An Interview with Richard Anderson

The Feckers 4th album is called “Courage Of Conviction Part II: Live And Learn” – was this always intended to be a double album?

Richard: The initial idea was that we were going to eventually wrap up the Courage Of Conviction collections with a 4th album, which would’ve been our 6th overall… and that was going to be the first double album. But as Chris and I started having a few writing sessions together in Melbourne and a lot more ideas were starting to form and “Courage Of Conviction Part III” will be our 2nd double album.

What has the writing process been like for this album?

Richard: It’s been a real mashup this time around in terms of writing, we have songs from our earliest in person writing sessions back in 2010 to later ones, we also have some Rob Smith penned songs from recent times as well as some classic gems that were begging to be put through the Feckers machine, I must say that it has been wonderful to add some of those things into the mix. We did have some other songs that were up for consideration but they just weren’t strong enough contenders or style wise they just were not fitting in with the rest of what we had going on for this album. Chris has sat on ideas a while so that he can ponder their arrangements, and whilst that may be quite time consuming working that way, the songs I think we agree are better for it.

Have you enjoyed working on this album?

Richard: I have, it’s been good to have been able to contribute more to the actual recording than I was able to with the last album. Although there have been gaps of time where we have been waiting around a bit on various things, I get it – I guess thats the nature of the beast, we all live in different countries and have other commitments. The biggest hiccup has been with the post production, I have been doing quite a bit of traveling so things have got held up somewhat because of that. We are focussed on what we are doing here and the time that we all put in has been and continues to be productive and we all seem to enjoy the working together and we relish the final output. The joy of creation is a really big deal to me and I love being able to work with Chris and Dennis and everyone else who is part of our The Feckers extended unit, and there is no way that we’re ready to call time on it yet.

Are you happy with the dynamics of working together production wise?

Richard: It has always been great working with both Chris and Dennis in this capacity – there’s no ego with any of us, it’s all about what is right for the songs. Both of those guys are exceptional musicians and they have both got a great ear. The fact that they’ll pour effort into the seemingly most minute things and make sure we get it right, that tells me how genuine they are creatively and it really does inspire me when it comes to writing and producing The Feckers, what can we do to test these guys and keep pushing the trajectory of inspiration even higher? Since we lost the services of our original sound engineer/co-producer Stew Long to the education industry we felt that we would take things in house, who knows our music better than we do? who knows what we are capable of? who is able to have an intelligent conversation without pissing everyone off? well after all these years you’d expect that we would and should have a great affinity and care for one another, the good news is that we really do!

You’ve gone with a different mastering engineer this time, what brought that on?

Richard: We decided to change it up a bit, Joe had just completed Chris’ lastest solo effort and we really liked what he was coming up with and thought it would lend itself well to where we were coming from with this album. Not that any of the other guys we have worked with have anything lacking in their work – far from it, this was a decision that was made totally about the sonics of it all. I think it is a good idea to change things up from time to time and come at things with a fresh perspective, it keeps us thriving and intentional.

What did it mean to you to be able to work with so many family members on this album?

Richard: It was amazing to be able to work with both mine and Chris’ family members. It is an imporant thing to be able to document those and any associations musically. We always had hoped to be able to do more recording with family members but scheduling doesn’t always allow for it to happen as often as we might like, so you have to take any amount of their input as a win. Looking back now on the sessions for this album, we really couldn’t have planned those cameos to come off as well as they did. We have some plans for the next album to also include a bit more of the family cameo happenings, last I heard my eldest daughter had agreed to join in on the hand clapping at least (laughs).

Is this the best The Feckers album yet?

Richard: It is really hard to go about comparing any of the albums, as each one signifies a period of time in which it was concieved and they all have precious memories associated with the making of them, so I really don’t like comparing. However I would say that we have made a concious effort to deliver an album that is strong, I don’t think there are any songs that made the cut that we would have preferred to have left off. That is always going to be our benchmark going forward as well.

Tell us a bit about each of the songs on “Live And Learn”…

Disc I:

1. It’s A Great Day ft Roy Bratbakken

Richard: I wanted to open this album with something that captures the listeners attention without being too overpowering, funnily enough this song was going to be the opener for the next album, but then it dawned on me that we needed to have something with Roy singing on this album as well, so we bumped it up the list. It was great to work with Roy again, it had been a while since we had been able to tap on his cage and see what he was up to. Pleasingly we have a few other songs in mind for him for the following albums. I had tested positive for covid and while in isolation I gave myself the goal of coming up with a few ideas of which to build songs around. Something a bit rocky, I came up with the chorus hook the same day that “What Is In My Heart Is Real” (a song that will be on the next album) came into being. The irony is that I wasn’t feeling much chop at all (laughs). I reached out to Roy to see if he was up for coming back into the fold and singing on a song or two and he was in, I had originally planned on giving Roy something heavier to sing, but I think this was a song that screamed out for his voice. We had every intention of working with Turanga Morgan-Edwards some more, he was pretty keen when I asked if he would play bass this time around. And what a cool riff to open an album with….it says “yay we’re open for business” and indeed we are! Chris and I had some fun adding those boofhead backing vocals like we always do, every album they’ll be there (laughs). Just as we were planning to mix this one, Chris suggested that we get a second guitarist to play on it, then it dawned on me that we hadn’t had Ponch Satrio on this album, he had been saying we should send him something, so we did!

2. Nothing Last’s Forever ft Raphael Gazal

Richard: Originally this was going to be the album opener, Rob wrote the music and it’s a real gem and Chris plays really well on it – it was great to have had Brett Garsed add some slide guitar. It’s always a pleasure to work with such superb musicians, he fits right in with the rest of The Feckers team – seems a great guy, and he has sent through feedback saying that he really enjoys the chance to rock out a bit which is nice. I wrote this songs lyric during the covid times, I needed to convince myself that a lot of the stuff I was going through with losing a few family members that there would be a bright times to come…and how true that has proven. I remember walking around work and writing the lyric as I tend to – it serves us well that I am often off into weird brain spaces at crazy times of the morning (laughs).

3. Surrendering My Soul ft Chris Szkup

Richard: This was yet another case of Chris’ demo vocals being the perfect fit, I said to him don’t touch or mess with what he had done vocally on the demo as that needed to be what wound up on the final recording, I think he was pretty chuffed with that. Chris has performed this song live a few times on his own, but he also conned me into joining him singing it during our June 2022 acoustic tour of Melbourne at Vault Bar on night one…so much for warming into things (laughs). I had to try and emulate the female backing vocal, which was not easy (laughs). I wrote the lyric to this one back in 2010 while on security duty in my office, this is one of those lyrics where I dug in pretty deep and personal.

4. It’s All About The Music ft Raphael Gazal

Richard: One of the earliest songs that Chris and I wrote together in person, in fact it was written during my very first trip to Melbourne back in 2010. We’ve had it completed for a while now, so it’s good to get it out there on an album finally. I really like those ballsy funky type things we come up with from time to time – it’s nice to slip something of that nature into every album. It was a bit of a masterstroke having Steve Burdette add some hammond organ to this one, Reese Morin did go on to deliver the coolest bass track as well.

5. Memories Of You ft Rob Smith

Richard: Lyrically this one harks back to 2011 when my dear grandad passed away. I sat down and wrote this lyric right at the time I recieved the news. Over the years I had tried to write something that I thought was worthy of him as I had always wanted to write a tribute song for him as Rob and I had previously done for his first wife – my grandmother Irene. I couldn’t come up with anything that seemed to have as much honesty as this had, so we went with it. It was wonderful to be able to form the choir with Chris, Rob, my niece Kayla, my nephew Pacey, Chris’ niece Bella and my cousins 2 children Maggie and Tali. Chris and I had great fun working on the vocal arrangement together – which Rob told me caught him by surprise the first time he heard the final recording – when the choir section really kicked in, he said he found it quite emotional to hear – which is lovely. The video had a few people getting emotional as well, We had some rather nice feedback hitting the inbox about it, and fortunately it has turned out to be our most viewed video so far.

6. Hate The Hate ft Raphael Gazal

Richard: The song itself was inspired by a facebook post that Dennis Leeflang has posted about some of the insanity he had seen going on around him in the US, he doesn’t usually post very much but that was something hugely impactful. One of our heavier type songs, we like to throw in one or two an album – it was great to have had my cousin Stephen jump in with us on the backing vocals. I asked him to have a go at the voice over section to change things up a bit and he really enjoyed doing that, it turned out great. The video for this one is pretty manic (laughs). That final scene where Titty is walking down the alley way – that gets me everytime I see it, that was his telling us to not lay dormant. Chris and I found that session recording for both “Hate The Hate” and “Memories Of You” very inspirational. Stephen had just had his first round of chemo so we weren’t even sure he was going to be up for it – but what a trooper, never will I get my tits in a tangle when things aren’t working out for me when recording again, it’s got to be fun and we have to remain encouraged by our goals to see things through to an appropriate end. Sadly Stephen passed away less than a year later, but we still carry his sense of fun and appreciation for life with us in everything we do.

7. Courage Of Conviction ft Raphael Gazal

Richard: This is a bit of a masterpiece and I really dig it. If someone had’ve told me 5 years ago we’d have a second Guns N Roses guitarist (Richard Fortus) on a Feckers tune I would’ve thought they were dreaming – but here we are, not only that but we had Brett Garsed join in the fun on this one too. So far this is our longest song, it was a pretty ambitious effort, but like all grand ideas when they are knocked off – it feels so good to hear and experience everything that has gone into making this one happen, We did try out an experiment with having a few people from around the world do some voiceovers in different languages which I thought was a stroke of genius, but when it came to mixing it just seemed too jumbled and wasn’t really making the impact that we had hoped, so we all agreed to nix that idea and let the music do the talking, it was a very good decision to let it breath and to show off Rick Curran’s wonderful string arrangement in the process.

8. Peace Be Damned ft Kyle Thomas

Richard: Chris enlisted the vocalist from one of his favourite metal bands to sing on this one and he did a great job. This is a nod to Ronnie James Dio and that classic metal genre, classic metal is more my thing than the modern stuff, I don’t get the being heavy for the sake of being heavy thing (laughs). But I get the being classic and asskicking!

9. By Definition ft Raphael Gazal

Richard: A nice wee asskicker, it was fun seeing this one come together. I love the lyric and I think it really gave Raffy a chance to vent (laughs). And how great to hear Brett Garsed rocking out! I was really happy to contribute to this one, the voice over was fun to record, Rob Smith and I had a bit of a laugh recording our backing vocals too.

10. Live And Learn ft Thomas Niedermayer

Richard: This one is a bit different – and especially our backing vocal, Rob suggested this wee lullaby kind of thing, we tried it out and it actually worked pretty cool in contrast to Thomas’ husky deliverings. That was some really high notes there Rob, how did we do it? (laughs).

11. Lowest Of The Low ft Chris Szkup & Sarah Harralson

Richard: I’ve really enjoyed performing this one live, it’s as fun as it is serious. Chris had come up with most of the song but asked me to add a couple of verses which was kind of him – I think it’s a wonderful song and will always listen with a grin. Chris was in 2 minds about if he was going to keep it for one of his solo projects, but once I heard it I said “nah man we are having it on this album” (laughs). This was my first time providing hand claps (along with Chris) on a tune too – it was not as easy to stay in sync as one would imagine (laughs). I enjoyed singing backing vocals on this one as the 3 way vibe really worked nicely.

Disc II:

12. End Of A Means ft Richard Anderson & Alice Nelms

Richard: This song was the first song that Chris got to use his fretless guitar on and we were excited to hear how it sounded – we will definitely be hearing him play it again on The Feckers material I know that much. When we wrote the music for this one, I took dibs on singing it automatically – then after Chris did some arrangement work on it, I knew it had to have a second voice – so I came up with the idea that we enlist Alice to sing on a track with the each of us. I love how seemless our vocals blended together, I think that rocky verse at the end hints at possibilities for us working together in the future. Alice was pure joy to work with – I figured she was someone special the moment I first saw her sing live. I thought to myself right away that this is someone who gets it and isn’t just dialing it in. It amazed me when she told us she was in fact initially a bass player turned singer, she has a wonderful voice and a beautiful honest energy and that is very much evident when she sings her own material too. Chris and I will likely get to sing with her again and I hope that we are able to get together to do some live performances as well.

13. Bonnie Rae ft Rob Smith

Richard: Inspired by my Mum and all the adversity she has had to deal with in her life, the fact that she has remained a decent human being in spite of it all is amazing. Rob Smith wrote the music as well as sang lead and he did a fantastic job of capturing what I had hoped to. Interestingly enough very early in 2023 I found some ancestors by the surname of Rae in Scotland so life and art did collide and I had no idea it was going to happen. When we were tracking final backing vocals Chris came up with the idea that he wanted me to sing some pretty high stuff, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to comply, but I am really pleased with how it panned out…I can hear the major high note in the mix at the end there…thanks for not designating that to the cutting room floor guys (laughs).

14. Second Guesses ft Raphael Gazal

Richard: I wrote the lyric for this one at some ungodly hour while at work. How wonderful it was to be able to include my niece, nephew and former colleague and great friend Anton in on proceedings. This was a song that Chris really latched onto. It is a song about mental health and setting limits for ourselves in life whereby we shouldn’t be looking over our shoulders or be worrying too much about the negative opinions of people who do not really matter. The Te Reo section that Anton blessed us with worked out great – and the translations seemed to me to be a remarkable fit.

15. Til Death We Do Part ft Rob Smith

Richard: A classic Rob Smith penned slice of awesomeness. Rob really tapped into my lyric and drew something special from it – his melody is beautiful. I was really inspired and moved by Jim and Brenda Gillbanks and their struggle with her declining health, it dawned on me how precious it is that some people actually still stick by their vows…so of course we had to write a song about it. I had the pleasure of unveiling this surprise to Jim, his daughter, son in law and grandaughter while I was in England in July 2024, it was a wonderful but intensely personal experience.

16. Sign Of The Times ft Raphael Gazal

Richard: In some ways this is a sequel to “Pieces Of The Puzzle” from our previous album. I enlisted my cousin Richard to help out with the spoken word, with Richard Fortus joining in on the guitar action with Chris, I thought how wonderful to have 3 Richard’s on the one song.

17. Get On With Getting On ft Raphael Gazal

Richard: We got our funk rock on with this one, which is always fun. I think every album we’ll have something of that nature coming through. It was great to give Raffy something completely different to sing than he does on any of his other projects. Kyle Whalum’s bass playing comes through amazingly well on this track, which I am sure will thrill him.

18. How Do I Forget? ft Rob Smith

Richard: I loved being able to get some sax on one of our tunes, and boy what a great job Nick Bisesi did too, Dennis and I both felt it was some really hot playing. Pianist Caecilia is classically trained, and to the best off my knowledge doesn’t go down the rock n roll route that often, at one point I had listened to the piano track on it’s own and pondered weither we should complete another piano-only version of this song, it is something worth considering at some point, perhaps even with a different singer so that things really are set apart from one another, one for the boxed set perhaps? (laughs). This song was something that Rob and I wrote way back in 2005, it must have been one of the first songs that we co-wrote, for years it sat waiting to be re-discovered – I am astounded that we didn’t think to put it out on one of Rob’s solo albums previously.

19. Unwritten Rules ft Chris Szkup & Alice Nelms

Richard: Originally we wrote this for the next album but I really felt that it deserved to be bumped up the list ahead of some lighter tunes. Definitely one to be added to the live song list. As great as Chris’ vocal was even on the demo, I could hear a female harmony. Alice was the only one considered and thankfully she agreed to sing on it. There was a little whistling thing that didn’t make the final cut at the end of the track – I came up it while we were in the studio working on the backing vocals – I thought about it later, my grandad was a keen whistler, so it was a wee nod to him there, I am sure he would’ve appreciated the touch so I’ll definitely do something of that nature on the next album and get my whistling credit back (laughs).

20. Maybe You Lied ft Raphael Gazal

Richard: This one is big on the vocal range, Chris likes to write in unusual vocal keys (laughs). It is a great song, I really like the element of funk and melodic balladry and oh how they have merged. Chris really came up with a winner here musically, the Joe Walsh-y rhythm guitar thing wasn’t something I expected to ever hear in a Feckers tune but it really does work here – Chris’ solos are awesome. As always you can’t fault Dennis’ drumming, Alice was the perfect choice for playing bass on this one and Raffys vocals are stellar, you get to hear a vulnerability in his delivery, which is unusual in of itself. Every album lyrically we have had a couple of songs that I have written from my own personal perspectives or experiences, this one is definitely one of those songs. This is one that I know Chris really likes.

21. You’re Only In It For The… ft Yohei Eto

Richard: A dandy wee track this one, very Freddie Mercury-ish in its demeanour. It was great to work with Yohei Eto again, as it’s been a while – not through lack of trying, I’ve been trying to get him to write more original material for a long time so it’s very pleasing to see he has been doing a bit of that with his band Queeness. This song pokes fun at all those idiots that get into the business of entertainment for all the wrong reasons, it was particurly inspired by a certain musician, a real piece of shit.

There are some pretty long songs in there, was that a concious thing?

Richard: We never deliberately sat down and said “right this one’s gotta be 9 minutes” but I do admit that when I have sent through lyrics that they have tended to be big epic exposes, something to get whoever I am writing with – usually either Chris or Rob, if I can get them relating to the written word and inspired enough to spark an idea musically, then I am on the right path with my writing – aside from the obvious pleasure at being able to deliver a message that will either mean something to someone, or it will give them food for thought, or piss them off. (laughs). Regardless of any of that, we are not making pop albums. Musically the goal is to let all the musicians have a chance to leave an inprint on the song/s they are playing on – that can often mean a bit of time spent having a musical meandering and I am totally cool with any and all of that.

You mentioned the acoustic tour of Melbourne, are there any plans for more such things?

Richard: We did have another one-off planned in August 2022, that was going to be fun, but the venue cancelled, so in the end I wound up with 3 restful days in Melbourne before I headed off to Canada. We then managed to slip in a one-off in November 2022 as I was enroute to England, we also slipped in 2 more sessions in June and August 2023. I think if we can time it so that Chris and I are off on leave at the same time and don’t have any recording sessions or anything, then sure I would love to relive the experience of another tour. It’d be nice to perhaps take in other locations at some point and make for a proper tour of some sort, that is something we are definitely going to consider and it could have been a thing for 2023 but Chris and I have different times when taking leave is possible, so for the last 2 years I have missed out on joining him in Japan which is a bugger!. There are a few possibilities and a few ideas we had for potential live Feckery, but it’s all about having the time and other people being reliable and on the same page, not always do musos come as the full package (laughs).

Do you think an acoustic album or a live album might be potential ideas for The Feckers?

Richard: Chris and I have spoken about potentially just setting up in a relaxed setting and recording a few things live, ideally we’d have to make sure we have had some playing under our belts again but it would be something cool to do. As for an acoustic studio release, I’m not too sure that we have the time to throw anything else into the mix in terms of a full album – but you never know an EP of that nature might be something we could look at eventually.

Are there any plans to do any full electric gigs?

Richard: That is something that Dennis and I spoke about when I met up with him early in January 2024 – I can’t go into details as yet and certainly don’t want to be spoiling any surprises but something big was mooted…will it happen?…potentially… (laughs).

There are more Courage Of Conviction albums that have been mooted, do you envision that all of these albums represent the best of The Feckers from a writing and recording standpoint?

Richard: That is always the goal, we’ve had as I’ve mentioned previously, we always had goals along the way in terms of wanting to dabble in different styles and from a production standpoint to keep pushing the envelope more with each album – I really do believe we are doing that.

Will you continue to work with the same singers on the upcoming Courage Of Conviction installments?

Richard: We had always wanted to continue working with all the people we have on our first 2 albums, it just turned out that we had discovered a few other people who’s voices were able to take us to other places songwriting wise, that way we were never going to be caught up in simply repeating ourselves. I love now that we know all of our singers as well as we do – we write for their voices more often than not now. That I think is the ultimate compliment that Chris and I can make as writers. If we do happen to come across other people we want to work with along the way then we will test the waters and see what cool new ideas come from a collaborative stand point… sometimes it works, others it doesn’t but its fun seeing things evolve overall, like I said the last thing we want to do is just repeat ourselves.

Once again you’ve worked with some pretty incredible bass players, is that something that was planned?

Richard: Well we never sat down and wrote up a hit list of bass players, but when certain people have popped up on the radar and said that they were available and loved our music, well we would be mugs to not follow that up with seeing what we can do together. On the rest of the Courage albums we’ll be working with Lee-Jai Sung, Brett Collidge, Mathew Szkup, Kyle Whalum, Marvin Brannon Jr and Alice Atkins some more, Neil Murray will be back on another track or two as well. Some of the other players that have come and gone over the years – we’d be open to working with them again for sure.

Will the guitarists on this album be back on further instalments?

Richard: We definitely want to work with Brett Garsed and Richard Fortus on further songs, they have both been wonderful to work with. Turanga Morgan-Edwards the bassist from Alien Weaponry has said he’s keen to play on some more things and he’ll be back on the next album but playing bass again most likely, we’ll obviously want to have Rob Smith, Ponch Satrio, Mathew Szkup and Raffy Gazal step up some more. Hopefully we can get Pat Valley, Sudev Bangah and Edo Van Der Kolk, who are 3 other guitarists we have loved working with in the past who we probably will do so with again. Chris and I have a couple of aces up my sleeves in regards to guitar players – we’ll be including 2 someone’s new into proceedings on the next albums, we just have to make sure we have the right songs, more often than not Chris’ playing is more than enough, but he is gracious in giving others the spotlight so we find and make sure there is room when we can get it (laughs) – it also gets us thinking about where else we can take things musically and production wise when you have more instrumentation to work with.

How did you enjoy working with Rick Curran on string arrangements?

Richard: That was a great thing to be able to delve into, Rick added to the overall on the songs he contributed to, they breathed a different kind of life into them and we love the idea of being able to explore more of that on the upcoming material as well – we will definitely be working with Rick again.

What can we expect on the next album?

Richard: Once again, the 5th album will be a continuation of our exploring different genres and vibes within the collaborative process. Of course there will be lots of guitar enfused awesomeness but also some surprisingly lighter moments – and a lot more of the classic rock and metal inspired material that we are now pretty much expected to deliver. I am very much as excited about the prospects of what is to come on the next album, we have a lot of songs from which to choose from, tracking proper began in 2024, although we did already have 2 or 3 things in the can…we’ll once again dovetail off the 4th album which is pretty much what we have been doing with recording sessions since our 2nd album, we just keep chugging along and seeing what gives. I don’t know about the other guys but I hate taking breaks (laughs).

Chris has been working on another solo project, do you have any plans for such an endeavour?

Richard: Yeah Chris had a new album out in March 2025…which I was happy to contribute to the voice-overs on a wonderful instrumental track called “We Are Strong”. And yes, Rob Smith and I have recently started discussing plans too and have started working on an album, I’ll be singing on every track, Rob is playing guitar and producing. We are endeavouring to make it different to The Feckers in terms of vibe and song content, we will most likely have some guests pop up on this album, the proviso I was given was to write some heartfelt songs, I am at a place where I am more willing to do that than I have been for a long while. We’ll likely write and record in between sessions for The Feckers “Courage Of Conviction Part III: In The Face Of Adversity” album.

You used to write a fair bit for other artists, do you have any plans for continuing in that guise?

Richard: I guess over the years working on The Feckers material has taken the front seat over all other projects, but I have always been open to helping friends out with their own projects. Chris and I recorded backing vocals for a friends EP last year which turned out to be an interesting project, we certainly had fun with it and the results were appreciated – so why wouldn’t we be open to more of that kind of thing?

What’s next in terms of music videos?

Richard: We’re currently collating material for 2 videos that Chris will edit, and I am also in talks with a film producer who has offered to shoot something for us – he wants to build his portfolio a bit and asked if we would be okay with doing something. That seemed like a no brainer and a good deal for all concerned, so I will work with him on the concept for that and see what we can come up with. I do have in mind another track that I would love to bring a concept I have for it to life, I wouldn’t mind acting in that one myself.

Are you planning to do any more acting?

Richard: I’ve done a wee bit in the past, mostly short films and extra work. I really enjoyed it and would love to dabble again. It is just a matter of the right projects, the right people…I have had some fine opportunities thrown my way over the years, but also some really dumb ones where the people in charge had no clue as to what the fuck they were doing. So yeah I have become a bit more precious with my time and not over extending myself, but yeah absolutely I do have a couple of things that I am involved with, I just landed the lead in a short film called “Group Theraphy” and that is going to be great to work with some serious people who have some good visions for artistic fulfilment, that is what it is all about to me. I might do some more writing as well, I have some script ideas that I have written, some finished and some only at the conceptual stage, it would be nice to see one of those things filmed finally too – in fact I am in talks with a young film maker about doing that as well as him producing a conceptual music video for The Feckers which is something that I have spearheaded and have wanted to do for a long time, but the right people to work with had yet to pop up on our radar, I think they have now (laughs).

You recently started writing a memoir – is it safe to assume that The Feckers gets a mention?

Richard: This first book is more of a personal reflections kind of thing, a keepsake for my daughters and future generations. A few things music related get a mention for sure, and how could they not?. I have written a bit about The Feckers, and it has lead me to think that perhaps a book on our shared history might be worth looking into – it is something I have thought a bit about previously but never really had the time or wherewithall to get it happening. But yes I am working on something and I will be seeking out some help from the other guys in various ways, it’d be neat to have their input.