Hi Matt, thank you for joining us, how is the feeling within this new and more experienced version of Wot Gorilla?
Well the last album was released in 2012, so a lot has happened since then. Our drummer Jason (Howard) and guitarist Grant (Beeden Clayton) weren’t in the band back then, so it’s their first album with us so they’re mega excited. For myself and Johnny (Newman-Hay) the exciting part is getting it released on vinyl, and with Drongo Records helping us out as well. It’s exciting for all of us really, and almost feels like a completely different band to the first album.
Having listened to stay home a few times, the presentation comes across delicate and quite sentimental but digging in you soon realise its a much heavier record. Are the heavy elements a result of new members or has it always been a presence?
Part of the reason it’s got heavier is that I’ve always been into post-hardcore and screaming throughout all my time singing, I’ve just never been doing it properly. I’ve been afraid to scream because I’ve always felt on the edge of wrecking my voice. But because of lockdown, I had two to three years and endless short clips of various screaming coaches and vocalists so I’ve picked up loads from that. I’ve probably been screaming in my car practicing from 2020 trying to get it right and I’ve found I’m not wrecking my voice anymore, so as soon as I could get that screaming in and not wreck my voice I just wanted to do more of it. We’re all into heavier music so it made sense that we’d evolve into this current sound at some point.
The album has an unconventional structure of seven tracks with none of them under five minutes? is this intentional or a natural progression of the albums development?
I would always just say it’s because I can’t write a traditional song and our older stuff maybe sounded more like it was going that way. I think in my head, I just couldn’t do it and strived towards going wherever the song takes me rather than trying to limit it to a traditional structure. As a band we’re all on a pretty similar page of what we want it to sound like, and I guess we always have the groundwork of previous incarnations of the band. Grant for instance he was just a fan of the band and we used to see him at gigs and over the years, we became friends. He genuinely enjoyed the stuff that we were playing, so he has a fondness for that kind of sound, but when you’ve been doing it as long as we have, the sound is going to change and we’re going to evolve. The math rock scene, it’s been and gone and come back again so it wasn’t intentional to get heavier and emigrate to a new scene its just the natural process of where we are.
Are you inspired by the current landscape of the math rock scene?
I’m a huge fan of Love Rarely its absolutely amazing what they’ve done, they’ve taken elements of all my favourite kind of bands, they’ve nailed it. But I’ll be honest I don’t go to as many gigs so it’s a little bit harder to hear new bands unless we’re playing with them and since we’ve started gigging again there’s been loads of great bands, but all very different as well.
Do you feel like the current crop of math rock bands have been influenced by yourselves?
I’m not sure about that, we still feel like we’re building our reputation but maybe somewhere along the way we’ve influenced someone.
How do you want Stay Home to be received and remembered?
I just hope people give it the time, because I think it probably needs the investment to really get it. I want people to let it sink and really absorb everything it has to offer. put the effort in and give it a few listens and hopefully get something out of it. There’s two or three songs where I’ve actually felt like I’ve had something to sing about whereas on previous releases lyrics have definitely been low down on my list of priorities. On Stay Home I’ve actually got something I want to sing about so hopefully someone can relate. People can relate to ‘Young Man’s Game’ I guess if there’s anyone in this industry who feels like time isn’t on their side they can really relate to some of the stuff I’m saying. I just want people to enjoy it and I’m hoping it convinces people to come see us. I think live it’s completely different to the record, the energy is visceral and intense in a way you can only get live.
How do you work with your insecurities as a musician? As someone who’s seen you live, you are such an impeccable unit, insecure is the last word I would use to describe you as a musician.
Well that’s very nice but it’s definitely there at every single gig. It’s always been there for me, It’s so stupid when you get to my age and you think you should have grown out of that by now, but it’s probably worse because you’ve then got the added analysis of your age and still being in a band. Even in my head I just think yes I’m still doing it because I love it and I don’t know what else to do with my time. I love doing it and the fear is probably a handy driving force, a little bit of doubt to go with the excitement and the nerves. I also think it’s impossible not to be at least slightly vulnerable playing just as much as you are writing and putting things on paper. To do it in front of people and hoping they stick around, there’s a lot on the line.
How has it been working with Drongo Records?
Ash Woolnough (Owner of Drongo Records) is brilliant even though yet to meet in person. But we’ve had a couple of discussions on the phone, texting back and forth, but he’s this extra person putting in just as much passion as we are to get out there. He’s genuinely just as keen as us and it’s been amazing to have them on board. We feel really lucky that they wanted to get involved with us, so it’s been magic really.
Previous singles ‘Very Good, Daniel’ and ‘Doomscrolling’ don’t appear on the album, what was the decision behind it?
We released ‘Doomscrolling’ and then it was time to think about what songs are going on the album and we’ve got well over an hour’s worth of tracks so it was a case of, we’ve already released these two, do we want to put them on or do we want to get more new material on them? I think the general consensus was get the new stuff on there and we’ve only 40 minutes to squeeze onto vinyl so that was really difficult. I’m just as happy with all the album tracks as I am those two singles, but it’s a shame that we couldn’t get them on there. There’s a couple more songs that didn’t make the cut, including an 11 minute track that didn’t make it that’ll we’ll definitely release eventually.
Grant was instrumental in the recording and producing the album with a large portion created at his house? how was that process?
Yeah, he’s just as talented at recording/producing as he is a guitarist/performer so it’s just amazing to have that in the band. Someone that we’re really comfortable working with as he’s in the band anyway, we generally agree on the direction of most things so it was a really fluid process. There’s not really any arguments, maybe bands should have that bit of friction but we don’t really, it’s just been a great experience recording with Grant. We had an indefinite amount of time to go around to his house, sit in his spare room, doing all the guitars and the whole experience was just a lot of fun to be honest.
What’s the dream cities and festivals this time around?
I’d love to go back to ArcTanGent, we played there in 2017 and we had a disaster. So I want to play there more, to just prove that we are a decent band, it was such a horrible experience and I’ve been a few times. Its one of the best in the country so it’d be great to play there again and put things right. Equally 2000 Trees Festival, we played it in 2013 and that’s one of my favourite festivals I’ve ever been too. In terms of cities it’s been along time since we’ve played London so its on the list.
Would you say Matt that this is the healthiest your relationship has been with music?
I would say definitely it’s the healthiest I’ve felt about playing in a band even though it just completely contradicts what I say about my on stage insecurities, But I’ve never felt so supported before. I think that’s down to Matt Purdon (Black Hills Music) and how easy he makes being in a band for us and he’s doing it all to make sure our music is heard and not for his own benefit really. He’s been putting in a lot of work to secure gigs for us and also got the ball rolling with Ash at Drongo so we have a lot to thank him for!
It’s been around two years since the last song was finished so we’ve just been rehearsing, planning and recording, I’d like to see how it feels once the album is out. I’d like to see how we can progress from this because it feels like a catalyst to push us because the band was nearly dead at one point. So we’ve got to a point now that’s way beyond where we’ve probably ever been so it’d be nice to use this now and just keep going and see what we can write in the next year and not wait another 14 years to release the next album. So I think it does feel healthy and better than ever.
Stay Home out now via Drongo Records. Pick up the record here.