Gomez

Thu 16th Apr, 2009 in Features

Gomez’s debut album Bring It On won the Mercury Music Prize all the way back in 1998. It seemed like the world was at their doorstep, but mainstream popular success has always eluded them. After 2004’s Split The Difference, they left their mainstream record label Virgin behind for the heady heights of smaller labels.

2006’s How We Operate was a little too slickly produced, aimed squarely at American college radio, but new album A New Tide sees the band recover the soulful spirit that earned them their stripes. With the new album hitting stores in April, bass player Paul Blackburn spoke to FasterLouder about their latest studio outing, being veterans of the music industry, and writing material from opposites sides of the world.

Gomez started their career in a dingy pub, way back in 1996. 13 years later, they’re still together, with the same lineup. As veterans of the industry, I wondered about the changes Blackburn had seen in the music industry. “We got in, just as there was a drastic shift in the way people thought about music. People were changing; record companies were in disarray, trying to figure out how to accommodate online stuff. As for us, we just make the music. We don’t do the business side of stuff so much, although we do try to stay aware of the business side as well.”

Way back then, the boys could no doubt spend as much time as they liked, lazing around, writing the rootsy, guitar-driven harmonies that are their stock in trade. These days, however, they have lives to live, and they do that on opposite sides of the world. So how do you write music for a five piece band when you’re all in different time zones? With computers, of course! “Initially, we had two guys in Brighton, Olly [Peacock, drums] was in New York, I was in Detroit, and Ian [Ball, vocals, guitar] was in LA.

“But we’ve all got the same recording program, so we used that, and sent profiles around to each other. I think we’ve really got that together, to use it to that extent – it was the first time we did it in that way and we really got ourselves synchronised going in.”

And how was the recording process for the new album? “It’s a very organic, constantly changing thing that we go through. It changes a bit each time we go through, and this time we were working with Brian Dak, which was different. He is very musically minded and intelligent, and he’s good at thinking outside the box, with new sounding things. So we did some sessions in Charlottesville and LA, doing pre-production and getting ideas together. Then each session after that, each time we had something that was sounding good.”

A New Tide is now in stores and Blackburn says he is both nervous and relieved. “There’s a certain sense of both, each time you put a record out. It’s like launching a new business, a new product. You put a lot into it in the studio, so even if you feel confident behind yourselves, you can never tell how it’s going to go.”

Debut album Bring It On celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2008. The band marked the occasion with a series of shows, both here in Australia and around the world, where they played the album in order, in its entirety. So was that something that they always planned to do, or was it a spontaneous decision? “It’s been really cool. We already play quite a lot of them anyway, but it’s been good to just go out and do it as a record. We did it in the UK, and a couple of shows in the US. It didn’t really make a mark over here, so it was great seeing how people still like the record.”

So what else is in the future for Gomez – yet another visit down our way? A Gomez tour of Australia is pretty much an annual event. “We’re currently doing the US, then we’ve got a tour of the UK, and then the US again. We’re might be back after summer [our winter], or early next year – but we’re definitely coming back.”

A New Tide is out now through in Australia through Shock.