Pool Of Sound - Gomez

Gomez

'Gomez' are an English indie rock band from Southport, Merseyside with a line-up of Ian Ball on guitar and vocals, Paul 'Blackie' Blackburn on bass guitar, Tom Gray on guitar, keyboards and vocals, Ben Ottewell on guitar and vocals, and Olly Peacock on drums, synths and computers. The band has three singers and four songwriters, employing traditional and electronic instruments. Their music covers the genres blues, indie, alternative, rock, folk, psychedelic and experimental.
They played their first gig together in 1996 at the Hyde Park Social Club on Ash Grove in Leeds at the time not having a formal name. Leaving a sign outside the venue which read, "Gomez in here", for their friend whose surname was Gomez, to indicate that it was the site of their first gig, people saw the sign and assumed that the band's name was 'Gomez'. The name stuck.
They began recording four-track demos in Olly Peacock's father's garage in Southport during the summer of 1996. The demos were handed to Stephen Fellows who initially distributed them to four record labels. A bidding war erupted immediately, including several US labels.
Having only one performance under their belt, they decided against playing showcases in London and instead made the record companies travel to Red Tape rehearsal studios. After several weeks of playing to over 25 different labels, the band finally signed to Hut Records, part of Virgin Records, in September 1997.

The musical landscape at that time certainly didn’t hinder their rapid ascension. Britpop had imploded and something new was needed to fill the void. However it had to be familiar enough not to step too far from the path known to guitar obsessed indie-kids. Gomez beat the odds; five guys predominantly from Southport, pedalling a sound that was American-influenced and inventive. The Brit-Americana vibes of Ottewell and his bandmates blew up the conventional song structure rule and had three strong vocalists in the 'growling' Ben Ottewell, Ian Ball and Tom Gray. Ben said, "My voice lends itself to Americana almost immediately, it has that kind of feel to it. Totally unintentional, it’s just the way I sing,"
Tom Gray said of those early days, "They were songs about running away, having nights out, going to Mexico. It was pure escapism. It was all about 20-year-old kids desperately trying to get out of their small town mentality. The first big thing that happened to us was when we first appeared on 'Later...With Jools Holland. Then we had two sets at Glastonbury that year. We played in a tent and the gig went so well that we were asked to fill a set on the Main Stage (after Beth Orton pulled out) as well. So on a whim we did a second set on the Main Stage at Glastonbury in the pouring rain and managed to cheer a whole lot of people up. That set off a bit of a fire really and then in September when we won the Mercury Prize it was like a perfect storm. The word of mouth was out there and ready and everyone was excited about it but then when it got this big stamp of approval, it was like boom. Then the record was just flying out. It was crazy.".
Their first album for Hut Records was 'Bring It On' which won the Mercury Music Prize in 1998 which saw the five-piece caught up in a wave of momentum and given the freedom and tools to build on their bedroom aesthetic. Later awards came from the music papers NME and Q along with a Brit Awards nomination.
Their second album 'Liquid Skin was recorded in the main in Parr Street, Liverpool with some strings done in Abbey Road Studios and was released in 1999, lending 'Gomez' further success on the British and Australian albums charts. It contained a more ambitious, more eccentric, 'less pop and less innocent' take on their blues-influenced sound which saw them thrust into a different world, building on songs written at the same time as the debut album.

Just before their third album release 'In Our Gun', Hut Records was forced to downsize and on the following record 'Split The Difference' Hut Records was disbanded by Virgin/EMI Records. BBC Internet Music Reviews said of the album, "one of the finest releases of the year so far. If you were one of those people who wrote them off two years ago, it's time to get listening again".

The band were so dismayed by the music industry that they decided to go it alone and asked Virgin Records to let them go in 2004. The following year they were signed up by Dave Matthews' American label ATO with whom they released their first live album 'Out West' and their most successful records stateside 'How We Operate' and 'A New Tide'.

A decade of touring America has made them professional to a fault. Such is their success on the live circuit that the band now spends up to seven months of every year in the US. After more than a decade after their meteoric rise, Gomez find themselves in the peculiar position of being lauded in the United States and virtually ignored at home. So much so three members, Paul Blackburn, Ian Ball and Olly Peacock have set up home in Detroit, Los Angeles and New York respectively with Tom Gray living near Ottewell in Brighton.
Their line-up remains the same as it was when they started out in 1996.

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2020/02/pool-of-sound-ooberman.html