Articles

Interview in Sessions Magazine April 1997

"What do you mean? This is an Irish Pub!"
Well, yes, the signs outside gave it away, but maybe on reflection this was not such a good idea.
Well, we can try somewhere else.
"Don't worry. Come back. You're all right."
Jonathon Wright talks to the band unlike any other...

The scene is Oxford. It is a sunny morning and somehow, of all the bands this could possibly have happened to, it is somehow fitting that it should be Gorky's Zygotic Mynci who have just nearly been thrown out of a pub for having the temerity not to order beer.

Gorky's, in case you have not heard yet, are not quite like other bands. Other bands, for instance, take lots of drugs, talk complete bollocks, smash up hotel rooms and absolutely hate each other. Other bands most definitely do not order non-alcoholic beverages in Celtic drinking establishments on the grounds that it looks like you can sit next to the canal here.

In their defence. It has not even reached midday yet and Gorky's may well give their leisure time over to the above pursuits.

But, then again, who wants Gorky's to be like other bands anyway? Because, while other bands spend their time retreading the same old influences, Gorky's are a weird and wonderful pop thrill who have made a virtue out of being brilliantly different from virtually any other group you could mention.

Formed in 1990 in Pembrokeshire, Wales by Euros Childs (vocals and keyboards), Richard James (bass) and John Lawrence (guitar) when the trio were all still at school, Gorky's had expanded to include Euros' sister Megan (violin and, on the evidence of the way she can brandish a notebook and tell the rest of the band what to do, organising things), and Euros Rowlands (drums) by the time they released their debut single 'Patio' in 1992.

Although the single picked up some attention, it was the band's 1994 debut album 'Tatay' ,released via the independent Welsh label Ankst, which really began to get Gorky's serious public attention. Not only did the album feature some lyrics sung in Welsh, it also musically name-checked Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers, both stalwarts of the British 60s psychedelic scene.

If that had some cynics convinced the band were definitely very peculiar and quite possibly, errm, not very dangerous at all, the band's second album 'Bywd Time' (1995) sealed things. The cover featured a photo of the band dressed up as in wizard costumes while sitting underneath a tree.

The hippy alert would now most definitely have been out, except for one thing, Gorky's sounded brilliant: a dizzying collision of Captain Beefheart, The Beach Boys, British psychedelia and The Fall linked to a knack for writing great pop melodies.

Things then took an even more bizarre turn. Obviously, a band this weirdly British was never going to get signed by an American label, was it? Things being what they are in the Gorky's world the band were picked up by Mercury USA. Thus, by a very roundabout route, the band's new album 'Barafundle', will be released in the UK by Mercury offshoot Fontana.

And a superb album it is, the sound of a band have grown up open to all forms of music and raided what they need to produce a unique hybrid which is whimsical, playful, folky, (so what? Want to make an issue of it?), and quite unlike virtually other band in the world.

But, then again, who wants Gorky's to be like any other bands anyway? Thus, we join them sitting outside an Irish pub drinking coffee and being (phew) very un-rock 'n' roll.

Q&A

Sessions: Barafundle will be released via Fontana. What's the difference between being on an independent label and a major?

Megan: It's more complicated in a way. There's so many more people to deal with. It's not just going down to Ankst and there's three people there and they're all there together in one room.
Euros C.: You go in and they won't know your single from another. They don't know who you are. They don't care, either. But, fair enough, they've got a job to do.
John: The resources are very different. If you release something, you know you can have hundreds of posters in every city to advertise it.
Euros C.: It's nice knowing people can go into HMV or Our Price and the record's going to be there. We always had people saying they couldn't get hold of our records.

Sessions: You were brought up (and still live) in Pembrokeshire. Do you think that changes your approach to your work?

Richard: I was reading about Kraftwerk the other day and they were going on about how they were brought up in an industrial area. So, it was natural for them to do that music. Just as it's natural for us to do what we do. The reason different music is going on is because people are in different environments. Which is a healthy thing really.
Megan: When you think about punk, you associate that with cities. There's something really quite strange about people from small towns or villages being in a punk band Its detached isn t it? Its more about what music is in the media eye or magazines rather than what it is to you.

Sessions: How would you describe your music?

John: Indescribable.
Euros C.: We don't know ourselves. We haven't locked into one sound or one style so it's hard for us to pin it.
Richard: Inspired pop. (Greeted by Iaughter) Errm, maybe.
John: Take two different songs of ours and they could be by very different bands.

Sessions: Do you feel any particular kinship with other Welsh bands?

Euros C.: Not really. We enjoy what music we enjoy, wherever it comes from.
Megan: You're probably more aware of other Welsh bands, but you listen to the actual music the same way you would listen to anything.
Richard: Before the Super Furry's were the Super Furry's, two members were in another Welsh band. But, because they sang all in Welsh, they never got any attention anywhere. I thought they were a really good band.

Sessions: It seems a little ridiculous that you have to sing in English.

Euros C.: Yeah, but it's natural for us to sing in English. We started singing in English and then switched to
Welsh. But, musically we haven't compromised and if we hadn't wanted to sing in English, we wouldn't have sung in English. It happens to be that we like writing in English as well. It's lucky really.

Sessions: You've said you admire Richard Thompson. There's a big British folk tradition which you seem to draw on which often seems to get more name-checked by American hands like REM. Here, Thompson almost seems to get written out of musical history.

Richard: There's almost some embarrassment attached to folk music, perhaps
Euros C.: Yeah, it's sad that Because it's denying what is something to draw on, something to be proud
of. The folk songs you hear bands did, it's a shame people don't do them any more. Perhaps, they feel it's dated or whatever. I don't know. Maybe we should do a traditional album. (At this point, Euros is interrupted by a few giggles.) No, it would be good that. We've done a song that was written a couple of hundred years ago, and it could be a pop song. When you apply that style to it, you can do anything with any song.

Sessions: You seem very open to music. Was this anything to do with forming very young and not having time to read the music papers or get cynical?

John: I'm cynical about a lot of shit!
Richard: We always did read the music papers in school, but we never felt pressurised into believing we had to believe what they say.
Euros C.: When we would do music at the start, we were totally detached. We thought. Not that we're not good enough, but that because of where we're from, we stand no chance of getting a record in the charts. We've got no chance of getting on the radio. We weren't being defeatist We thought we were being realistic. So, perhaps what we listened to then doesn't sound like what your average 15-year-old listens to.
Richard: That was probably an important part of where we live and how it affected us in that way.

Sessions: You have been touring a lot recently. How's that been going?

Euros C.: Every time it changes for us. It's a natural progression really. We're playing to about double the
audiences we played to last year.
John: Yeah, because we do our best to make our music as available as possible.
Euros C.: Yeah, we sell t-shirts on tour and, when we have a bad night on stage, we sell about half the number of t-shirts. People do know a bad gig or a bad record when they hear it People aren't stupid.
Richard: You can't treat people as marketing possibilities.

Why, not? To be really cynical, plenty of other bands do. But then, as they troop into the afternoon sun, killing time and listening to Megan's instructions about when to meet at the cIub suddenly strikes you again. Gorky's are not like other bands.