Music > Interviews

Gomez

06/08/18

What were you doing 20 years ago? Popular culture was dominated by Lara Croft, we all spent at least 3 days crying after the end of Armageddon and football most definitely didn’t come home then either. Music was harder to sum up; the post-Britpop landscape was left crying out for music that was left of the middle; pop dominated, with American R&B taking up the remainder of the top 100 slots. But if your flavour of alternative wasn’t Chef asking you to suck on his Chocolate Salty Balls, you at least had Gomez. Gomez beat the odds; five guys, predominantly from Southport ­- a north west hinterland between Liverpool and Blackpool – pedalling a sound that was American-influenced and inventive. They blew up the conventional song structure rule back and had three strong vocalists in the growling Ben Ottewell (yes, that Ben Ottewell), Ian Ball and Tom Gray. They’ve remained unassumingly active ever since, successfully exporting their sound to the United States that influenced their early sound, trading on a catalogue that lives beyond their biggest hits like ‘Whippin’ Picadilly’ and ‘Rhythm & Blues Alibi’. Journalists have spent years asking bands like Oasis and Take That why they didn’t crack America, ignoring the fact that Gomez were quietly doing it for them. Now, 20 years on from their debut album, ‘Bring It On’, they’re bringing us an anniversary tour to celebrate the legacy, as Outline found out when we caught up with the band's Tom Gray ahead of their Norwich show.

When you perform songs from the back catalogue, do you connect with the young guys you were then, or as men, the husbands and fathers you are now? Do the songs take on a different vibe or do you regress? 

Regress is the wrong word. The songs transport you into another moment - or even the hundreds of moments - you've performed them before. From club gigs to big festival stages around the world, to lost weekends in the American mid-west and drunken aftershows in the deep south. We played a lot of these songs a lot for a few years and they took us to a lot of places. They are full of sense memories that come back and surprise you when you least expect it.  

You’ve had steady success since ‘Bring It On’, both here and across the pond. Do you think your breadth of musical influences and leanings has allowed you the longevity you’ve had?

A narrower sound would’ve lived and died in a short generation.

After your first two albums, you felt friction with mainstream music press because you didn’t fit into the carved out niches being otherwise presented. Do you think the musical landscape has opened out again now, with all the disparate styles of music you can find online? 

No the mainstream media never knew how to deal with us, and in many ways, still don't. Not quite indie, not quite americana, not quite rock, not quite most things that dictate a particular writer or magazine will cover you, or, more significantly, cover you positively if they do at all. I'm not really sure that things have improved. In fact most music I hear now fits more into niches than ever. I think there's a lot of pressure on young musicians to get synchronisation on tv & film & advertising, because that's where there is still a bit of money. The problem with that is advertising likes "stylish" music, so there's a serious tendency to make sonics and moods that are, well, contrived. Don't get me wrong, there's some incredible music being made, but often I feel like I'm listening to the musical equivalent of an instagram filter.  

From the birth of Gomez arguably came other bands – bands like the Beta Band. From there, we have Django Django, for example. Could you have comprehended, at the time of Bring It On, that you would’ve spawned that kind of legacy? 

To be fair Beta Band beat us to it. They got EPs out first, but we got an album out first. I'm good friends with Steve Mason. He's a brilliant musician and writer. We wrote a song together over a remix we did for Toydrum. I think bands like ours, despite being quite distinct, were in a zeitgeist together. As for the legacy,  I often have the pleasure of meeting musicians who tell me how much Gomez meant to them, it's very nice, but I hope we gave them a nudge to ask their own questions, offered a bit of direction, inspired creativity above all else. We were always a 'get all the toys out the box' kind of a band and I hope all the toys keep coming out. 

Was it ever nerve-wracking, opening yourself up to a 20-year anniversary? You must’ve known the fans were still there - you were named favourite Mercury Prize winners by BBC 6 Music listeners, for example.

Of course… bloody nightmare. Haha. We had no idea that the gigs were going to sell out so fast and we were going to be on the receiving end of so much love. It's been a genuine delight. 

This isn’t just a nostalgia trip for you – you’re working on new music, is that right? 

Yep, always writing songs. Planning on getting the fellas together early next year, hopefully have a record for you soon after that.

What can you hope for the next 20 years of your career? 

God knows. The Mez abides. 

Gomez play the Waterfront on Saturday 25th August. Head here for tickets and more information.

Images: Brantley Gutierrez / James Hole