Ben Ottewell (Gomez)

Mon 11th Apr, 2011 in Features

Shapes and Shadows is the first solo release from Ben Ottewell. After a dozen years traipsing the stages of the world with his cohorts from Gomez, Ottewell has finally stepped out on his own with a first-rate collection of tunes. Ottewell caught up with FL to talk about his solo album, the tour, the upcoming Gomez record to give us the scoop that Gomez will be here for Splendour in the Grass.

With a small assortment of well crafted songs, Ottewell’s solo record is something he is very proud of. I know that many Gomez fans have been waiting patiently for him to release this record. “I am not prolific and this is one reason I waited,” Ottewell admits, “A lot of people had said to me that they had been waiting for a solo record. I did not want to do it unless I had the songs and that I really trusted them and thought they were great because otherwise it is a vanity project. It is something I am proud of and it has its own identity.”

The album is influenced by many of the same sounds that feature on Gomez albums, as Ottewell explains: “I love acoustic music and that is how I write, even though I am the electric guitar player in the band I love playing acoustic music. The people that I loved when I was younger were John Martyn, Nick Drake and Neil Young to name a few.”

The record is a mostly low key affair that will sit well alongside your Gomez records. Some of the material on Shapes and Shadows was even culled from earlier Gomez sessions. “_Chose_ I put forward for the last Gomez record and Blackbird has been around for a long time,” Ottewell reveals, “I wrote that around the time of How We Operate was recorded [2006]. Step Right Back it is probably the one you might say could be on a Gomez record but for whatever reason it just did not work out or fit. Certainly lyrically, Chose is very close to my heart and it is about a loved one and the mistakes they have made. It is kind of hard to define why I did not think these songs were Gomez songs.”

“The recording process was really quick and I brought in a co-writer [ Sam Genders from Tunng ] as well with a lot of this stuff. I grew up with Sam and he is a great lyricist and really did not mind opening up and helping me finish the songs. I recorded it in Los Angeles and I brought some great players in like Michael Jerome [drums] who plays with Richard Thompson as his main gig; Fil Krohnengold who is all over the Gomez records plays on it and Will Golden who produced it appears on it also. We had really super good people and they all helped build what I wanted which was really just simplicity,” Ottewell explains.