Feature

There are many hardworking musical groups traveling the world these days. There are bands who spend a majority of their nomadic lives on planes and/or buses going from hotel room to hotel room. Between stops, these bands give it their all every night, pouring their talent out for thousands of adoring people they don’t even know. British icons Gomez are probably the epitome of this lifestyle, and they will make a stop at the Port City’s Soul Kitchen Sept. 16.

When I spoke with front man Ian Ball, it was 10 p.m. on a Mobile Wednesday, and my day was coming to an end. However, it was already 3 p.m Thursday in Australia, and Ball’s day was beginning after a plane ride from Europe. Though the jet lag had an effect, he and the band are no strangers to tour fatigue and have developed some interesting coping mechanisms.

“A lot of drinking is done and a lot of discombobulating,” Ball wearily explains. “A constant state of flux sets in. There’s not any permanent solution to it. You just try not to lose your passport and go with it.”

This “discombobulated” lifestyle began a decade ago for Ball and the rest of Gomez in Derbyshire at Sheffield University, and surprisingly none of the members have changed. Most bands grow tired of seeing each other on a daily basis and lose at least a member or two, but Ball claims the members of Gomez have maintained a friendship even though life on the road gets a little strange for them.

“It’s like ‘Groundhog Day,’” says Ball. “It’s a strange sort of living. You know, sometimes you may get to see this cool city that you’re playing. Most of the time, you’re really just seeing the venue and a shower, and that’s about it. Sometimes you don’t even see people before you go onstage because it’s all about finding a shower and a gig.”

Though there is a bit of weird redundancy in Gomez’s lifestyle, a few unexpected loops have been thrown their way. As the London terror plots developed a few weeks ago, they were gearing up to set out on string of dates playing various European summer music festivals, and the band definitely felt the effects of this incident.

“I was actually in the air when the whole thing went off,” Ball says. “I was on my way from L.A. to Heathrow and was the last plane to London after they closed the airport down. It was very strange. We had to cancel the first of our festivals, which was unfortunate because it was in Hungary. We’ve never been to that country before, so we were really excited to go.”

With members stuck across the globe from New York to Hungary, Ball crashed with his parents and waited patiently. When the incident was resolved, these Bonnaroo veterans hit the road with full force playing a variety of festivals across the European continent, which Ball says are quite varied experiences.

“They’re all different in themselves, actually,” Ball explains. “Just like we played a festival called Pukkelpop in Belgium, which is one of the most ruthlessly organized things you’ve ever seen in your life. The whole backstage stage area is perfect and all-out, and the whole of the festival is timed perfectly, so fans don’t have to run from one stage to the next. It’s split over five days. It’s this brilliantly organized thing that everyone has a good time at. The ones in England, it usually rains.”

Despite their beginnings on super-conglomerate Virgin Records, Gomez tries to be as anti-corporate as possible, and it is reflected in their attitude toward certain music festivals. One festival that came to mind for Ball was one organized by fellow British rockers The Levellers.

“The Levellers are these anti-corporate, quite righteous dudes who organized their own festival, which was great ‘cause there was no sponsorship or corporations at all,” says Ball. Although some times the corporate machine can’t be avoided, as Ball said the very next week they played “this festival called ‘V,’ which is sponsored to the be-jezus with ads on in between each band.”

A majority of fans find this attitude quite admirable in this world of mainstream rock madness, but the British music industry and rock journos seem to delight in taking jabs at these guys. They even refer to bands lauded for their first releases who then received lackluster reviews for their subsequent offerings as “Doing a Gomez.” This is quite ironic when one looks at the band’s successful history, but Ball finds some humor in it.

“I like it,” Ball says with a chuckle and goes on to provide his definition. “I think it’s really funny. It’s like having a drink named after you. I’m surprised it hasn’t been called anything before. I guess it’s a description of heralded extremely for the first six months of your career, and then when you refuse to play along with what the industry or the press expects, they turn against you. It must have happened to other bands before us. I guess it goes back to when we started abusing journalists we didn’t like.”

It’s refreshing to see that there are still bands out there giving the music industry a hard time and going against the flow. It seems to be working since their latest album “How We Operate” has sold more copies in the U.S. than their debut. Tickets for Gomez’s Port City performance are on sale at Soul Kitchen as well as on their Web site (www.soulkitchenmobile.com) and Mellow Mushroom.

Stephen Centanni is Lagniappe music editor. Contact him at scentanni@lagniappemobile.com.

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