Music > Interviews

Gladboy

08/09/18

In the past several months Gladboy have created a strong presence in the local scene. Noted for their extremely charismatic, charming and energetic live sets. They've also supported LA-based band Starcrawler and created a very healthy fanbase. 

Callum: What bands are you listening to at the moment?

George: In terms of new stuff, I’ve really liked Snapped Ankles. I’ve been listening to them a lot. When we were recording the EP I was listening to a lot of Flamingods as well. I’d say live we go quite fast and quite funky, and that’s probably an influence from them. We are all listening to Nilsson a lot too, Harry Nilsson. Have you listened to him?

Callum: I haven’t actually, how would you describe him?

George: It’s the coolest dad rock on the scene. He’s got an album called Nillson Schmilsson, which is the most famous one. It’s got a picture of him in his dressing gown on the front. When me and Sonny first met we talked about him a lot, but now everyone in the band has started listening to him. I think we’re really into that idea of proper songwriting. Also, we’ve been listening to a lot of Death Grips.

Sonny: Yes sir!

George: He’s been to see them recently in Brixton. We’ve been listening to Sophie too. She’s got this song called face shopping that has a beat that literally sounds like it’s made with a cutlery drawer. Nude Party as well, they’re an American band Adam showed me, and they’re really rock ‘n’ roll. Like Black Lips, garage rock-y. In terms of new bands though, Snapped Ankles are the one.

Callum: Who’s been the most formulative for you?

Sonny: I’d say as a band we’re all pretty influenced by different people, and we all bring it together in like a big soup.

George: I guess kinda the beach boys, ‘cause we do a lot of harmonies and lots of people say they can hear the beach boys in it. Not necessarily their sound, but their approach and attitude of like experimenting and getting pop music and making it interesting. I like making music that’s accessible, but also doing it in an interesting way.

Callum: Do you have a process? When you’re writing the music?

George: I don’t really have a formula. When I speak to my friends and people that have seen us, they say that we have a lot of songs. To me, I don’t think we have as many as I’d like to have. It’s mainly because I’m not really that prolific. I don’t really know what my process is, I really struggle with writing stuff purposefully so often I get too interested in what other people are saying. When we were recording the EP, we were still changing stuff.

Egopushin' is going to be the title of the EP, and we think it’s going to be the main single. That kind of came about by when we changed instruments one practice. I came up with this really 60s sounding drum beat, and Sonny did this cool middle-eastern sort of style riff over the top. Sometimes he’ll just come up with something really amazing out of nowhere.

Sonny: We’ve also recently got a synth/percussionist and a vocalist/percussionist in form of Alex Calder and Janani Arudselvanathan.

George: We’ve never written songs with a rock template, the bigger lineup has really helped with imagining the whole beach boys thing of a bigger sound.

 Callum: What’s been your favourite performance you’ve done so far?

George: I’d say the gig that changed everything was when we played at the Owl Sanctuary. It was a venue I’d heard of before I came to Norwich. I never expected to ever headline it.

Sonny: It was only like our tenth gig as well.

George: Actually, how can we forget about Starcrawler? That gig was amazing. It was so surreal, all these people around us. It felt like we were representing Norwich with this massive band that let us use all their stuff. I’ve never been so nervous and so confident.

Sonny: Yeah it was a shocker.

George: It was the first time I saw people we didn’t know dance to the music and really enjoy it.

Callum: I’ve heard that you like to be different? Do you have a favourite maverick, or someone who likes being different?

Sonny: I would say Brian Eno, myself. I think it speaks for itself. He’s always sought creativity and new things. He’s just an amazing speaker, individual, musician and technician.

George: Todd Rundgren – he was a producer and a singer in the 70s. He did this album called A Wizard/ A True Star. The thing is now everyone home records, and at the time it was on tape and to produce it yourself back then took a lot of work.

Callum: Do you ever find yourself chasing a particular sound? 

George: We’re sometimes quite idealistic. We’re like OK yeah we’ll get the drums from The Who, the vocals from The Beach Boys and the synths of Animal Collective! We always try to throw together different artists we all listen to together. We wanna sound like other people, but all we really wanna do it sound like ourselves – I don’t know if that sounds really pretentious?  I’m not really into revival stuff, you wanna make it modern and put your own spin on it.

Callum: The Norwich music scene, would you describe it being in a healthy state?

George: People are generally really supportive. Birds of Hell are fantastic. There’s good stuff, but nothing is really coming in and changing everything. We’ve got people like Richard Shashamane though, who goes to like every gig in Norwich. I sort of wish we had a bit of music further from the mainstream to offer in exchange for that.

Sonny: I find it’s often between singer-songwriter or revivalism

George: Revivalism in the sense that sometimes there’s not much to offer and it can be quite modest. It’s quite polite, and nice. It doesn’t need to be chaos, though.

Callum: Do you have any favourite pieces of music that would surprise the people who would listen to you?

Sonny: Autobahn by Kraftwerk. I can feel the wind blowing through my hair. I really love long pieces of music.

George: Sonny has really got me into that electronic music thing, like Boards of Canada. When people see us, they think we’re really 50s, but we’re still listening to Aphex Twin.

Callum: What are we expecting from Gladboy soon?

George: The EP is 5 tracks, we wanted it to kind of capture the energy of the live performance. It’s our attempt at an ideal live show. We’ve used a piano on one song that gave it this sort of Bowie-esque sound. Some of the EP is a bit more relaxing. Then we’ve got the Waterfront Show. There’s also some talk about a mini-tour. Although, we don’t wanna run before we can walk.

By Callum

Featuring George Orton & Sonny Mitchell of Gladboy

Header image by Taryn Everdeen @taryneverdeenphotography 

Text image by Carl Hammond