Who: Gob, with The Johnstones & Slush
When: Sunday, Jan. 18, 9 p.m.
Where: Garfinkel’s
Admission: $15 in advance, Garf’s, Billabong, Katmandu &
The Hub
The alternative punk rock group, Gob, has been on the Canadian
music scene for quite a while now — 15 years and counting, in fact.
Tom Thacker is on lead vocals and guitar, Theo Goutzinakis
takes guitar and vocals, Gabe Mantle is on drums and percussion, and Steven
Fairweather is on the bass.
Though they’re probably most well-known for their breakaway
hits, “I Hear You Calling,” and their cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It
Black” for the film
Stir of Echoes
, starring
Kevin Bacon, their music has continued to evolve over the years, progressing
into something much heavier than they had imagined at the band’s inception in
1994.
They can still party with the best of them too, apparently. In
fact, at noon, Thacker was still passed out on the sofa with a bottle of Johnny
Walker Green Label, so Goutzinakis made himself available for the interview.
“We cracked it last night, and he drank way more than everyone
else,” he said.
Goutzinakis and Thacker met in high school.
“I was actually driving to Tom’s high school to hang out with
the girls, because they were way hotter than the girls at my school,” he said
with a laugh.
They shared the same tastes in music, and after playing in a
few bands, finally decided to start their own.
“We totally had a big chip on our shoulders — we knew
what the hell we wanted to do, and it was kind of cool, because the attitude
was real, but we weren’t assholes,” he recalled. “…It seems every year, it was
only getting better and things were always in our favour.”
The game plan was always to make a career out of their music,
but things fell into place much quicker than they had anticipated.
“We didn’t know where it would take us, and we didn’t know how
serious it would get,” he said.
They quickly signed to an indie label and made a video for
their single, “Soda.”
“The next thing we knew, girls were throwing their bras and
underwear at us in front of windows, and we were in Toronto, and went from
playing 20, 30 people a show to over a thousand,” he added.
The do-it-yourself punk rockers were given an instant taste of
the overwhelming world of rock. But to this day, they still take a very
hands-on approach to their music, tackling everything from writing to video
production.
Back in late 2007, they released their latest full-length
album,
Muertos Vivos
, which, literally
translated, means “the dead are living.” The name is supposed to signify that
Gob is still making music, and that they’re as strong as ever.
With an almost four-year gap between
Muertos Vivos
and their last,
Foot in Mouth Disease
, buzz was that the band wasn’t even together anymore
— a rumour that Goutzinakis and the rest of the group found frustrating.
“People thought that we were done, and that we were not even
together anymore, for whatever reason,” he said. “…I hear it all the time,
still to this day, even though we have a record.”
They simply wanted to ensure that this latest effort was “100
per cent Gob,” taking the time to produce a distinctly darker and different
sound, and challenging themselves to grow and keep their music fresh.
“This one is a lot darker and a lot heavier than the last one,
but there are elements of the songwriting that have still evolved from that
record onto this one,” Goutzinakis explained. “Every record we’ve done has
always been different.”
It wasn’t a cookie-cutter project, by any means.
“It’s the rawest Gob record ever, because we were actually
pushing buttons,” he said with a laugh.
They recorded it in a “haunted” mansion in the wooded area of
Panorama Ridge in Surrey.
“We didn’t really know it was haunted until someone told us,”
he said.
Of course, they had to have some fun with that little tidbit of
information. They started hiding a creepy statue of a faceless girl around the
mansion, leaving her for other bandmates to find, randomly.
“Sometimes she would be hung on a noose in the middle of the
room,” he trailed off.
But it isn’t all fun and games with the guys of Gob. In terms
of content, Thacker wrote most of the music on
Muertos Vivos.
“Tom is really hard on himself with writing lyrics and stuff.
He really challenges himself and he tries to get the best out of a song,”
Goutzinakis explained. He added that the messages in their music aren’t always
overt.
Despite their image, these musicians actually are conscious
citizens — there are even a few vegans/vegetarians in their ranks.
“There are some songs, like ‘We’re All Dying,’ that are
obviously kind of political,” Goutzinakis pointed out. “Everyone — black,
white, Chinese, Indonesian, whatever the hell you are — we both get
fucking killed the same, regardless. We’re all part of one race, the human
race.”
Check out some of Gob’s latest material at their Whistler performance this weekend, and keep an eye out for the release of their latest music video for their third single off Muertos Vivos entitled “Banshee.”
