As Gomez have made their way around the UK festival circuit this season, vocalist/ guitarist Ben Ottewell has noticed a (strange) trend.
“It's sort of odd because you look at the line-ups for a lot of them, certainly the second-tier festivals, and the line-up could be transplanted from 2005, you know what I mean,” Ben laughs. “It's funny because you're bumping into people you've not seen since 1998.”
Gomez will be in Australia in November to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their sophomore album 'Liquid Skin' with a national tour.
Speaking about the milestone, particularly in the Australian context, Ben says it's a true pleasure to be able to tour here off the album 20 years after the fact. “It is, and actually I think we got a bit lucky there because we were originally supposed to come down [to Australia] first off the first record 'Bring It On',” Ben explains.
“I don't know if a lot of people down there know this, but we sort of flogged ourselves into the ground in the [United] States and actually had to cancel our first tour of Australia, which was going to be on the first record.
“Then we got the second record together and came out, and that ended up being the big one, which is unusual. Over here [in the UK] the first record made the most impact and last year we did the 20th anniversary of 'Bring It On'. I think in Australia, the second record meant more to people over there.”
Reflecting on the period around writing and recording the 'Liquid Skin' album, Ben says the sessions for it felt like an extension of those undertaken for 'Bring It On'. “They're very much pieces, almost musical twins,” he says of the records.
“We never really stopped. . . a lot of the material on 'Liquid Skin' was written around the same time as 'Bring It On' and some of it was written in Sheffield in '95/ '96, so it feels to me like it's the same thing, part of a big, creative surge.
“We're always either on the road or in the studio, so for me it all sort of blurred into one, to be honest with you. It was a very exciting time creatively, it was very surreal for us as well for us to be thrown from nothing to playing to a couple of thousand people every night. It was a great time.”
In exciting news for Gomez fans, who have been waiting since 2011 for the next album, Ben reports the band are indeed back together working on new music. “Actually, we just finished doing a bit of writing together,” he says.
“Ian [Ball] and Olly [Peacock] were over from the [United] States for a couple of weeks, so we're trying to get things together for a new record. We never intended the break to last that long; I've done three solo records since then and we've all been active in music.
“When we got back together to do the 'Bring It On' [anniversary] thing, it just felt so good and we were like 'we can't just keep touring our old records, we need some new music out there', because that's what we're all about.
“The other thing is we have to wait another two years for the 'In Our Gun' 20th anniversary so we thought we might as well write some new music,” he laughs.
Gomez 2019 Tour Dates
3 Nov - The Lost Lands (Melbourne)5 Nov - The Metro Theatre (Sydney)
6-8 Nov - Freo.Social (Fremantle)
10-11 Nov - The Croxton Bandroom (Melbourne)
12 Nov - The Gov (Adelaide)
13-14 Nov - The Tivoli Theatre (Brisbane)
17 Nov - Canberra Theatre
18 Nov - Oxford Art Factory (Sydney)
