Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes is back with his fourth solo record, Turn The Car Around. In advance of his upcoming Irish tour dates, David Roy quizzed the Oxford man about making the album during the pandemic and how it feels to be back under his own steam in the wake of the recent Supergrass reunion...
HI GAZ, how does it feel to have your fourth solo album Turn The Car Around out in the world?
The first week or so of release was a great time, actually. I was out and about doing in-stores at various kinds of cool record stores around the country. And it was great to be able to really feel the vibe coming back off everybody I was meeting in stores and the signing sessions, and hearing people's thoughts about it.
For me, that was the moment it just started breathing – it was almost like the fans were sort of breathing life into the record. So that was a kind of cool moment, just to have it all come to life like that.
Obviously, before for you kick off [an instore tour], you're kind of thinking 'well, what's the vibe going to be like? Am I going to be stuck in a little corner next to a broom cupboard?', or whatever. But that's the beauty of cool little record stores – it's not about playing a gig there, it's about buying cool records.
So I loved them. I thought they were great. All that intimacy with a small amount of people, that interaction, is always really nice. Being onstage and just kind of chatting with the crowd and all that sort of thing, it always feels it was really warm. There's just nice vibes in the room.
Were you playing with your band for those in-stores?
For most of them it was just me on guitar, playing through a handful of tracks on the new album and a couple of oldies, but there were a few in-stores that were more appropriate for a band, like Rough Trade East in London, which has a bigger stage. So we did that as a full band which was really cool.
Are you ready for your album tour which arrives in Ireland next month?
Yeah, it's sounding really good. We did quite a bit of work at the end of last year, actually, a month or so in November round at my studio, just working out parts. I mean, there was so much that I needed to remember, because I record a lot of stuff first and second takes when I've kind of not really nailed the idea yet. That's when I like to capture things, because I think there's like a sweet spot early on, where you get really good performances.
So yeah, for me, it was a lot of kind of remembering what I'd done as well as translating it to the live band. We did some hard work on that last year, and then did a show at Lafayette in London. We played most of the record that night and it was brilliant, it was an amazing show. It sort of really gave us all a real buzz for what's to come in the next month or two.
What's your favourite tune to play off the record?
I don't know actually, I mean we're still getting to know them all live. Long Live The Strange has been really connecting, it's sounding great, and I think Feel Loop (Lizard Dream) could become sort of an unexpected live favourite. It definitely got an insane response when we played it in London last year.
Are you generally thinking about how or even if you'd be able to perform each song live while at the recording stage?
Whatever I get across on the record, it's kind of just got to be what's right for the track, what's right for the song and that emotional connection or whatever. So, I mean, if it needs another instrument or a string quartet, I don't really care about having to replicate that exactly [live], because I know the songs tend to take on their own sort of character and personality when we play live anyway.
Do you have a regular band who you like to record and/or tour with?
Yeah, I've got this a great bunch I've been working with for almost eight years, some of them longer. We've been a pretty solid unit for some time now, so they were definitely involved in this record.
Garo [Nahoulakian] and Nick [Fowler] are in the live band and we're really good mates anyway. We're just like super close, so we always like to hang out. We did quite a few sessions during the making of this record where I'd just bring up tracks and we'd play around in the studio. Someone would jump on a piano or whatever and try out ideas.
And there was also a lot of great collaboration on this record too with some very talented people like Loz from RIDE who drummed on one track and Piney Gir, who I've been a huge fan of for years. I'm very lucky to be able to turn to her and the other Roxys [Emma Brammer and Amy Asher] for live vocals.
Turn The Car Around was written and recorded during the pandemic, a time when everyone was hyper-focused on matters close to home, with family and friends and life and death. Did that have an impact on what you were writing about?
Yeah, that's really true actually. I mean, every record that I make is kind of based around that particular period of time in my life, I suppose. And I was definitely conscious of just keeping a general overview of life, you know, away from away from the pandemic.
That's what this record is, really: sort of life and love and grief and friendship and all of those things, just weirdly written and recorded in a very unusual time. I think I'll probably be unpicking it for some time really. Like, 'what's inside this record?'
I think I'll probably have to admit that there's elements that were impacted because of the pandemic, for sure. And I think you're right, I think that sort of focus more on what's immediately around me was perhaps a little bit more amplified than it normally would have been.
You've been a solo artist for over 10 years now. Has it been a learning curve?
Completely – I think it has to be, really. And it's been a great 10 years, you know? It's been really cool to see where it's come from, you know, playing in front of 50 or 60 people in a small venue in the Midlands somewhere to now when I've got four [records] under my belt and the shows are the biggest shows that I've done as a solo artist. That's really cool.
Is it getting harder to choose the set now you have such a body of work to draw upon?
Yeah, maybe I'll have to start playing for three hours like The Cure or something. And there's all the Supergrass hits as well that we've got to get in. No, it's gonna be brilliant to be able to do that with the set, and also just kind of pick and choose each night.
Are you really going to start playing Supergrass songs in your solo sets?
No, I don't think so. Not yet, necessarily. I think there's always time for that in the future, if I need to, but for right now, I just want to play this record, man. It's feeling great and I don't really feel the need to do anything else.
Gaz Coombes, April 14, The Academy, Dublin / April 15, The Limelight, Belfast. Tickets on sale now via Ticketmaster.ie. Turn The Car Around is out now.
