Music > Interviews

Gogo Penguin

21/01/16

Now, Norwich knows all about Gogo Dragons, don’t we. But what about their more grounded cousins, Gogo Penguins? This Mancunian three piece have been going great guns since their Mercury Prize nomination a couple years back, and their new album is due out this month. With influences from Aphex Twin to the classical greats, they’re a classy cut above the rest. I spoke to Nick, the Penguin’s double bass player, about jazz and how they got their intriguing name.

How come you’re called GoGo Penguin?

Initially we were just three guys getting together to make some music; there wasn’t even really a plan to make a band and go out and gig, we just wanted to get together to play. A friend of ours who was running a night in Manchester had a band pull out so he got in touch and asked us if we fancied playing. We didn’t have a name. There was a weird, stuffed papier-mâché kind of magpie thing that looked more like a penguin. Someone suggested our name could be Penguin, then Go Penguin, and finally Gogo Penguin!

Do you own that crazy bird now?

No I don’t know what happened to it, it’s been lost in the mists of time, probably for the best!

How would you describe your sound? Would you describe it as nu jazz?

No I probably wouldn’t. It’s really difficult for us to describe it because we’ve got so many influences. Chris and Rob both studied classical music and I studied jazz, so there’re obviously those elements in our music but we’re also really into electronica and try to replicate electronic music in an acoustic way. In fact somebody called it acoustic electronica, which doesn’t make much sense! We try not to think about it too much..if we call it jazz people expect certain things from the music that we might not necessarily do.

To what extent do you include improvisation when you play live? How does that work between you?

We’re looking at some of the new tunes now. We wanted to record the songs in the best way we could for the album but then when playing them live we want to incorporate some improvisation. Normally we play the tune and then there’ll be solos and stuff. We like to keep it fairly loose so we can go wherever it takes us on a whim but without getting too free jazz about it. It’s quite difficult to explain.

At what point did you start getting into music personally?

I got a bass guitar when I was 13 and totally fell in love with it. And that was it from then on, I knew that was what I wanted to do. I had no idea of what kind of music I wanted to make; when I first started I was listening to my older brother’s record collection, which consisted of Manchester guitar bands like Joy Division, The Smiths and The Stone Roses. Then I kind of graduated into funk and hip hop and eventually jazz. I studied jazz at Leeds College of Music, which is where I took up the double bass. I had a teacher who played it, and it intrigued me.

Jazz as a genre can be considered quite challenging to get into. What would you suggest would be a good starting point for a beginner?

Tough question! I remember hearing some stuff when I was younger, like Eric Dolphy and it just seemed really out there. It took me a long time to get into that. I guess people often turn to Kind of Blue by Miles Davis to start off with and that kind of makes sense. It’s influenced so much music that came after it that you can go back and detect that lineage. It’s a great album.

How did you feel when you were nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2014, and what did you think of the winners, Young Fathers?

We were absolutely blown away by it really. We’d applied for it but had forgotten all about when it was announced, so when our manager emailed us to say we’d be chose we were amazed. For us it was incredible..we were the least known band on the list. Everybody else had a bit of a reputation and we’d come out of nowhere. Young Fathers…I thought they did a great speech, ha ha! I haven’t checked out too much of their stuff although we saw them knocking about backstage.

I suppose one of the best things about being nominated for the Mercury is that it introduces your music to so many people who wouldn’t otherwise have heard it.

Yeah, the amount of attention it brought to us was phenomenal. We couldn’t have got that so fast off our own backs. We had a bit of a following but when we got shortlisted, we had a lot of people saying they found out about us through the Mercury. I think just being shortlisted for us felt like winning. We didn’t ever entertain the possibility of winning it, in fact our manager had already told us we wouldn’t win, so we just had a nice time!

How would you say your sound has developed from when you first got together?

Yeah, maybe not compositionally yet, but I guess it’s a bit more electronic than our last album. I think the main thing that I’ve noticed is that since we’ve been out on the road so much doing loads and loads of gigs we sound more like a band, and a better band. Everybody knows their role and we know the spaces to go to more than we did when we were making v2.0, our last album.

Your new album Man Made Object is out this month. Can you tell us a bit about what we can expect?

It’s not a huge departure from the last one in terms of where we’re at in terms of style but there are a few more pointers towards electronica, as I said.

Do you make other styles of music individually or with other musicians?

We don’t really have time any more. This is our main thing and we’re so busy with it. I know that Chris has been wanting to do more stuff with synths and he was also doing some solo classical stuff but that’s really gone out the window with how busy we’ve been. Rob’s always making electronica on his laptop and I used to always be gigging here there and everywhere with other people but Gogo Penguin is our main thing now.

This tour is taking you through Europe and the UK and your two Manchester dates are already sold out. What’s the music scene been like for you there?

I love the city and I think the music scene’s really strong. It’s not as big or varied as London but everybody knows each other, there’s one degree of separation between each person. Even if you’re not involved in a particular style everyone’s aware of what’s happening. Everyone’s been really supportive of what we’ve been doing.

I was wondering if you have heard Mammal Hands, a great jazz group from Norwich?

Yeah totally! We actually played a festival with them in Birmingham, they were on before us and I ended up telling the chap who runs Gondwana Records about them and he signed them! The last time we played in Norwich we supported them and they did their thing, they’re great.

You’re signed to the legendary label Blue Note now, that’s a real achievement! Has this spurred you onwards?

It took ages to sink in after it happened because it came out of nowhere really! Our manager sent us an email on the Tuesday, we had a gig in Hamburg on the Friday, and he said “Oh, some guys from Blue Note might be coming out to see you play, but don’t worry about it.” So we were like “OK..” It was a great room, a good audience, so we felt reasonably comfortable. Then we had a chat with the head of Blue Note in the U.S, Don Was, and then Blue Note France who were really cool guys and the next week there was a deal on the table. We couldn’t really believe we were signed to Blue Note!

Gogo Penguin play Norwich Arts Centre on 12th February. Tickets available from ueaticketbookings.co.uk