Every year, as the summer slowly rolls around, music journalists across the world attempt to predict what will be the sound of the summer, the song (or album) that you will hear echoing out of every shop, car, and house window in the country and will be unavoidable on both local and national radio. In previous years, "Despacito", Omi's "Cheerleader" and Drake in general have held such titles. Way back in 2006, the sound of the summer was defined by The Feeling's album 'Twelve Stops and Home'.

'Twelve Stops and Home' was recorded in singer and guitarist's Dan Gillespie Sells grandparent's shed in West Sussex. The Feeling first began as a band in 1995, when five session musicians came together to collaborate. Following the band's formation, they blagged their way into becoming the resident musicians of a ski resort in the Alps. While there, they began writing their own music and putting together songs that would go on to create their debut album 'Twelve Stops and Home'.

Upon the album's eventual release in 2006, The Feeling became that years most played act on British radio. With songs such as Love It When You Call, Sewn and Fill My Little World, the album went on to become not only the sound of the summer but the sound and feel of the early noughties as a whole. The album has sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide and has allowed the band to travel and tour their music across the world, including iconic festivals such as Coachella and Glastonbury. To celebrate their breakthrough album's twelfth birthday, The Feeling are back on the road, playing the album in full to audiences across the U.K. and in Dublin.

GoldenPlec sat down with singer and guitarist Dan Gillepsie Sells and bassist Richard Jones to discuss their new tour, 'Twelve Stops and Home', the evolution of music since their debut and Dan's latest venture, providing the soundtrack for a West-End musical.

Q: When did the idea for this  ‘Twelve Stops and Home’ tour come about?

DGS: Well we hadn’t played for a couple of years. We’d been touring solidly for 10 years since our first album and we needed a break. The first thing we thought we’d do when we came back was celebrate twelve years of the 'Twelve Stops and Home' album. So we went to the Apollo theatre and did a little show there and the response was so good that we thought we’d take it on the road and do a tour of that first album. It all came about quite naturally, it’s been twelve years, it’s called 'Twelve Stops and Home', that will do!

RJ: That album was such an important album for us too. Not only is it our debut album but it’s also the one that had all of our big early hits on it. It represents an era for a lot of people, especially for us, but for a lot of other people too so it’s very exciting.

Q: Have you anything special planned for the tour?

RJ: Well we’ll be playing the whole of the first album, in the order that it was on the record. We re-issued the album in a special box-set as a double vinyl. It will be a nostalgia fest because that album is an important album to a lot of people. I’m actually especially looking forward to Dublin, firstly because it’s the first show, but also because I get to play to all my Dublin family who basically missed the last chance to see us.

We went over when we were supporting ELO, but the show got cancelled last minute and we couldn’t play so it was a shame, but I had all the family come over, from Mayo and Galway so we all just went and had a drink together. But it’s time to do another Feeling gig in Ireland.

Q: Is it just tour rehearsals at the moment or is there writing going on as well in the background?

DGS: There’s been a bit of writing going on alright, but that’s only because that’s what we do naturally. We’d always have rehearsals and get into a bit of a jamming session and then we’ll hit record because we’re there, in the studio. It’s early stages of thinking about it but if the right songs come about we might put out another record, why not?

Q: How do you think ‘Twelve Stops and Home’ would be received if it was released for the first time today?

RJ: I don’t think anyone would hear it. It’s partially because, like all things really, there’s an element of doing something good and then there’s an element of whatever you do being at the right time and we just came along with that music right in the middle of the moment when bands and indie rock was pop music.

That was the charts, they were full of everything that started with The Strokes and then leads to all the British bands, The Kooks, Keane, Arctic Monkeys and the list goes on and on. If you look at the top 10 from that time it was predominantly British bands, whereas right now that’s not at all the case. I don’t know if we put our music to radio now? We probably wouldn’t get played on mainstream radio, especially not the Radio 1’s that we got back then.

Q: The music industry has changed an unfathomable amount since 2006, do you think it’s harder for bands now to release music and get heard or was it harder back when you first started?

RJ: Well it’s easier to release music now, to get it out there but there’s so much music being released so to actually get it heard across the noise of everything else now is harder than it ever was. I think getting an income from music is more difficult than ever, unfortunately. It’s constantly evolving, it’s changing, and now that the public, including myself, are really getting behind streaming services so that’s something that people are happy to pay for because it’s a good service.

That now means that there’s actually more money going into recorded music than there has been in decades because before that everyone was essentially stealing music and that’s happening less and less now so as that’s changing. At the moment it’s just about filtering emerging talent, because we’ve been in a period of time were there just hasn’t been the finances to develop artists, to give them tour support and, so lots of artists, especially if you’re in a band, are having to keep day jobs and that’s just not sustainable.

Q: Tell us a little about your musical Dan, “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie”, what’s it about and how long had you been working on it?

DGS: Well, I started working on it about four years ago and it’s about a 16 year-old wannabe drag queen who decides he’s going to tell everyone and out himself by going to his high school prom in a dress. It’s a true story, there was a documentary on the BBC a while ago that inspired it and it started at the Crucible theatre last year and then we got transferred to the West End which is a miracle as far as I was concerned.

It’s proved to be a big success in the West End, I’m delighted with how well it’s done, and it’s just a really sweet story about what it means to be young now. It’s very relevant, about what it is to be 16 in this day-and-age, and again with the internet, it’s about identity. I think identity is really important for young people because by that age they’ve got their online presence, it’s got to be right, they’ve got to have their labels, they want to get it right, and identity as a whole is very important to them.

I do feel that there is a whole different bunch of issues for young people in this generation so it’s a little bit about that and then it’s just very funny, we all remember what it’s like to be 16, being outsiders and having big dreams, everyone felt like they didn’t fit in when they were 16 so it’s a very unifying story. I’m really proud of it.

The Feeling play The Academy on Sunday October 14th. Tickets cost €29.90 and are on sale now at Ticketmaster.ie.