UPDATE: GOB’s Fall 2015 tour dates listed below!
After seven years, Gob’s back – back to their roots and sounding better than ever with Apt. 13.
“This is very much how we started out doing it,” Tom Thacker tells me over the phone from his NYC apartment about the band’s approach to this month’s tour.
The pop-punk outfit that got their start in Langley over two decades ago just completed a 30-day cross-Canada tour (and back again) in support of their new album Apt. 13.
“It’s cool to do a long tour, and get really comfortable playing the songs, you get into road mode, I dunno’, it feels good.”
It feels good to have Gob back with new music. In case you forgot, their punk-hit pedigree includes “Soda,” “Banshee Song,” “Oh Ellin,” “Paint It Black” and the cool-before-zombies-were-cool “I Hear You Calling.”
Although the tour ended in B.C., there weren’t any shows in their hometown of Langley, as Tom explains: “When we started, we could play bars and open shows, but if we wanted to do our own show we had to rent the bar and promote it ourselves. I don’t know how many shows go on in Langley, but back then it was very few, so we had to do it ourselves.”
Although the guys don’t promote their own shows anymore, they did return to a more DIY style of music making for this recent album.
“We didn’t have management, a label, anything… We had to start from scratch and do this. Let’s get back to the roots, make a record by ourselves, not have anyone around us, breathing down our neck or overseeing it, and then let’s find a new label.”
Now signed to New Damage Records, the guys are feeling good about their new direction. Although, the decision to cut the record before finding a label was in part a product of the new age of music recording.
“That was a product of ‘Where the hell is the music industry going?’ Let’s just do what we do, and then figure it out once we have a record to go.”
The most fascinating thing about Gob is they’re participant observers of the changes to the music industry—a kind of rare insight only a small segment of bands have (namely, those who have survived the technological disruption). It’s an insight the band put into their efforts with the new album.
“Now, nobody wants a CD, and it totally makes sense…I remember bringing books of CDs on the road, like a 100 CDs, and it would get stolen!”
Of course, Tom reminds these were gradual changes: “It was so much easier to make the transition to having an iPod… and now you can just have Rdio or something and you have access to all this music in the world basically. So all these changes kind of came along gradually”
Nevertheless, Tom admits it’s pretty shocking when your goods aren’t being sold anymore:
“I mean definitely it makes things a little worrisome when people stop buying records and you’re a musician, so we sort of saw the changes coming. But, I think we understand where it’s going. Why do you need a physical product when you can just listen to it? It is about the music, after all.”
Here’s to hoping we never forget what it’s all about.
Apt. 13 is out now, to stream the new album, check it out via our friends over at exclaim.ca. If you missed Gob’s recent tour, we have a video for you (just to make that missed-concert remorse feeling sting a little).
2015 Fall Tour
10.07 – Kamloops, BC @ Blue Grotto
10.08 – Calgary, AB @ The Marquee
10.10 – Winnipeg, MB @ The Oak
10.11 – Thunder Bay, ON @ Crocks
10.14 – Halifax, NS @ Seahorse
10.15 – Charlottetown, PEI @ Fishbones
10.18 – Quebec City, QC @ L’Anti
10.19 – Montreal, QC @ Foufounes Electriques
10.20 – Ottawa, ON @ Mavericks
10.22 – London, ON @ Call The Office
10.23 – Toronto, ON @ Hard Luck Bar
10.24 – Toronto, ON @ Hard Luck Bar
10.29 – Saskatoon, SK @ Louis’
10.30 – Edmonton, AB @ Starlite Room
11.05 – Nanaimo, BC @ The Queens
11.06 – Victoria, BC @ Sugar
11.07 – Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre