Bring It On

JUST over a decade ago, a cheeky bunch of Northern lads confounded the critics by picking up the nation’s most prestigious rock award – the Mercury Music Prize.

And they did it with something which, in those beat-heavy days, was pretty unfashionable – by fusing indie rock with the blues.

The band were called Gomez, and that album was Bring it On.

Fast forward 11 years and the band are back on the road with their sixth long player.

And while many things have changed for the freewheeling indie group, a lot of things remain the same – including their eyebrow-raising ability to meld unlikely musical styles into something which is entirely theirs.

One thing that has changed, though, is the logistic feat now needed to physically bring the lads together. For while Ian Ball, Ben Ottewell, Tom Gray, Paul Blackburn and Olly Peacock could once quite reasonably get a bus to the studio, they are now scattered everywhere from California to Brighton.

“Three out of five of us are now based in the States,” says drummer Olly.

“I’m in Brooklyn, New York; Ian’s in LA; and Paul, our bass player, is just outside Detroit. The other two guys are in Brighton.”

Err… why? “It wasn’t really upping from our roots or us saying ’we have to live in the States’.

“Because we tour so much over in the States, it was going to be pretty much eventual that we would meet our good friends and wives – and that’s what led to all three of us going out there.

“We got married and our wives are American. Within the past year-and-a-half, two of us have got married and three of us got kids. Ben had twins, which came as somewhat of a surprise, Ian had a kid and Tom as well.”

It’s no coincidence that the band, still best-known for such classics as How We Operate, See The World, Get Miles, We Haven’t Turned Around, and the marvellously titled Girlshapedlovedrug, are now minor celebs on the other side of the Atlantic.

Ian remains modest: “Somebody explained to us about a year after we’d been touring around here that Radiohead came back and were endlessly touring.

“You have to do that; the size of it is enormous. After we’d been touring for about the fourth time, we were doing all right, but we wanted to have some kind of reaction.

“For the last album we started to get more radio play and we’ve slowly infiltrated over there. It’s getting better and better for us, but it takes a long, long time to achieve that.

“It would be nice to live in different parts of the UK but, for the foreseeable future, I love living in New York.”

It’s a move the band can barely have imagined when setting out back in Yorkshire in 1996. In a story which has now entered rock mythology, the band still didn’t have a name, but reportedly left a sign at the front of the venue for a friend called Gomez, telling him where they were playing.

It read: “Gomez the gig’s in here”.

People assumed that was the band’s name – and it stuck.

The latest album, A New Tide (on Eat Sleep Records) blends styles from blues to folk. So how different is it to the Gomez we remember?

“It’s us looking to move into new ground again,” says Olly.

“It’s a bit more experimental then the past two albums. There’s some similarity to the first albums, with us playing around with things.

“There’s stuff on there which will maybe confuse some people on the first listen, but after a few times they will hopefully understand what we’re trying to do.”

And as well as stirring up elements of Delta blues, psychedelia and Krautrock, it involved doing something pretty unusual for Gomez – bringing in a producer.

“We’ve only had a producer on a couple of records,” he says.

“This time we used a guy called Brian Deck, who used to be in a sub pop band a few years ago who were pretty interesting, and in more recent times, he’s done stuff with Modest Mouse.

“When we were doing some kind of weird stuff he was 100 per cent behind us, pushing us then to carry on with the creativeness. It was very liberating.

“We’ve also used more computers this time around. When we first got signed, years back, we made all the stuff ourselves and we were a bunch of little brats!

“But it got to a point where it was nice not to think about all the little buttons and controls. It gives you another dimension for making music.”

And he can’t wait to play the new songs live.

“It’s always good when you’ve been sitting conjuring up work,” he says.

“You never know what people think of it until you’re playing live. You don’t see people sitting with headphones on enjoying it at home, so it’s the first opportunity to interact with everybody – and hopefully they’ll be appreciative.

“It’s also good playing live as you can do songs with a bit more aggression.”

One thing that hasn’t changed, however, he admits, is the band’s legendary propensity to party.

“In some ways it’s probably a bit worse now!” he laughs.

“The drinking levels are a bit out of hand and obviously some of the guys are dads now, so it’s almost an excuse for worse behaviour! It’s just as bad as ever!”

Gomez play Oxford’s O2 Academy on Monday (April 27). Doors open at 7pm. Tickets are £16 from ticketweb.co.uk never see the light of day.”

Does that mean she already has enough songs for her second album.

“No,” she says. “I get bored of songs, so I always like them to be new.”

She encouraged curious gig-goers in Oxford to come down to the O2 Academy tomorrow to hear her in action.

“Everyone’s welcome… no matter who you are,” she laughs.

“Just come with happy hearts and open minds!”

Polly Scattergood plays the Oxford O2 Academy, tomorrow.

Tickets are £6. Her eponymous album is out now on Mute.