Not many bands can boast of being around over the 20-year mark, especially if you’re in the sub-scene of punk rock, but Langley, B.C.’s four piece outfit Gob have been able to keep original fans happy while still attracting newbies the old-fashioned way – by penning and performing new anthems to keep the punk torch burning.
Gob’s Tom Thacker (vocals, guitar) Theo Goutzinakis (vocals, guitar) Gabe Mantle (drums) and Steve Fairweather (bass) have built a strong fan following starting with their self-titled first EP in 1993 and built momentum throughout the ’90s and into the new millennium with song singles “Soda,” “Give Up The Grudge,” and “I Hear You Calling.”
Now the band is back with their new release Apt. 13, which the band describes as, “a new offering that leans less towards the straight-up pop influence of earlier albums and instead puts focus on a fuller, more layered rock sound that includes sonic elements of decades past.”
The band is currently on a cross-Canada tour with a stop in a Banff’s Wild Bill’s on Monday (Nov. 3).
“It’s going pretty awesome and has taken us a pretty long way already; we’ve already been to P.E.I and back to Ontario from Vancouver,” Thacker said. We haven’t had much time to talk to anyone, but the songs have been going over really well. We’ll play a song off Too Late… No Friends and go into, say, ‘Radio Hell’ or something and it seems like people are enjoying them equally in the audience, so it seems to be going over well.”
Thacker has called New York home for the past 10 years, but the band still considers Vancouver as Gob headquarters. “We all meet up in Vancouver, I mean that’s where we’re from and it’s just easiest that way, all our gear goes there,” Thacker said. “It’s possible that we might start hubbing out of New York, but we’re a Vancouver band and that’s where we go and that’s where we rehearse and everything.”
Thacker says there’s so much going on in New York the intense vibrations of the city help fuel his inspirations towards songwriting.
“Honestly, I was touring full-time with Gob and Sum 41 and we put out Muertos Vivos in like 2008 and I know this record took forever to come out. But I had those songs written in 2010 and I don’t know where I found the time because both bands were touring constantly, so anytime I was home I would pick up a guitar or sit at the piano and write a song because there’s so much inspiration there within the city,” Thacker said.
“The song ‘New York’ isn’t about the city, it’s about wanting to get home and finish the record and that was a lyric that came around later, you can tell by the anxiety like, ‘lets get this f#@king record done and get it out’ because it started to weigh down on me and I was worried about what if something happened and the record never came out.”
Thacker feels it’s an important record for Gob after having gone through a list of changes throughout their career. “It’s the one where we’re kind of heading back to where we came from, that we’re kind of OK with everything we’ve put out in the past,” Thacker said.
“When you put out a record and tour it for a couple of years you kind of get tired of it and I think you push it away and you reject it and finally now I can listen to our earlier stuff and see the charm in it and see what I loved about it back then.”
Thacker flew to Vancouver in 2010 to meet up with the rest of Gob and was worried what his bandmates would think of the new material. “I didn’t know if we had a record because they might hate all of these songs. I had about 30 and we picked through and cut it down to 15 and 13 went onto the deluxe version, but it all came together because we all have similar but very different tastes,” Thacker said.
“I think even though the songs are different and you can look at them as separate entities; it does make an album and albums are supposed to take you for a ride and go to different places.
“Being a punk rock band we didn’t really do that with our first couple of records -– it was all just blistering fast music, there was very little time to chill out. I think now we’re getting back to that, but we’re also introducing other elements and giving it as a whole so in my opinion it’s more of an album and I don’t know if people are used to that anymore with just singles to sell, but it’s more of an album with an experience to listen to the whole thing.”
Gob has also found a new home with Toronto-based heavy music label New Damage Records (Cancer Bats, Danko Jones) to go along with the new album. “It’s awesome – once we were done the record we kinda sat back wondering what we should do,” Thacker said. “We’ve been on indies, we’ve been on majors, it’s all kind of the same, but the music industry has changed a lot and people aren’t selling as many records and we wanted to be with somebody who knows what’s going on and has the passion for music.
“I talked to a bunch of labels and they all seemed awesome, but New Damage just seemed to click perfectly with us so we chose them.”
Thacker feels Apt. 13 is receiving good responses from fans, critics and from people discovering Gob for the first time.
“It’s 20 years later, 20 years down the road, so I think people who have stuck with us are going to be stoked that we put out a record and hopefully it will get some play and anyone that went away, or new people, can hear it and have a chance to enjoy it themselves,” Thacker said.
“In reality, when you think about it, our jobs are the best jobs to have – we play rock and roll music, people give us their attention, we get to be ourselves – it’s like winning the lottery to have this job.
“We’ve done it all, we’ve toured in a van, played houses and slept on floors and we played Budokan and been in buses and flown around the world and the most important thing is playing your music.”
