Interviews
Ian Ball from Gomez talks to Britsound
Interview by Rob Quicke, May 11, 2006.
RQ: How’s the American tour going so far?
IB: So far the tour has been very strange so far, because we started with a complete blitzkrieg of gigs, where we played at Asheville, which is one of our like favorite venues in the States. And we did Atlanta, and we got some really good sushi, and we were feeling really good, and then it was Cinco de Mayo, and we were playing New Orleans at 3:00 in the morning. So we arrived in New Orleans, obviously checking it out and seeing all the devastation, and it was Jazz Fest, and it was packed, packed, packed, and we had to try and stay sober till 3:00 in the morning on Cinco de Mayo in New Orleans, which I failed in that task. And then the next day we left New Orleans at 7:00 in the morning and we drove into Memphis, and we were on stage in Memphis at 4:00 in the afternoon, and we only got off stage at 5:00 in New Orleans, and so time just went absolutely out the window.
RQ: Are there moments on tour when it’s quite surreal anyway?
IB: Oh, it’s utterly surreal. I mean, so far it feels like it’s been a long tour already because when we were in Memphis, we were playing at a festival, and in one night we saw Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Huey Louis and the News in one day. It was like, how is that possible to see them all in one day, you know? By the end it felt like five days had passed.
RQ: You’ve toured America several times before. How important is it to you that you’re successful in America?
IB: Well, the touring in the States can go on infinitely, whereas in England it can go on for about two weeks, because nobody drives to see shows, nobody goes out of their town in England, nobody really makes much of an effort, you know, other than to go to their home shows. But here, already there’s been two people at every show that we’ve done, even at Cinco de Mayo. I’ve no idea what these people do or how they do it, but it’s such a huge place and there are so many millions of venues that you can just tour forever here. And personally, because I live here, I really like touring the States, more than anywhere else pretty much.
RQ: Are you saying that there’s a passion about the American fans that the British fans don’t have? Is that what you’re saying?
IB: No, it’s not a passionate thing; it’s more of a psychotic desire to just watch a band over and over and over and over and over and over again, you know. It’s just that culture, it’s almost like a live music culture that I guess the Grateful Dead may well have started, or somebody like that may have started it way back when, and it’s still going today, and we’ve somehow got these people who just go to every show. It’s bonkers!
RQ: You’ve had a consistent success with the audiences in your American tours, success that few other British bands have had. So why do you think that you’ve got that kind of longevity when very few other British bands have it?
IB: I think it really is all about how you approach it in your mind, because what happens with a lot of English bands is they get big so quickly in England, like in a week you can be the biggest band in the world and then two weeks later everybody will have burnt your record and will want you to die. People will be sending in hate mail and stuff and it’s very stupid, very childish kind of behavior. So people come over [to America] and the record company give them a show in New York, where they buy all the tickets and it’s packed and they’re like, We’re massive in America, and then they go to Omaha, or they go to Kansas, or they go to Louisville, and nobody is there and they think, Well, it’s not worth my time. I’m above this, you know. We once went on the road with a British band, and that was their attitude. They were like, We’re above this. It’s like, no you’re not. This is how it is here. We’ve probably played Chicago about 20 times, and every time people keep coming and turning up. I mean, it’s pretty crazy, really, but you have to earn it. You really do have to earn it. It doesn’t just appear on a plate – unless, of course, you’re James Blunt, but then you would have to deal with the fact that you were James Blunt. (laughs).
RQ: Do you see some similarities between the overnight success of the Arctic Monkeys, where they’ve made the biggest selling UK debut album, and what you went through with winning the Mercury Music Prize with your debut album Bring It On? Do you see a similarity with what they’re going through?
IB: Yes, I guess there is. I mean, I only heard it recently, actually. But its happened so many times in England where they just build it up so intensely massive that it’s destined to come back round and everyone’s going to start slagging you off, and I’m sure those dudes know it. I mean it’s just what happens in England, but the easiest thing to do is totally ignore it and come here and tour here, because it’s much less fashion-led.
RQ: You started out with Virgin owned by EMI; you started out with the majors. After a couple of albums things became difficult and in the end you parted ways with them. Was that a difficult time for the band?
IB: The most difficult time was when we were still signed to them at the end, like the last year we were signed to them, because basically they just didn’t care anymore. They were, you know, whatever. So we basically existed without a record label. We received no money from them and we received no support from them, but they owned our records. We owed them, I think, one or two more records, and we just left. We said, “You’re not having anymore of our records, because you’re not a record company for us,” so we just walked out, which was kind of cool that they let us go because they could’ve been real a**holes about it, but they were like, “Who are you, anyway?” you know what I mean? And then as soon as that happened Dave Matthews phoned us up, two seconds later. He knew what was going down, and he just phoned us up. He was like, “Over here, chaps. Onto my label,” and that’s that. Easy peasy!
RQ: But was there a moment when you genuinely thought perhaps that Gomez could be finished or that you wouldn’t continue playing together?
IB: There’ve been several times when we’ve almost finished. It’s usually due to exhaustion and just when you’re mind is just gone and you’re like, I just want to go to sleep for a month now, you know? But, no, not really. Not during that period. We just felt really liberated when we left that we knew we could, because we’d been self-sufficient for almost the two albums they’d abandoned us, so we’d been self-sufficient by touring here and keeping ourselves alive. And so we weren’t bothered not having a label, it was no big deal. It was just nice not to have one that was rubbish. It’s better to have nothing than something that’s terrible. Which is a shame, because there were some great people there, but they just weren’t allowed to work on our stuff. They had to work on Lenny Kravitz.
RQ: You’d think that being signed to a major record label would mean that you’d have these vast resources to promote you and sell your albums?
IB: Not true. I mean, that is just so not true at all. Our budget for the last Virgin record, the promotional budget was like six bucks or something like that. It was nuts. It’s weird, corporations are truly horrendous things when it comes to artistic situations, because basically they fire anyone who’s cool, anybody that’s got an artistic spirit gets canned because the numbers don’t add up. But yeah, it’s all in the past, thank God!
RQ: Let’s talk about your new album How We Operate. Did you write the album acoustically to begin with and grow it from there, because it’s very acoustic-based, isn’t it?
IB: Yeah, it is a little. I think most of the songs that we’ve ever written usually have started on the acoustic guitar because it’s just sort of the easiest thing that you can write on. There’s very rarely a piano just lying around, but we could grab a guitar very easily. And I think, because we sort of prepared this record more than previous ones before we went in, that we sat around campfire style, playing acoustic, it was all very 1960s! So I guess that just sort of continued as the album went on. I personally didn’t use the fuzz-based ones, whereas on the last record that’s all I played. (laughs)
RQ: It also seems that the whole album is very optimistic, very upbeat, and also, to a certain extent, these are songs that you could hear on the radio, See the World, for example. Was that intentional?
IB: To a degree, yes. The honest answer is, definitely. Because I think the general point that we tried to do with this record was to try and shine things up so you can actually hear the songs, whereas in the past we’ve done exactly the opposite. We’ve always written kind of poppy, weird songs, but usually we get embarrassed by the fact that it’s so catchy or so, like, just a generic song, so we just drown it in weird sounds to make it cool. Whereas on this record we didn’t try and be cool at all. We just said, okay, we’re going to cut some pop hits here, and this is what they sound like, without us hiding behind them. Which was a conscious choice and was really an experiment more than anything else, just to see what would happen if we did it.
RQ: Was that because you worked with producer, Gil Norton?
IB: Not really. It wasn’t really Gil’s idea. It was the way it turned out, really. Gil was just really good at marshalling. He was like a commander-in-chief kind of dude, you know, because we had six weeks and we had an exact budget, and we couldn’t go over it. And he was basically pulling favors all over the place and was very good at organizing and keeping everything working and no messing around, you know. And because of the no messing around, there just wasn’t time to starting ****king up the songs, really. We just didn’t have time to do it.
RQ: You said that previously in the past you were almost embarrassed by writing something so catchy, and you tried to almost obscure such overtly catchy songs. Did you do this because you worried that you’d be accused of selling out?
IB: Not really. I think just from a personal point of view, you don’t want to be seen as this catchy thing. I prefer to be on the ground more, you know. It’s weird thinking back on previous records; it’s always like looking back at old photographs of yourself. You’re always like, whoa! Apart from the third album. I love the third album, In Our Gun, I think is really good. But the other ones are really difficult to listen to, because we just sound young and a bit awkward, geeky, you know.
RQ: If you could pick out a favorite song on the album, what would it be?
IB: Definitely the first track, Notice, is my favorite by far. I like the fact it’s so lyrically complicated. It’s very simple, but it’s lots of different people singing the song, even though it’s not necessarily me singing it. It has words that could be meaning several different things, and it’s often alluding to the record and it’s alluding to a lot of different things. And musically, I think it’s the song that comes out best in the dry environment that we did it in. It’s the one that holds up the most. It’s like this really bizarre song that just somehow seems to make sense. Yes, that’s definitely my favorite. It was nice that we started with it, because it’s not a particularly obvious album opener. It’s more of a slithers in as opposed to knocking down the door. It’s like a poisonous gas that seeps in under the door!
RQ: What’s the plan then for Gomez? Obviously you’re touring this new album which is coming out shortly in the UK and obviously in America. What’s the plan, let’s say, over the next couple of years?
IB: The next couple of years, I don’t know. This year essentially is just tour this record. That’s basically the very simple object that we have to do. I mean, we’ve got Australia that is going to feature heavily in the year, because that’s kind of our biggest market, pretty much. We’ve got festivals in the summer, which are really horrendous experiences, and we’ve got three US tours, a UK tour, and then that kind of will take us until Christmas, and then I think we’ll probably disappear for six months and just decompress, considering this is only week two, and we’re only in May. Yes, you won’t be hearing anything from us next year. We’ll be asleep! (laughs)
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