How We Operate

I've said it before, and I'll say it again; interviews are a tricky business. Especially when the interviewee is on the other side of the planet. Especially when said interviewee is in the midst of a series of interviews for different publications, all happening one after the other in rapid-fire succession. So it was when I sat down to chat with Ben Ottewell, singer and guitarist from much-loved British indie band Gomez. Ya see, the interviewer before me was cut off, and I managed to connect with him in the gap between that disconnection, and… well, we got there in the end, anyway.

“Hey, no worries, it happens. When you're doing all this work all at once, it's bound to happen,” the affable frontman forgives when this scribe apologises for the interruption. And it's true, too; after 15 years on the music circuit, and with a huge amount of accreditation and awards to their name, Gomez are most probably used to the rigmarole of media. This year hasn't seen them slow down, either. Last year's Whatever's On Your Mind, along with pretty much every other release, has seen Gomez enamour new fans while keeping the old guard happy. “Yeah, we're really happy with how it turned out,” Ottewell enthuses. “I mean, we've been doing this for a while now, so it can be pretty easy to be sceptical of how an album's gonna do. But we're always very pleasantly surprised by the reactions we get. We're still riding the wave of it now, like, over a year since it's been released.”

Gomez have always had a big and devoted fanbase in Australia. So much so, that when they announced a series of shows on the east coast following what was an incredibly demanding international tour for Whatever's… release, the call went up from West and South Australian fans to get them to span the country. And, as we all know, it's not too easy for acts to make the great leap across the land. “Yeah it's really good, we just announced those shows as well, so it's quite full-on. It's a bit frightening as well. We've been bashing all over the place, and there was so many calls for us to come over and play, and we were like, 'Yeah, why don't we play?' But that's who we are. We love to bash around,” he laughs.

Following a huge tour that took them across the US, Europe and the UK, Australia sees there first leg of touring following a well-deserved, if relatively brief, holiday. “We haven't been out for a couple of months now, so I've just been enjoying my summer,” Ottewell states. “We covered the States, and we played a bunch in Europe, so we've been having a great time. And a lot lately we've been reconnecting with places we haven't been to for a while, like we went to Italy and played a couple of great shows down there, and we played a few shows in Germany. So all in all it's been fun. Tiring, but fun. The stretch we did in the States went for five weeks without stopping. And that seems like a lot, but you just get into the groove of it, really. You just get better the more you play, and that's coming from someone who's been slogging around for ages.”

That length of time is not something that can often be worn proudly by a band, especially in this day and age of disposable everything, but Gomez have been able to consistently and with great success operate as a band, with little more than a brief gap between tours. “I think it's very important that you keep a clear mindset and have goals,” Ottewell answers when questioned on what keeps them going. “I think if you look back at the interviews we did back then [on the release of debut LP Bring It On in 1998], we were very clear and we had our mindset on wanting to do this for a long time. We knew back then that it wasn't just a fad; we knew we weren't a one-trick pony. Creatively, we've always left a lot of room for ourselves. We've still got a lot of room to get better, even now. I think we were pretty realistic as well about how British bands are, and how it's easy to cash in but that can go away in an instant. We didn't feel like anyone owed anything to us, it was more a reflection of us. We knew that when we played in the States that there would only be about 50 people watching us, but we didn't let it bother us. We kept a level head, because we just really enjoyed making music together, and we still do. That's what's kept us going, I think.”

Of course, they do live their own lives as well outside of the band (just to make it clear that Gomez aren't some kind of symbiotic hivemind of effortless creativity and endurance). Though the line-up has not changed one iota since their formation, Ottewell, Tom Gray (vocals, guitars, keyboards) and Paul Blackburn (bass) still reside in the UK, while Ian Ball (vocals, guitar) and Olly Peacock (drums, synths) call Los Angeles and Brooklyn home, respectively. But hey, it's the century of technology; bridging the gap is much simpler for Gomez than it might've been in the past. “Email, basically,” Ottewell states matter-of-factly. “We have spent a lot of time together, probably too much. It's just nice to have a bit of space between us. And we all have our own things – families, other projects [Ball and Peacock both worked on Operation Aloha, a Hawaii-themed concept album, in 2009] and all this other stuff. When we used to tour, it used to be all of us jammed into a bloody van and sleeping on the floor of hotel rooms. Now we have our own rooms when we're touring. Honestly, as much as I love the other guys and I love playing music with them, you just get bloody sick of each other sometimes,” he laughs.

“But it all works. We've reached a point where we're comfortable with our songwriting, we're comfortable with knowing that we're all able musicians,” Ottewell continues. “We find that that space has become in important point of the band. You know, with so much writing in the band, we can still bounce ideas off each other, but we don't feel so constrained. We feel more free to do what we want.”

Gomez will be playing the following shows:

Wednesday 10 October – Trailer Boat Club, Darwin NT
Thursday 11 October – Tanks Art Centre, Cairns QLD
Friday 12 October – The Venue, Townsville QLD
Saturday 13 October – Coolangatta Hotel , Coolangatta QLD
Sunday 14 October – Tivoli Theatre, Brisbane QLD
Thursday 18 October – Panthers , Newcastle NSW
Friday 19 October – The Hi-Fi, Sydney NSW
Sunday 21 October – The Corner, Melbourne VIC
Monday 22 October – The Corner, Melbourne VIC