Call It A Day

It's said that distance makes the heart grow fonder, and for the members of Gomez – well, at least some of them – this sentiment is perhaps what's kept the band going, as an original unit, for 15 years. Although three of the group's members – Gray (guitar), Ben Ottewell (guitar) and Paul Blackburn (bass) – all reside in Brighton, co-frontman Ian Ball has lived in Los Angeles since 2003 and Olly Peacock (drums) has called New York home for six years. Yet the band have maintained their output, recording and releasing with consistency.

But even though Gomez's productivity has remained constant, the creation process behind the scenes certainly hasn't. “There's no one way of writing a [Gomez] song. Apart from that first record where you're just writing in a room, stoned, where you haven't got anywhere else to be when you're eighteen years old,” he chuckles. “That's one way of doing it, which worked. But our second album we wrote while we were out on the road touring. Our third album we made in a mansion, our fourth we made in a warehouse and half the band weren't even there...our fifth album we actually did in a recording studio which was like, 'What?' Each time we've recorded we've done something different, and purposefully so in order to try and create a forced environment that produces a different kind or record.”

Gray admits that he can hear the individual recording environments of each release. Last year's Whatever's On Your Mind was recorded in two weeks, so everything was tightly structured and poppy; the process produced the aesthetic. But as for their next album... “Firstly, we want to take a good ol' breather – I think Gomez has to go away for a minute,” Gray admits. “We've just finished a record contract and those last three albums kind of work as a piece together, and we can put that to one side now. And with a little bit of time and risk-bearing on our part, hopefully we can be a lot more weird and wonderful. It's a bit risky to think this way, but I think we have to afford ourselves that.”

Gray candidly explains that the music industry is, for lack of a better word, fucked, so for the members of Gomez, it's now nice to be independent from contractual shackles and making music in any form they choose, with the option of taking a break. For Gray personally, this break has come in the way of scoring a new television show based around the children's books of Polly Dunbar, a role he has been revelling in.

“Everything that I have done in my life has just been for a laugh really,” he says. “Polly's just a good mate of mine and we started around six years ago putting on children's shows in Brighton every Christmas with completely original scores, and we just tried to put together something really beautiful and great...If you know anything from Gomez, you probably have the realisation that I'm an obvious melody guy, that's what I do. And children's music is all about melody, which is incredibly freeing for me because I am just bursting at the sides with that shit.”

Regular visitors to our shores for a decade now, Gomez are changing things up on this upcoming tour to mark 15 years making music together. The British five-piece are putting the ball in the court of their fans, leaving each night's set list in the hands of their most avid followers. “We don't do it until the day of the gig,” he says. “We don't close [the voting] until the night before so it can all change all the time. We just go by the seat of our trousers, really...Gomez gigs [already] have a certain fondness,” he finishes, “but there is definitely a different atmosphere and less knowingness about it and probably more surprises for them, and you can feel that. It's a thrill still, but I have to say that it's probably going to be people's last chance to see us for a while, so it all fits nicely together and they get to pick the songs – [it's a] win win.”

Gomez will be playing the following shows:

Thursday 18 October - Panthers, Newcastle NSW
Friday 19 October - The Hi-Fi, Sydney NSW
Sunday 21 & Monday 22 October - Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC