| It's a Thursday afternoon and Gomez's Ian Ball is tidying
up his house in Brighton. He's also cleaning up a few tapes he's made during some
recent rehearsals. "There's a lot of really, really fucked up, deeply disturbed
shit in there," he says. So, naturally, he's thinking of editing the tape
into something the quintet can use to open its upcoming shows. Of course, this
is not how Gomez normally records its music, Ball defends, but on the other hand,
it is. He and his mates, you see, are thoroughly digitally oriented - they just
aren't aware of it. Singer/guitarist, Ben Ottewell, recorded some music
from a Cambodian street festival on his mini disc during the band's 20-month vacation.
It ended up--mixed with a harmonica lick--on the new album. All of In Our Gun
(Virgin), in fact, was recorded that way--with the freedom of digital technology.
Spread out in Batsford Manor, near Stratford-on-Avon in the south of England (or
old "Shakey's" stomping grounds, as Ball suggested), the six-year old collective
regrouped after its long holiday and reacquainted themselves over beers and new
songs. After the break, the band had plenty of material and as the record progressed
they found themselves floating around the studio, each one tinkering here and
there, bending and twisting the results with an array of looping devices and samplers.
The only condition, Ball says, for creating their digitized bottleneck-and-beats
hybrid, was to make new sounds.
"When we record a song we just try as
many different things as we can, said Ball. "Anyone can try anything. We're always
trying to make music we haven't heard before. You know, actually trying to make
sounds we don't recognize ourselves, that you don't find familiar."
Such are the operations of Gomez--the Sheffield band that manages to play a raspy blues,
tempered by nearly effortless integration of dot/dash sensibilities. And such
are the benefits of digital technology. "Using digital completely changes the
way you work," affirms Ball. "You can record a song, mess around with it, fly
it around, change the arrangement and see what it sounds like, without messing
it up." Sadly, few artists chose to do this kind of exploring, despite the possibilities.
For Gomez, though, it's practically part of the band's genetic make up.
In 1998, the band attracted attention with a self-produced demo cut on a cassette
four-track in a draughty garage. The tape was so good they released it as their
first album, 'Bring it On'. For its next album, 'Liquid Skin', the band moved
up to a professional analogue studio and once again helmed the controls. By 'In
Our Gun', the lanky lads from Southport had spent so much time with their heads
buried in digital electronics manuals; they were able to manage the whole recording
process alone. At this point, Ball said, with so much of the learning curve absorbed
intuitively, the band's music could filter through those digital processes almost
organically, as it were.
"I think it probably comes out of the fact
that we don't look at a drum machine as a different thing, and we don't see harmonicas
and trumpets and bass parts as any different from each other, we think they're
all the same," said Ball. "They're all tools for making music. It's not one thing
is a retro thing and one thing is modern. They're all the same. They all make
sounds. You just have to manipulate them towards your own needs."
Ball
said Gomez handles the arrangements the same way. Through experimentation and
a willingness to accept all ideas; where, literally, whoever's part is the best
is the one that stays, they manage to craft songs which combine Beach Boys harmonies
with dubby reggae bass lines and folksy campfire anthems with mad algorithmic
beats. The net result - a compelling album that updates more than it borrows and
discovers more than it recreates. For example, on the last track, "The Ballad
of Nice and Easy," Ball said, multi-instrumentalist, Tom Gray, originally wrote
it with just acoustic guitar and percussion and the intent to have a few loops
squalling around in the background. A sort of easygoing ditty, he said. When Gray
finally got around to recording it with an acoustic guitar and a drum kit, drummer,
Olly Peacock, had other ideas. Instead of treating it as a mellow little tune,
Peacock playfully attacked the song with a faster tempo. Inspired by Peacock,
Ball then picked up the bass and added an aggressive line, which changed the song
some more. When Ottewell heard it, he came in and put down a little electric guitar,
and by the end of it, all the mellow acoustic guitar that Gray had originally
envisaged for the song had been completely blown away and there was no acoustic
track at all, Ball said.
"It's just trial and error and a willingness
to have the balls to say that's shit," said Ball. "Or having the honesty to say,
'Well, that thing that I've done no longer works.' It doesn't matter for us because
we're all working towards the same ends. We all want a great album and were not
really sussed how we get there."
Success, for Gomez, seems to be something
that need only happen in proportion to their desire to maintain this carefree
and creative lifestyle. And who can blame them? It does sound pretty good. A 20-month
vacation followed by weeks of recording in an English castle. Trips to Cambodia
and Australia and other exotic locales. On the other hand, those events were preceded
by four years of constant touring and recording. Within three weeks of handing
Virgin its demo tapes, Bring It On was on the airwaves and Gomez was on tour.
The album sold over 300,000 units that year and eventually turned platinum. In
Spring 1999, still steaming along, Gomez found themselves touring America for
the first time and released Liquid Skin to a rapturous audience. By the time Abandoned
Shopping Trolley (a collection of B-sides and rarities) came out in 2000, the
band was bushed and decided to go on hiatus.
"We did, like, four years
of on/off touring/recording, touring/recording, that sort of thing," said Ball.
"And then in August 2000 we just said, 'Right, that's it. I'm going on fucking
holiday for six months, I'll see ya later.' And so, basically, we just quit for
six months and went away and didn't do anything. I went on holiday to Australia,
the other guys went on holiday to like Vietnam and all these weird places. It
was fucking great."
Refreshed and rejuvenated, Ball, Ottewell, Gray,
Peacock and bassist, Paul Blackburn, got back together in February 2001 and parsed
the many songs they had written while on their travels. Though the band was able
to write plenty of new material while on its sabbatical, if they had to keep going
on, Ball said, they would have been fucked. "Absolutely, in a major way," he said.
"We were fucked because we had already done so much. And you know, we didn't have
any songs, we didn't have anything left. We had just released the 'Abandoned Shopping
Trolley' thing. So it was like, 'Time to go on holiday fellas and recharge the
batteries.'"
Whether you interpret their vacation as a perk of stardom
or required rest, success genuinely doesn't seem to be on Gomez's mind. For them
making music, not cracking new markets is the most important thing. And it shows.
When asked whether he ever imagined the band enjoying this kind of success, Ball
replied with a laugh. "It's always completely random in this business," he said.
"There's never anyway you can tell if it's going to happen to you. Even if you
have the most commercial music in the world, sometimes people won't buy it. And
then you can have something that's completely fucking weird and shitloads of people
go for it."
While the music on 'In Our Gun' isn't exactly "fucking weird,"
Ball said he doesn't think it'll ever receive much airplay in the U.S. However,
he might be wrong. In late March, a few tracks from the new album started spinning
in the States. So maybe Gomez will be successful after all. Regardless, beginning
in April, thousands of people across Ireland and the UK will hear the new songs
on the band's world tour. Though Ball could only speculate on fall tour dates
in the States, if the record continues to receive radio support, there's no doubt
they'll be here. Either way, Ball and Co. are happy with their achievements, and
Ball, at least is building a career as a producer through his work with the Australian
psych outfit, Gelbison, among others. Nevertheless, Ball is philosophic about
the whole thing. "We're not going to fucking kill ourselves," said Ball. "We're
not going to do like 8 million tours and 50,000 tour dates because we haven't
got the straight forward desire to be really popular anywhere in the world. It's
nice to be successful, but the concept of breaking America sounds like 18 months
of touring and a lot of ass kissing. We're not very good at that."
Allan
Kemler for Crud Magazine© 2002 
 |
|
| 04/02 1 Giant Leap - My Culture
04/02 Elfpower Interview - Andrew Rieger - Creatures
04/02 Frou Frou Interview - Guy Sigsworth/Imogen Heap
04/02 Gomez Interview - Ian Ball
04/02 Idlewild - Live - London Astoria
04/02 K's Choice Interview
04/02 Leaves - Live - Camden Dingwall
04/02 Longwave Interview - Exit
04/02 Lucy Mongrel Interview
04/02 Oasis - The Hindu Times
04/02 Phantom Planet - Interview
04/02 Unwritten Law - Interview
04/02 VUE - Coordinates Interview
05/02 BRMC - LIve - Kentish Town, London
05/02 Breeders - Title K
05/02 FC Kahuna - Machine Says Yes
05/02 Moco - Live - London Monarch
05/02 Need New Body - Interview
05/02 The Soundtrack of Our Lives - Live - Soundhause, Northampton
05/02 The Bellrays - Meet The Bellrays
06/02 Fleadh Festival - Finsbury Park
06/02 Frou Frou Coordinates Interview
06/02 Incubus - Interview - Mark Einziger
06/02 North Mississippi Allstars - Interview
06/02 Papa Roach - She Loves Me Not
06/02 Proud Mary - Live - Northampton, Soundhaus
06/02 Pulp - Live - Sherwood Pines, Edwinstowe
06/02 Reindeer section - You Are My Joy
06/02 Silverchair - Diorama
|  | 06/02 Something Corporate - Leaving Through The Window
06/02 Soinc Youth - Interview
06/02 The Burn - The Smiling Face
06/02 The Coral - Live - Roadmender, Northampton
06/02 The LIbertines - Live - The Social, Nottingham
06/02 The Vines, Sheffield Leadmill
06/02 Trik Turner - Interview
06/02 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Live, Soundhaus, Northampton
07/02 12 Stones Interview
07/02 Arolo -Interview
07/02 Buy To Let Doncaster - Anti Social Behaviour
07/02 Cassius - Interview
07/02 Farrah - Interview
07/02 Glassjaw - Interview
07/02 Neil Michael Haggerty - Interview
07/02 Hoobastank - Running Away
07/02 Leaves - Interview
07/02 LL Cool Jay Interview
07/02 Oasis - Live - Finsbury Park, London
07/02 Polyphonic Spree - Live - Camden Monarch
07/02 Queens of the Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf
07/02 Super Furry Animals - Interview
07/02 The Beatings - Live - Metro Club London
07/02 The Bellrays + The D4 - Virgin Megastore, Oxford Street London
January 2001
July - August 2001
September - October 2001
November - December 2001
January - March 2002
April - July 2002
August - December 2002 | |
| |
