GOMEZ achieves the American dream run

[KiwiCoromandel]

British band Gomez (Tom Gray, centre) might be underappreciated at home in Britain but their hybrid style of rock, country, pop and blues goes down well across the Atlantic.

Tom Gray reckons his band is the hardest-working band in America. Only Gomez is British and about to play New Zealand.

"Oh Christ, we play America all the time," he says on the line from Perth. "It's ridiculous. We've been on tour since last March on this record and think we must have done six or seven American tours.

"But once you've had your five minutes in the sunshine in England you really don't get another chance, unless you're U2 or Coldplay. You're old news.

"The Americans are so focused on older, stagnant creative things. The British are so obsessed with brand new things, kind of striking a median line anywhere is kind of hard."

Still, you wouldn't exactly call Gomez' hybrid of rock, country, pop and blues stagnant, and with most of the band members still in their 20s, they're hardly old.

The band's momentum in the US has been a long time coming, and with their latest album, How We Operate, it's their primary focus.

Their first US tour came after their debut album Bring It On won the prestigious British Mercury Music Prize in 1998.

Shortly after their third album, In Our Gun, was released in 2002, vocalist Ian Ball moved to Los Angeles, while still working with the band at their studio in Portslade, England.

In 2004, after their label went under and they mutually ended a distribution deal with Virgin, Gomez signed to Dave Matthews' label ATO.

That might sound like a calculated decision, given Matthews' staggering popularity in America, but Gray says it was more to do with the label's "good people".

"I wish it was calculated. He does have a bit of bartering power at the table, but ATO is a very small, independent label. He's not Warner or Sony. He hasn't bought up the radio stations."

So far, the signing has paid off, and given How We Operate is their rootsiest, most accessible album yet, it's no wonder they're booked out across the US in "ridiculous" fashion.

But Gomez still command a decent audience in Britain, playing to crowds of 3000 in London.

You have to wonder if the British press simply gave up on them because they found them impossible to lump into one genre. "I'm sure that eventually, given enough time, they'll have to come full circle on us. But that is not our focus. We hope good will keeps us going over there.

"Now, our focus in terms of growing as a band is all about America. It's where the majority of our shows are, where our income comes from."

And whether it's the country-tinged Don't Make Me Laugh (sung by Gray), the John Mayer-ish All Too Much (sung by the raspy Ben Ottewell), or the Americana feel of Hamoa Beach, (sung by Ian Ball), it's no wonder.

It can't help that the band have three singers and all five - including drummer Olly Peacock and bass player Paul Blackburn - write the songs. Sometimes they swap them too.

"It's just the way it's always been," says Gray. "We just try to not be too precious about who wrote it if we can, although you do have to be a little bit because you have to try and get across what you're trying to do or say.

"But if you go too far in the opposite direction it becomes a bit murky, really. We just try and be as open to change as we can be."

Although that laissez-faire approach has kept them together for a decade, it means that one band member's most personal lyrics are adopted by everyone else.

Gray's contributions to How We Operate include See the World, sung by Ottewell.

Otherwise his lyrics tend towards the lovelorn on songs like Woman! Man! and Don't Make Me Laugh, and the simply melodic Girl Shaped Love Drug, in which he sings, "She spends her days in a violent rage, try as I might, I love her".

"I tend to like lovelorn songs as a rule," he says. "I'm quite the pathetic romantic in a way. I'm quite the fantasist so I just kind of imagine myself into situations which I'm not really part of.

"Songs are exaggerations of things. A song like Girl Shaped Love Drug is an exaggeration of my wife."

And no, it seems that Peacock and Blackburn don't feel left out, despite not being singers.

"It's just one of those things. I suppose most other bands where there's just one singer, it's more divisive than our band. Hopefully it keeps all of us in check. Hopefully the rampant narcissism is somewhat thwarted by other people taking the limelight."

* Who: Gomez, British rock five-piece...

* Albums: Bring It On (1998), Liquid Skin (1999), Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline (rarities and B-sides compilation 2001), In Our Gun (2002), Split the Difference (2004), Out West (2005), How We Operate (2006) and How We Operate the bonus tour edition (2007).

source:reuters/rebecca barry

image:reuters:BRITISH band GOMEZ (Tom Gray, centre) might be underappreciated at home in Britain but their hybrid style of rock, country, pop and blues goes down well across the Atlantic.