A Conversation with Gomez’s Tom Gray – HuffPost 6.15.11

Mike Ragogna: Tom, how are you?

Tom Gray: I’m very well, how are you doing?

MR: Doing well. Let’s talk about your new album, Whatever’s On Your Mind. It’s been a while since the last one, hasn’t it?

TG: A couple of years, yeah.

MR: So, what have you been up to in the past couple of years?

TG: Well, we spent a long period of time touring for the last record, I suppose. We also spent a large amount of time working on writing this one.

MR: What is normally the process when you’re creating a new album?

TG: It’s a little strange these days. Because all of the guys live on different corners of the globe, we have to be a little bit more clever about it. We have an FTP site and we all post things to each other. They sort of become these musical chain letters that get posted around the world. Everyone, sort of, gets to put in their two pence and change it if they want to or rewrite it if they want to. Finally, we decide if we all like it or not and we record it. That’s kind of how it works.

MR: Cool. One of the tracks on this newest album that you had a heavier hand in hands all was the title track, “Whatever’s On Your Mind.”

TG: That’s right

MR: Can you tell us about it?

TG: The song is essentially about the person that you love giving too much of themselves to others, and you selfishly asking them to stop it because they’re not leaving enough of themselves for you. And, you know, I’ve found myself in that position a few times over the years…with members of my family as well as partners and friends. If you’re a good person and you know good people, you’re inevitably going to find people who are altruistic to their own detriment. Maybe I’m just a selfish bastard, but if you can’t see them or find them because they’re so devoted to everything else that they’re doing, that’s tough.

MR: Since you guys are all scattered about the world, how do you get together to record? Do you get together at all?

TG: Eventually, we do. After we’ve spent a lot of time listening to the things that we’ve sent each other electronically, we gather it all together, decide which ones we like, then make plans to get started recording. This time, we went to Virginia, into the woods. You have to find someplace that’s neutral for everybody, you know? So, no New York or LA or England or anything, no one was on their home turf. No distractions from family or anything like that. From there, we started arranging the 15 songs that we hand-picked for the record, and then went in to record them. That was it, really. It went pretty fast once we got together–I think the whole record was done in under 3 or 4 weeks.

MR: How quickly, then, do you go about planning live performances or tours and things like that? Is that something that you leave up to your management and the record company?

TG: Inevitably, you have to leave a lot of that up to them. But, or course, we’re involved in all of the decision making and speak directly to the fans through Facebook and sites like that. We also do everything we can to go out and meet people and put our music in front of them. The thing is, if there’s any difficulty for a band like Gomez, it’s that we’ve been around so long that it’s almost a different ballgame to get people interested, you know? It’s like, “Here’s another Gomez record. There you go.” But we certainly shout about it.

MR: Do you have any advice for new artists?

TG: Be lucky. (laughs) That’s about it, really.

MR: Do you feel Gomez has been lucky?

TG: Oh, very. We’re still doing it. Most of the people we started with aren’t doing it anymore or couldn’t do it anymore.

MR: Who were some of your contemporaries?

TG: Oh, gosh. Well, The Beater Band was definitely a contemporary of ours. There was also The Super Fairies. Gosh, I’m trying to think back to the late ’90s. (laughs) There were so many. There is a huge crop of British indie bands that I have no idea where they are now.

MR: One of the songs on this new album is called “Options,” do you feel that there so many more options for new artists in the music industry these days as opposed to when you were just starting out?

TG: I don’t know. I think you’re looking at a smaller and more mercenary industry. With all the talk about avenues of self-promotion, the truth is that most things are still controlled by corporations whether we like it or not. So, for a new artist to break through, I don’t know what to suggest apart from being highly original. Even then, you’re going to need to catch someone’s attention. I don’t see how it can happen. I don’t mean to be cynical or dark about it, but I just can’t see it. I have pity for the generation that came after the Internet in that respect. People like us, who really had a career before the Internet, blew up and still have a career, in a way, whereas, now it’s a lot more difficult.

MR: Do you think that’s because of the saturation, via the Internet, of everyone having music out there?

TG: Well, there’s always been a saturation of music out there. I think, now more than ever, it has to do with the instant availability of it–the wealth of music. (laughs) It’s funny, in the UK, we have Spotify. I’m sure you have similar things in America, and I can listen to what I want whenever I want. At the same time, I can skip over anything I want. It seems that there’s no sense of occasion getting an album out anymore.

MR: True. It’s a musical attention deficit disorder where you run the risk of being someone’s favorite for only a minute, even if your music is fantastic, because there is so much of it about and readily available.

TG: Sure, that’s it. We’re living in an era where it’s hard to be a gentle artist anymore. You’ve got to be a pretty tough cookie these days to stick it out.

MR: Nicely put. I know sometimes artists are quiet about having a favorite on an album, but is there one on this album that you would consider a favorite?

TG: Probably the two that took me the longest to write and were the most gratifying when I finally completed them–“Whatever’s On Your Mind” and “Our Goodbye.”

MR: Great. Is there anything on the horizon for Gomez that we should keep an eye open for?

TG: Well, we begin a tour of the US in July. That’s fairly important. (laughs) And we’ll be at a few festivals in the near future as well. Most importantly, the new album is out.

MR: And you guys are already thinking about the next one, aren’t you.

TG: Oh, yeah.

MR: Great. Tom, I appreciate your taking time out of your schedule for this chat and good luck with the new album.

TG: Thanks very much, Mike. Take care mate.

Transcribed by Evan Tyrone Martin