“You probably wouldn’t think of us sounding like Pink Floyd. But we’ve got a lot of stuff live that’s quite trippy, influenced by them”: Feeder’s Grant Nicholas on having dinner with Alex Lifeson and trying to sing like Jon Anderson

CORK, IRELAND - OCTOBER 24: Grant Nicholas of Feeder performs onstage during a concert as part of the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival at Cork City Hall on October 24, 2025 in Cork, Ireland. (Photo by Kieran Frost/Redferns)

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In 2022 Grant Nicholas, vocalist and guitarist with Welsh indie rockers Feeder, revealed there was a lot more prog to his band than most people realised.

“I grew up in a small town in Wales where there wasn’t much else to do apart from listen to music or be in a band. A lot of my friends were into rock so we would listen to anything from Yes to King Crimson.

But it was probably my old friend Brian Sperber who first got me into Rush. He works as a sound engineer, and a few years ago, he asked me if I’d like to come and have dinner with Alex Lifeson.

We had a really good meal with lots of wine, and we ended up going back to his hotel room to chat. We stayed up until daylight and then he had to get a plane because they had a gig that evening. It was pretty rock’n’roll, and he’s a really interesting guy!

I’ve always been really into Pink Floyd as well, and I absolutely love Mogwai – I think they’re amazing. You probably wouldn’t think of Feeder sounding like Pink Floyd, but a lot of the dynamics and ideas are definitely influenced by listening to them. The atmosphere they created through their music was amazing.

Pink Floyd - Dogs [2018 Remix] - YouTube

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We’ve got a lot of stuff live that really goes off and is quite trippy and atmospheric, and that’s influenced by them. The first album of theirs I listened to was Animals, when I was probably about 10. It has some really interesting lyrics, and David Gilmour is a great guitar player.

That and The Dark Side Of The Moon have definitely influenced me as a writer. They still sound so amazing now – they take you on a journey and I love music that does that.

When I was about 16 or 17, I was actually in a prog band called Multi‑Story. They were one of the biggest bands in the area at the time, but their singer had just left so they asked me to fill in.

They were trying to be like Yes and their original singer sounded like Jon Anderson. I couldn’t sing that high – I was more like John Wetton at the time! It was a good experience, and a whole new world for me.”

Artists

Contributing to Prog since the very first issue, writer and broadcaster Natasha Scharf was the magazine’s News Editor before she took up her current role of Deputy Editor, and has interviewed some of the best-known acts in the progressive music world from ELP, Yes and Marillion to Nightwish, Dream Theater and TesseracT. Starting young, she set up her first music fanzine in the late 80s and became a regular contributor to local newspapers and magazines over the next decade. The 00s would see her running the dark music magazine, Meltdown, as well as contributing to Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Terrorizer and Artrocker. Author of music subculture books The Art Of Gothic and Worldwide Gothic, she’s since written album sleeve notes for Cherry Red, and also co-wrote Tarja Turunen’s memoirs, Singing In My Blood. Beyond the written word, Natasha has spent several decades as a club DJ, spinning tunes at aftershow parties for Metallica, Motörhead and Nine Inch Nails. She’s currently the only member of the Prog team to have appeared on the magazine’s cover.

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