Gyroscope Reflect On 'Breed Obsession': 'Sh*t Got Serious In Our Band'

From what I can remember about the era of Breed Obsession in Gyroscope, is that it was a time that shit got serious in our band. Around the time we started writing for the record, we had been together as a band for about ten years, put out a couple of decent full-length albums, opened for every international punk rock band that seemed to have toured Australia between 2003 and 2007 and had had a lot of support from Triple J as we bounced around the country from tour to tour.

When writing for Breed Obsession kicked off, I was on a Springsteen sabbatical, listening to everything he’d ever recorded, reading everything he’d ever written and everything that had been written about the Boss. I learned that Springsteen's first two records were initially considered "commercial flops” at the time of their release and that Springsteen was almost dropped by his record label. He obviously then wrote/recorded and released Born To Run, and the rest was history.

We weren't the E-Street band by any means, nor was I the Boss, but we were feeling the pressure in a “we better get our shit together” kind of way "and write the best record that we are capable of writing” otherwise we might be dropped by our label too. So, we decided to make this ‘writing' thing our focus and a full-time unpaid job.

The truth that I can give you about Breed Obsession is that we wrote every single one of those songs on Breed Obsession by ourselves, for ourselves, and for lovers of music like us. We didn’t bend or break to specifically make something commercially successful, it just kind of happened. Looking back as a band, we are proud of that record.

We hired a full-time studio space that we used around the clock, probably 20 hours out of every 24 hours of every single day. Rob [Nassif] would generally come in early, first thing to track drums ideas, Brad [Campbell, bass] and I would utilise the days to do guitars and bass, and Dan [Sanders, vocals/guitar] would be the resident night owl and be recording vocals late into the night.

Like passing ships a lot of the time, each of us would come back in the next day to see who had recorded what and how the building blocks of each song were being recorded and layered by each of us. Often one of us would come in with a completely written and demoed tune, but most of the time we collaborated on all ideas. We’d always liked the idea of a band being a gang, a gang of equals, and that we all needed to grind as hard as each other to kick our own arses into moving forward with our art and music.

Once we had ground the hell out of around 30 new songs, we started to talk to our label about potential producers for the record. Enter Dave Eringa. I forget exactly how this connection came about, but we knew that he had recorded The Remote Part for Idlewild, and the four of us loved that record at the time. We had a conference call with Dave, and within 20 minutes of a call, we were instant best friends. He broke the news that if we wanted to work with him that we would have to come over to the birthplace of the Beatles to make a record in Liverpool - we didn’t hesitate.

We kicked off with a few days of pre-production with Dave. We showed him our tunes and shared our ideas with him; he cracked a few jokes and told us what was good about our songs and what sucked. That’s what we loved about Dave, he was open and honest with us and was like the cool uncle to Gyroscope - experienced and mature enough to steer the ship of this important record for us, but juvenile enough to still be on the level and laugh at dumb jokes with us.

We recorded about 15 or 16 songs at Elevator Studios with Dave in Liverpool, and 12 of these made it onto the record Breed Obsession, some songs didn’t change all that much from the demo stage to the album version, and others did a complete 180.

I hadn't listened to this record in its entirety for a fair while, but in leading up to this upcoming anniversary tour, we had to give the record a few spins from front to back to remind ourselves how to actually play half of the songs that don’t get a regular spin at our live shows. In doing so, I realised that Breed Obsession is not a bad record- some might even say it’s pretty good, but I'm not sure.

For us, though, it was that record that put Gyroscope on the map commercially in Australia, and much like a double-edged sword, this record may have alienated some of our early loyal following but also opened us up to a whole new world of listeners.

We weren’t just being played on the ABC anymore, we were now high-fiving the West Coast Eagles playing the halftime show at AFL games, and getting up at shit o’clock to play TV morning shows with Kochie & Mel and other breakfast celebs- we had become professional musicians with a regular paycheck. It was a strange and exciting time for our band.

The truth that I can give you about Breed Obsession is that we wrote every single one of those songs on Breed Obsession by ourselves, for ourselves, and for lovers of music like us. We didn’t bend or break to specifically make something commercially successful, it just kind of happened. Looking back as a band, we are proud of that record.

Thanks for listening.

Gyroscope are celebrating 15 years of Breed Obsession alongside Bodyjar (who celebrate 25 years of No Touch Red) this September. You can find tickets to the shows here.

BODYJAR – 25 YEARS OF NO TOUCH RED PLAYED IN FULL
GYROSCOPE – 15 YEARS OF BREED OBSESSION PLAYED IN FULL
 WITH SPECIAL GUESTS KLINGER

Friday 1 Sep - Manning Bar, Sydney
 Saturday 2 Sep - The Triffid, Brisbane
 Sunday 3 Sep - Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast
 Friday 8 Sep - Magnet House, Perth
 Saturday 9 Sep - Prince Of Wales, Bunbury
 Thursday 14 Sep - Uni Bar, Hobart
 Friday 15 Sep - Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide
Saturday 16 Sep - Corner Hotel, Melbourne – Sold Out
Sunday 17 Sep – Corner Hotel, Melbourne (Matinee)