight Another Day”

Official Release Date: 29th October 2020
Musical Arrangements by Chris Szkup
Vocal Arrangements by Chris Szkup & Richard Anderson
except where noted

Project Co-Ordination by Richard Anderson & Chris Szkup
Produced and Arranged by Chris Szkup
Co-Produced & Mixed by Dennis Leeflang @ Livelong Productions
Mastered by Thomas “Plec” Johansson @ The Panic Room, Sweden
Artwork by Dan Verkys based upon a concept by Richard Anderson & Dan Verkys
Manufacturing by James Weston @ Studioq, Auckland, New Zealand
Front Cover Hands: Rob & Carol Smith

This album is dedicated in loving memory of Bysh Szkup and William Work – men of a certain breed who taught us to believe in ourselves and to go for it and not let anyone tell us no.

Tracklisting:
1. Don’t Mind If We Do ft Raphael (C.Szkup, R.Anderson, M.Szkup) (3.10)
2. Out Here In The Real World ft Raphael (C.Szkup, R.Anderson) (5.30)
3. Never Too Old To Rock ft Raphael (C.Szkup, R.Anderson) (5.13)
4. Live To Fight Another Day ft Richard, Chris & Lydia (R.Anderson, C.Szkup) (6.51)
5. Pardon Me ft Raphael (C.Szkup, R.Anderson) (6.10)  
6. Devil’s Lament ft Roy (R.Smith, C.Szkup, R.Anderson) (5.50)
7. Between Good & Evil ft Chris (C.Szkup, R.Anderson) (7.55)
8. This Is What We Do ft Raphael (R.Smith) (4.32)
9. Walk To Destiny ft Alexey (A.Spectre, R.Anderson, arr: C.Szkup) (4.20)
10. King A.W.O.L ft Raphael (C.Szkup, R.Anderson) (4.12)
11. In These Quiet Moments ft Richard (C.Szkup, R.Anderson) (5.54)
12. Love Them Or Hate Them ft Roy (C.Szkup, R.Anderson) (4.36)
13. So What? ft Raphael (C.Szkup, R.Anderson) (5.35)

1. Don’t Mind If We Do (C.Szkup, M.Szkup, R.Anderson)

Lyric: Richard Anderson
Music: Chris Szkup, Matt Szkup & Richard Anderson
Vocal Arrangements: Chris Szkup & Richard Anderson
Musical Arrangements: Chris Szkup
©CS-Songs / Rockaboy Songs / Skube Music / The Feckers Productions 2013-2020

Lead Vocals: Raphael Gazal
Backing Vocals: Chris Szkup, Richard Anderson
Rhythm Guitars: Chris Szkup, Matt Szkup
Lead Guitars: Chris Szkup, Ponch Satrio
Drums: Dennis Leeflang
Bass: Chris Szkup

“This song was written for The Feckers but TCSO recorded their version that remains unreleased, we felt we needed to turn back the clock a bit and get the version of this that we had always intended – the same thing will applied for “So What?” that closes out this album. It wasn’t until this song was being recorded that Chris mentioned that the main riff came from a jam session that he and his brother had, so with his blessing we were able to finish it up and put it on the album.”

2. Out Here In The Real World (C.Szkup, R.Anderson)

Lyric: Richard Anderson
Music: Chris Szkup
Vocal & Musical Arrangements: Chris Szkup
©CS-Songs / Rockaboy Songs / The Feckers Productions 2011-2020

Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals: Raphael Gazal
Rhythm & Lead Guitars: Chris Szkup
Rhythm Guitars: Sudev “Nockas” Bangah
Drums: Dennis Leeflang
Bass: Reese Morin
Piano/Organ: Paul Jolley

“A song all about independence, freedom and how we should all have the balls to grab whatever amount of it we can. I thought about changing the lyric as it seemed a bit cheesy compared to some of the more powerful wording of some of the other songs, but then figured why not have that point of difference? Chris and I tend to write very tongue in cheek type songs, so in the end I decided to leave it as is.

Testament to it being an okay song, Chris has performed it live acoustically a few times and it really does work in that format, as well as it should as that’s how it was written originally, as were a few of the other songs on the album.

It was great that we were able to find a slot for our pal Nockas as he had been very keen to be a part of the throng for this album and we were stoked that he would be able to as he’s a very busy guy.”

3. Never Too Old To Rock (C.Szkup, R.Anderson)

Lyric: Richard Anderson & Chris Szkup
Music: Chris Szkup
Vocal / Musical Arrangements: Chris Szkup
©CS-Songs / Rockaboy Songs / The Feckers Productions 2013-2020

dedicated to Jim Gillbanks, still keeping it real in his 80’s.

Lead Vocals: Raphael Gazal
Backing Vocals: Chris Szkup & Richard Anderson
Guitars: Chris Szkup & Pat Valley
Drums: Dennis Leeflang
Bass: Reese Morin

“We felt it cool that we could include this AC/DC-inspired rocker. A bit of fun was had putting this one together, originally Roy Bratbakken was going to write the lyric and sing it but he was having issues with trying to get anything with a positive vibe going on, which is clearly what the music needed, and got – with Roy’s blessing.

Raphael Gazal is a brand new addition to The Feckers clan, a classic rock/metal vocalist/musician/producer from Brazil – a really kickass guy who happily agreed to the idea of making and being in the video for this song (along with a host of other friends/family). We’ll definitely be working with Raphael on more material and are in fact including him in the line-up as a permanent member.”

4. Live To Fight Another Day (R.Anderson, C.Szkup)

Lyric: Richard Anderson
Music: Richard Anderson & Chris Szkup
Vocal Arrangements: Richard Anderson, Chris Szkup & Rob Smith
Musical Arrangements: Chris Szkup
©Rockaboy Songs / CS-Songs / The Feckers Productions 2010-2020

Lead & Backing Vocals: Richard Anderson, Chris Szkup, Lydia Salnikova
Backing Vocals: Richard Anderson, Chris Szkup, Lydia Salnikova, Rob Smith
All Guitars: Chris Szkup
Drums: Dennis Leeflang
Bass: Neil Murray
Piano & Organ: Paul Jolley

“This is a song of reckoning; I like to write songs about sticking up for oneself. I guess thematically this is the sister tune to “Master Of My Own Destiny” from The Feckers first album. Chris did a killer job with the arrangement and made it as epic as I had hoped it would be. My only proviso was that whoever was going to sing it had better not fuck it up, hopefully we haven’t. I had this vision of recording this song with different vocalists present, Chris sent me a great demo that quite frankly his vocal on it was never going to be surpassed so I told him do not mess with it as I would like that to be what winds up on the album – it seems to have been a good decision. We had thought about having a different version of this track with different singers taking a verse each, but I really liked what we came up with so we have left it, this is THE version.

It was a huge honour for us to be able to work with the legendary Neil Murray, I had approached him about the possibility a few years back and true to his word he came through for us – it was a real pinch myself moment coming home from work to see an email from Neil to say he had completed his bass track, I’m a huge Gary Moore and Whitesnake fan, as I know Roy Bratbakken is too, so we feel very privileged to have worked with Neil for those CV entries of his alone.

When it came to adding the backing vocals, I had an idea of how I wanted it to sound so gave Rob Smith some notes on what I thought could work, admirably he did not disappoint. But we did still need some female high harmony vocals – I did have a plan, but like a lot of things in The Feckers world, those plans changed. I recalled that I had approached Lydia Salnikova back in 2014 with a plan to work on an entirely different thing – having checked out her huge repertoire of music I decided to see if she was up for it on this song, pleasingly she liked what she heard and said she was in!”

5. Pardon Me (C.Szkup, R.Anderson)

Lyric: Richard Anderson
Music: Chris Szkup
Vocal Arrangements: Chris Szkup
Musical Arrangements: Chris Szkup
©CS-Songs / Rockaboy Songs / The Feckers Productions 2013-2020

Lead Vocals & Backing Vocals: Raphael Gazal
Boofhead Backing Vocals: Chris Szkup, Richard Anderson
Guitars: Chris Szkup, Edo Van Der Kolk
Drums: Dennis Leeflang
Bass: Reese Morin

“While working on the first album we started throwing around some ideas with regards the future – I wrote the lyric for this song especially for Roy to sing, at one point he was going to put music together, but somehow the demo never came, so Chris stole my words for this heavy as hell music he just happened to be working on that it fit.

Edo was one of the first people that said they would be happy to take part as a special guest on this album, it’s always a pleasure to converse and to rock with him, I knew he was great friends with Dennis, but both Chris and I respect him a lot as a person too.”

6. Devil’s Lament (R.Smith, C.Szkup, R.Anderson)

Lyric: Richard Anderson & Chris Szkup
Music: Rob Smith
Vocal Arrangements: Richard Anderson & Chris Szkup
Musical Arrangements: Rob Smith & Chris Szkup
©Polar Music New Zealand / CS-Songs / Rockaboy Songs / The Feckers Productions 2011-2020

Lead Vocals: Roy Bratbakken
Backing Vocals: Roy Bratbakken, Chris Szkup, Richard Anderson, Rob Smith,
Mark “Chopper” Smith & Jordy Gibson
Guitars: Chris Szkup & Tommy Denander
Drums: Dennis Leeflang
Bass: Tony Franklin

“Chris and I were working on some backing vocal ideas when we received an email from Rob with the original instrumental demo of this song attached, with the request that “something for you guys to have a play around with maybe?”, well we wound up not only writing the words but knocked up a vocal demo in the same sitting, which was interesting in itself as I had the job of coaching Chris in the art of hitting those high ballers Rob style (although I can never lay claim to actually being able to hit them like those guys). It was a fun session.

We always knew that Roy was going to be the man to sing this one…all we told him was to stick to the lyric and throw your weight around vocally….We knew that we had to have fun with the arrangement, so there are solos for days and we really beefed up the bodgy backing vocals. This track features the recording debuts of both my daughter Jordy and my best mate Chopper – they’re there in the backing vocals along with Chris, Rob and myself. It was really special to be able to have them both on the song. I recall asking Chopper if he had any issues with swearing on disc, he said he had no problem as he swears like a pirate – so that was a done deal as far as I was concerned. How cool to have so many of my favourite people on the one song? it had to happen eventually.

I got hold of Tommy at the end of June and then by the beginning of July we had at an ungodly time received his lead guitar track – what a phenomenal effort, I really only ever knew Tommy for his beautiful melodic playing so asked him if he would be up for something a bit rockier and he was right into it, he said he had great fun playing on this track, which you can hear in both his and Chris’ guitar playing.

Tony Franklin’s badass fretless bass and Dennis’ drumming…a perfect team up. I have really enjoyed communicating with Tony, he’s a cool cat – and very supportive of what we are about musically. I look forward to working with him further (he’ll be back in the fold for the “Courage Of Conviction” sessions).”

7. Between Good & Evil (R.Anderson, C.Szkup)

Lyric: Richard Anderson
Music: Chris Szkup
Vocal & Musical Arrangements: Chris Szkup
©CS-Songs / Rockaboy Songs / The Feckers Productions 2011-2020

Lead Vocals: Chris Szkup
Backing Vocals: Chris Szkup, Rob Smith, Richard Anderson
Electric Guitars: Chris Szkup & Ponch Satrio
Drums: Dennis Leeflang
Bass: Jonathon Noyce
Piano: Paul Jolley
Hammond Organ: Joey Huffman

“The last track written for the album, it had to be rocky – I wrote this lyric with both Roy and myself in mind – it’s semi-biographical in a sense.
This is a song that started a real trend for us, in that when Chris sent through the demo it dawned on me right away that there was no need for another singer, his was the voice and as much as he might’ve protested it at the time. Every album coming there will be something on it that will have been written with him in mind to sing and that stemmed from when I first heard his demo of this track.”

8. This Is What We Do (R.Smith)

Lyric: Rob Smith
Music: Rob Smith
Vocal Arrangements: Rob Smith & Richard Anderson
Musical Arrangements: Chris Szkup
©Polar Music New Zealand / The Feckers Music 1987-2020

Lead Vocals: Raphael Gazal
Backing Vocals: Raphael Gazal, Richard Anderson, Rob Smith
Guitars: Chris Szkup & Ponch Satrio
Drums: Dennis Leeflang
Bass: Reese Morin

“One of those rare times where we have a Feckers song that pops up that neither Chris or myself wrote. This song was written in the 80’s and may have been performed live a number of times by The Candles, a previous band that Rob was in with his brother Phil – unfortunately The Candles never recorded this number – so we thought we would right some history here and knock this bugger off.”

9. Walk To Destiny (A.Spectre, R.Anderson, arr: C.Szkup)

Lyric: Richard Anderson
Music: Alexey Spectre
Vocal Arrangement: Alexey Spectre
Musical Arrangement: Chris Szkup
©Alexey Spectre Music / CS-SONGS / Rockaboy Songs / The Feckers Music 2011-2020

Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals: Alexey Spectre
Guitars: Chris Szkup
Drums: Dennis Leeflang
Bass: Tony Franklin
Hammond Organ: Paul Jolley

“Having worked with Alexey on a few things, including the first The Feckers album and also our as yet unreleased side project Method In The Madness, I know just how good he is at the character driven songs….so we definitely had to go there with this track. This song is a bit of a poetic commentary on the state of the world we live in. The original demo was very keyboard heavy, so we called in the big gun to help make it a happening thing.”

10. King A.W.O.L (C.Szkup, R.Anderson)

Lyric: Richard Anderson
Music: Chris Szkup & Richard Anderson
Vocal Arrangements: Chris Szkup & Richard Anderson
Musical Arrangements: Chris Szkup
©CS-Songs / Rockaboy Songs / The Feckers Productions 2011-2020

Lead Vocals: Raphael Gazal
Backing Vocals: Richard Anderson, Rob Smith
Guitars: Chris Szkup
Drums: Dennis Leeflang
Bass: Matteo Bucca
Piano: Paul Jolley

“We were throwing around a few oddball song titles and wrote this song at Chris’ old place in Yarraville, I’d already worked up a lyric and all it needed was some music – it was the first tune we actually wrote in the presence of one another’s company – it was just a matter of me plunking away on Chris’ acoustic and then him hearing what I was playing and making some sense of it and extending upon it so well as Chris does. It was fun just jamming on the idea and coming up with what I think is quite an infectious melody…it’s all so very tongue in cheek. One thing I really love about the recording of this song is that all the guys sound like they are having fun.”

11. In These Quiet Moments (C.Szkup, R.Anderson)

Lyric: Richard Anderson
Music: Chris Szkup & Richard Anderson
Vocal Arrangements: Chris Szkup & Richard Anderson
Musical Arrangements: Chris Szkup
©CS-Songs / Rockaboy Songs / The Feckers Productions 2010-2020

Lead Vocals: Richard Anderson
Backing Vocals: Chris Szkup
Acoustic Guitars, Ukelele: Chris Szkup
Drums: Dennis Leeflang
Bass: Reese Morin
Harmonica: Trent Williamson

“I wrote this lyric originally with GONE WILD in mind as we had been in discussions about working on a 3rd album at one point, but when Chris and I were looking for something to mess around with it just had that Feckers attitude running through it – take a beer and add a riff and this is what we come up with? we should definitely write together like that a lot more often.

Musically this song was very much inspired by Glenn Hughes, Chris and I had immediately become fans of Black Country Communion their first album had come out when we wrote this song, subliminally I think that contributed to this soulful rocker type thing we have going on with this tune, I would say that this is a nod and definitely not a rip-off…I wouldn’t even dare to consider myself a millionth the talent that Glenn is, but I do think it was cool to show our influence of something altogether different than what we have on other projects in the past.

I really digged the fact that we didn’t go the safe route with this one and just electric it up, what Chris has done with the acoustic guitar mix was enough, there is an undeniable beauty in the playing, so we felt let’s be okay with that, let’s not push things into a case of needing to do anything, there is no need – we only need satisfy ourselves artistically, we have done that – mission accomplished.

I’m pretty sure this is a song that will get performed live a few times.
We had actually spoken with NZ music legend Midge Marsden about playing the harmonica on this track and he was  very keen but having just moved house his gear was all over the place and he was nearing retirement so we didn’t put the pressure on, but if there is a chance we can get to work with him on something that would be very cool.”

12. Love Them Or Hate Them (C.Szkup, R.Anderson)

Lyric: Richard Anderson
Music: Chris Szkup
Vocal & Musical Arrangements: Chris Szkup
©CS-Songs / Rockaboy Songs / The Feckers Productions 2011-2020

Lead Vocals: Roy Bratbakken
Backing Vocals: Roy Bratbakken, Chris Szkup, Richard Anderson & Rob Smith
Guitars: Chris Szkup, Ponch Satrio, Matt Szkup
Drums: Dennis Leeflang
Bass: Tony Franklin

“Lyrically this song started off when Chris had a comment in one of his emails to me and I said to him that it would make a great line in a song….so we went and wrote an epic piece of rockin’ metal. This song has an almost uncouth punky element to it too. Roy did an amazing job knocking off the lead vocal, which turned out to be the first one completed for the album. Rob and I had a few laughs working on the backing vocals – sessions with him tend to be 50% hard work and 50% cracking up laughing, that’s why I enjoy it so much.

Tony Franklin and I first discussed working on something in 2012 when we were writing tracks for this album, not knowing when it would come together, how outstanding that he was a man of his word and not only did he make himself available, he did an incredible job and knocked out his bass tracks in very quick fashion. Heavy songs I prefer to have a bit of groove, swagger if you will – this definitely has, some of those bass run ideas Tony added to the tune really were quite genius!”

13. So What (R.Anderson, C.Szkup)

Lyric: Richard Anderson & Chris Szkup
Music: Chris Szkup & Richard Anderson
Vocal Arrangements: Chris Szkup
Musical Arrangements: Chris Szkup
©CS-Songs / Rockaboy Songs / The Feckers Productions 2011-2020

Lead Vocals: Raphael Gazal
Backing Vocals: Raphael Gazal, Chris Szkup, Richard Anderson, Stephen “Titman” Titter
Electric Guitars: Chris Szkup, Mathew Szkup & Ponch Satrio
Drums, Keyboards: Dennis Leeflang
Bass: Tony Franklin

“Every now and then we will get the idea for a song that blows the cobwebs off, we get a bit of a chuckle at how skitzo we are from album to album, whereby we like to slip in some pretty lovely ideas alongside the manic.

Recording sessions for this one varied, in that originally the vocal was recorded by Roy Bratbakken who I was wrote the lyric for specifically as I loved him spitting out the heavy stuff, unfortunately that vocal take wasn’t useable. TCSO recorded a version but I felt very strongly that the vocal was not what I really envisioned, but this final version Raphael was able to capture the spirit of both versions.

We had recorded the backing vocals back in 2013 when I was over visiting with Chris and had my cousin Stephen jump in, he loved it so much. That was our way of thanking him for being so supportive of our first album – he was a driving force behind thoughts of a 2nd album even back then…we do intend to let him jump in on some more things with us too when we can finally all get together again.”

Bonus Track:
14. Mean Man (WASP Cover – Written by Steven Edward Duren, Originally appearing on the KILLER album “The Headless Children” from 1989 – Go and buy it you bastards!!)

Lead Vocals: Tuğra Ismail
Backing Vocals: Alexey Spectre & Chris Szkup
Guitars, Bass: Chris Szkup
Rhythm Guitar: Mathew Szkup
Drums: Dennis Leeflang

“Chris had planned on recording this track with a different line-up  entirely but that didn’t work out, so he spun the idea of making it a The Feckers bonus track, which I thought was a great idea as we wanted to get something out before the 2nd album – which at that time was only going to be an EP. This gave us a shot in the ass as we got to work with a different singer and the results were pretty cool. We’ve got an original track that we are working on with Tuğra for the 4th album.”