James Arden checks out the garage rockers latest album.
The Christian rock band from Brighton bring religion to the masses.
Recipe for modern R'n'B album: liberal helpings of guest rappers and an overdose of sexual euphemisms.
On touring bands:
After the first couple of albums in the UK, we felt like we’d seen how the system worked: bands have a couple of records then that’s the end, unless they’re lucky enough to join "the firmament". So we went to America to become a touring band, and now we’re at the stage that we can play a show every night of the week. In the past, we’ve done over 150 shows a year in the US alone.
On “the Gomez sound”:
They call us adult oriented or adult alternative, which is just to say that we’re not squeaky emo punk. Alt country, alt blues, alt- everything, I’ve heard. I think that’s it: alt rock country blues band. With Britpop flavours. Quite broad. Sod it, I don’t know.
On their influences:
I was raised on blues records: John Lee Hooker and Buddy Holly for the most part. Although our stuff is rootsy, we still love pop and occasionally we’ll just write a trite pop song, we’ve never shied away from that. At the root of what we do is eclecticism. We’re not a blues band or a folk band, we’re just Gomez. No one ever asks “well, what kind of music did the Beatles make?” Nobody ever asks that question, because it’s a stupid fucking question.
On family and friendship:
It took a long time to make this record, I had a kid in the middle of it… so that didn’t help. Very nice, though, haha. Ben and I live in Brighton and our wives are friends, so we still see a fair bit of each other. The other guys all live out in America now though, so records tend to take a little longer than they used to.
On the name of new album A New Tide:
It’s named after a laundry powder. We’d just asked a pal from Australia for a title and he was stood in his laundry room. Saying “it’s all new” would be kind of trite and silly. There is a new tide with us at the moment, but just like there’s a new moon; they just keep coming around and around in circles. It’s not a major rebrand!
On “cracking America”:
We were never about ambition, never wanted to crack or break America. We simply wanted a career making music, and not be a flash in the pan. In the UK, things are media-built, and if you haven’t got a song on the radio you can’t expect people to come and see your show, whereas in America it’s quite a different culture, where you play a show and if you’re good then the next time more people come. It’s slower, but it works for us.
On beating the crunch:
The last album, How We Operate, was the biggest record we’ve ever had in America, which is crazy after 6 albums, with a shrinking music market to the point of 30% of what it was 10 years ago. To be selling the most records now pleases us.
Gomez's latest offering, A New Tide, is out now.
Gomez: Official | MySpace | on Spotify
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