Breaking the Feels: A Look Inside Feelrs

Feelrs is a rock band hailing from Nashville TN. A four-piece band that includes Austin (singer/songwriter/rhythm guitar), Daniel (lead guitar), Mason (Bass), and Christian (Drums). The band is new, formed during the period of the COVID era.

Austin: I started the project when I was living in Hollywood, actually. This was right before COVID started, like March 2020. I had a bunch of friends who were in cool bands like punk rock, garage, just alternative bands. I was like “I’m going to these shows all the time and I’ve been with music for a long time, but I never had a band like this.” I basically wanted to make a band that I could play at Harvard and Stone with my friends. It sounds corny but I wanted to play music that was true to what was in myself and “Feelrs” came out from that. I had a bunch of ideas but that one was the one.

Austin began the band by writing 10 songs in the course of two weeks in LA, playing his first show at Harvard and Stone after asking the bar if he could play at the bar if he had a band. But once the pandemic hit, Austin decided to pack his bags and head to the music capitol of the world, Nashville Tennessee.

Austin: I met Daniel at this thing called Honkey-Tonk Tuesday. How would you describe it?

Daniel: It’s two steppin’. They have country bands playing 30s and 40s country. It’s really Nashville.

Austin: It’s really cool. Being from New York, coming out to LA, and then walking into a place like that, you realize you are in a very unique and special kind of thing that you are in with all the sudden. But Daniel kinda picked me out. We just walked into the bar, and he asked us if we wanted to sit down with him. Like “Yeah, sure man!”

Daniel: I had just moved here, and it was like my first or second night in Nashville, and I just went to the American Legion cause my friend from LA told me to go there. So, I was sitting alone at a table and Austin was standing behind me with his friend Pat. And they were standing awkwardly, not looking Nashville at all but very LA. I suspected something was off (laughs).

Austin: (laughs) I decided to be his friend.

Austin met Mason at a bar called The Cobra; Mason also met Daniel at the American Legion bar. There seems to be a lot of intermingling around Nashville, especially in the music community.

Mason: You’ll come to learn that it’s a really small town.

Daniel: I actually met Mason at that party after that first night. I went with Austin to that.

Austin: It’s all one big, kinda Nashville party. We became friends. And we had a different drummer for a while who ended up focusing on something else. So, we needed to find someone who wanted to focus on this band. And Christian, who already knew Mason, was like…you tell the story!

Christian: So, I’ve been in Nashville maybe seven months now. And I met Mason, one of the first people I met when I was visiting, and I moved here a week after I visited. And I kept bothering him at Third Man Records to get a job there. We ended up working together and I retired from drums. I was like “Cool, not playing drums again”. And Mason one day came up to me and was like “You wanna play drums for Feelrs?”. And I was like “I don’t have a kit”. So, I ended up buying one a week later. And here we are.

Daniel notes that the band was nervous about having to find another drummer, maybe having to go through the daunting task of auditioning potential members. The stars aligned and everything has worked out with Christian on drums.

Christian: It’s been awesome. I met these guys on their second or third show I was in another band and was watching them, thinking “These guys are fucking great”. And I already knew them so it’s a right place, right time kinda thing.

Daniel: It’s been great!

Christian: A lot of leather.

Feelrs currently has an EP and single out now. However, these were released before the current band was formed. It was originally formed as an experiment by Austin while he was in LA. So, the band has yet to release any material with the current lineup but have already established a dynamic that blends all of their influences and styles.

Austin: Everything since “Blueberry Pancakes”, we have all been writing together. So, everything that is coming out going forward will be this band. I taught myself guitar so I could form this band. I already knew a few chords but I pushed myself further and I was like “I’ll play everything, the bass” and all the drums are electronic on the stuff that’s released. Because I defiantly couldn’t play drum. So, I’m excited personally to have these guys and to show people what happens when you add the musicality of these amazing musicians.

Interviewer: What are y’all trying to go for with the music? What’s in your head?

Austin: I’ve always been a fan of melody. For me, the biggest influences when I was younger was Zeppelin and The Beatles. I feel like those are two polar opposites of the rock world and I feel like that shows in the music, where I really love melody and hooks but also musicality and instrumentation. The idea of going into Feelrs was to do something that felt different but naturally. Not really trying to do anything or focus on a sound. Just writing songs and letting whatever eventually happen. Like we’ll look back in 20 years and be like “Oh, this is Feelrs sound”. But we are so young that this could be southern, but this could be psychedelic. Also, as we build our catalog, it will be like “Oh, this is under the same umbrella”.

Interviewer: Nice. It’s important to have a healthy balance of those two things. But nothing wrong with straying one way. I’m curious since y’all are so young as a band what each member wants to bring forth for the music.

Mason: I’ve been playing music since I was thirteen. I started playing guitar, but no one wanted to play bass so I started doing that and fell in love with it. As far as what I bring to the table, I don’t have any limits on what genres I pull from. I think, from a rhythm standpoint, that all genres can offer something. This project has been one of the most important in terms of brotherhood. That’s what I enjoy when making music, doing it with other people and seeing what comes out from it. But regarding to influences, I grew up in a household that was either hip-hop music with my brother or southern rock with my dad. I found my own thing with music from The Ramones or The Queers. I started listening to 50s rock and roll, like Dion and stuff, and realized that it was the same thing as what The Ramones were doing, just a different time period.

Christian: I started playing drums when I was eleven years old. My dad played guitar, so I learned with a guitarist. And I was raised off of Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard, hip-hop as well, I got a blast of everything. But I didn’t start listening to The Beatles and old blues until I was in my 20s. So, I discovered a lot of music by myself, and I have always been, how would I put this, a muppet-esque drummer. Like Animal from The Muppets. I was always into heavier stuff, more metal but John Bonham is my absolute favorite drummer. I started doing that and toured a lot but then started getting more into the audio world and learned an appreciation for songwriting. But yeah, I like playing fun music and having fun. I sensed the brotherhood and connection with the band. They were just having fun. And I’ve played with session musicians so to have that brotherhood where we can play punky music and laugh, play fast and slow, I love it.

Daniel: I started playing guitar when I was 10. Originally, I was learning drums and my drum teacher wouldn’t let me get off the snare. (laughs) I was so frustrated. My little brother was taking guitar lessons, so I started joining with that. And the dude that taught us was named Carl “Good-Rockin” Roberson who would wear this full matching suit, hat and all. He taught us old blues and soul music. This is a little embarrassing to admit but the thing that really made me want to start taking drum lessons and getting into music was this Everclear album I listened to as a kid. Just sitting on the couch and listening to the drums hit my chest, I was like “I gotta do this”. But I’m into all sorts of stuff. Old blues and country. I’ve always played in bands since college. But when I got to Nashville, I wanted to play bluegrass and country since that’s what people do around here. I had no idea I would wind up meeting Austin and start playing rock music again. I just loved his songs, we bonded over that from the beginning. I loved how fun Austin’s songs were to listen to and how all these genres were meeting. Like X or The Replacements, where its punk with country and blues in the guitar playing. In Feelrs, you have a song like “Blueberry Pancakes” but then you have “Thunder Blow!” which has this weird slide thing going on.

Interviewer: I’m a huge fan of all of those bands. And you can hear the different mashups of genres within the song by Feelrs. But what has been y’alls experience with playing in a city like Nashville, that’s known for country?

Mason: On the surface, Nashville is very much country. But there are a lot of pockets around the city that embrace different types of music like rock. East Nashville specifically. It’s a very strong but small community, everyone supports each other.

Austin: It’s cool and different. I come from New York originally which is very much it’s own scene. When I lived there, it was very specific as in if you weren’t doing this one thing you were outside of it. LA has the widest range of music of anywhere, especially now. So, coming here I had no idea what to expect. I had never been to East Nashville and have visited the city once or twice. But I found a good community fairly quick. I feel like we found our people pretty quickly. Some of our friends play music, some of them love to listen.

Coming from LA, where everyone is trying to be in entertainment, Nashville was nice because you’re either a music maker or music lover. Like being able to see your friend out at places like Dukes, this punk rock dive that serves the best sandwiches in town. And when you meet people, you become their friend first. There’s a good, solid rock community here. And it’s really broad. Even though it’s not like a punk, CBGB type of thing, it’s a very close community.

Christian: It’s always part of conversation out here. Like if you’re at a restaurant, you might see some people and you’re like “There’s no way in hell they know music” but they are probably talking about music.

Austin: There’s just a lot of appreciation for music out here that, in my experience, in unique to this geographical ecosystem.

Mason: Like everyone has said, I come from Chicago and there isn’t as close of a music scene there. Not to say there isn’t one, but Nashville is just a different breed.

Austin: But we are going to Chicago.

Mason: We are. April 21st.

Interviewer: You’re taking the road, driving there?

Austin: Yeah, a little three day run. We’ll be playing in Chicago. Columbus, OH with this band Criticals who’s another great rock band from Nashville. That’s another example of the community thing. Cole, from the Criticals, just hit me up one day and was like “Hey, you guys are the new rock band on the scene, let’s get together.”

Interviewer: Y’all have a band van yet?

Austin: (laughs) I saw one on Facebook Marketplace yesterday, I got a new amp and was selling the old one and the first thing that popped up was a fifteen-passenger van. I was like “Just wait.” We’ll probably rent something for this run but once we start doing longer runs, we will definitely have to get something.

Other playing in Nashville, Feelrs have slowly started to play some shows in other cities, including LA and Atlanta.

Mason: We knew LA would be a good crowd since Austin is from their and we know Wavey Trees, the other band that was there. But we didn’t know what to expect from Atlanta. But I think we sold it out or were pretty close. It was a smaller club, but it was an amazing turnout and the scene in general was great.

Daniel: Atlanta was awesome. People were just vibing to the music and that made us happy. Getting that feedback from the audience during the show makes you play better. It was symbiotic.

Austin: One thing about rock bands, and this is something I noticed when I started Feelrs, was that people were dancing, moving side to side as they swayed to the music. And going back to what Christian said earlier about the fun factor, I think the coolest thing in the world is when you’re up there doing your thing, singing and playing, and people in the audience aren’t standing there with their arms crossed. And that happened in Atlanta. One cool thing that happened was we played one of our new songs and the audience was already singing along by the second hook.

Daniel: That was really cool. Like, there’s no way you guys have heard this song before!

While I haven’t seen Feelrs play live, it sounds like the band has an element of showmanship that is necessary for audience participation. Austin notes the band will try to get involved within the crowd and try to spread their energy over the audience like a blanket to overdrive.

With the importance of physical media and merch, Feelrs touches upon the need to have material to sell to audiences when they begin touring.

Austin: We have some t-shirts, but we need to make more. Vinyl would be cool.

Interviewer: Y’all should bring big ole’ boxes of t-shirts when you hit the road soon.

Austin: We have an order of shirts coming in. And we are looking at touring this summer, longer stuff. By then, we should have more stuff.

Mason: We should get unique stuff.

Austin: Like a Feelrs pull-up bar. Or workout tapes. Or cheeseburgers! Eat a Feelrs cheeseburger while you work out with the Feelrs.

Interviewer: (laughs) So, y’all are going on a short tour mid-late April. But do you have anything cooking, like a new EP or something?

Austin: We have just started getting into the kitchen on that.

Christian: Well, we’ve been in the kitchen.

Mason: We’ve been prepping.

Austin: Well, we started writing with our old drummer but parted with him. So, it was difficult to figure out where we were going without a drummer. In walks Christian and now we’ve been jamming more often than we ever have. Working shopping songs and writing. We’re working on some cools stuff.

Christian: And it’s now drum parts written by Scott from Logic. “SoCal drums, plays aggressively!”

Daniel: We’re going to be playing that new stuff at our shows. If people want to hear the new stuff, come to our shows.

Austin: That’s another thing too, we’re excited to play this stuff live before it comes out and kind of gauge what our audience thinks.

Interviewer: Looks like we’re about out of time. But before we go. If you were stuck on an island, what record would you want to be stuck with and what’s one you would hate to have with you?

Mason: When I was younger, my house caught on fire, and I was stuck with only two CDs that I could listen to. One was The Beatles “Please Please Me” and the other was “Stay Inside” from Sound the Alarm. So that Beatles record is nostalgic for me, it might not be my number one but that’s my answer. And I’m going to have to think about the worst one.

Christian: I would go Zeppelin 4. Zeppelin 4 always. And that one Smashing Pumpkins one, the Melancholy…

Interviewer: And the Infinite Sadness.

Christian: Yeah, that one. I don’t like Billy Corgan, his voice. I’ve never listened to it but I refuse to listen to it.

Austin: My answer is weird. The Final Fantasy 9 soundtrack. I might answer differently at a different time but that one sounds pleasant. There is a song for every mood on there.

Interviewer: So, if you brought a girl back is that what you put on.

Christian: (laughs) That’s Final Fantasy 7.

Austin: If you said that, it would be something completely different.  I would say Dane Cook live would be the one I wouldn’t want. I think he’s funny kinda but I’m not laughing now.

Christian: He’s laughing for you.

Austin: I’m on an island. I don’t need to laugh; I need to survive.

Daniel: I have a playlist on my Spotify of my most hated music.

All: (laughs)

Interviewer: Do you listen to that often?

Daniel: This is a tough one. I would probably choose “Crying” by Roy Orbison. It’s one of the most beautifully recorded albums ever. Most hated would be that song by Patrice Rushen. Yeah, “Forget Me Nots” is one of my least favorite songs. I don’t even know what album that’s on.

Interviewer: You still haven’t said the one you hate.

Mason: I just love everything (laughs). I got something for ya. Probably could go the rest of my life without hearing “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Colins.

Christian: That would literally be the one I would want to take.

Austin: Wait, you wouldn’t take that?

Christian: That was literally my second answer. That album.

Mason: Maybe don’t write that, might upset someone. (laughs)

Christian: You know what, I’m changing mine to “Hotel California”. I never want to hear that again.

Mason: What? The Eagles fucking rock.

Feelrs EP “Going Nowhere” and single “Blueberry Pancakes” is available to on all streaming platforms. Catch the band at The Basement East in Nashville, TN on April 25th. Stay tuned for new music and tour info @feelrs_ on Instagram.