“We’ve Just Transitioned Beyond Being a New Band” – GENGAHR Discuss Album Number Two
We sat down with indie favourites to talk about life on the road and their highly-anticipated second album.
It is a cold November night when I’m being joined by Felix Bushe, lead singer of Gengahr, on the cosy couch at The Courtyard in London.
Tonight surely feels special as the band pays their hometown a visit. With new offerings in their repertoire, the curiosity and excitement float in the air as these autumn tour dates are the only chance to experience new songs before their release.
Personally, it feels special to me as Gengahr‘s show was my first take on music journalism and live photography a while back when this whole thing started. But maybe let’s not get too emotional just yet. There will be some time for this later on.
Having used the recording studio as their recent hideout, the London four-piece hits the road again and as it turns out it’s truly amazing, and slightly different at the same time.
Very good! All the shows have been great but it’s been different to what we did last year really.
I think it seems like the songs have managed to fill through a little bit now. Even when we were touring the first time around, the album had just come out so a lot of people only knew the singles, not the album from start to finish. But now when we’re playing everyone seems to know all the songs. That’s been amazing.
Mostly, the crowd’s response has been different. I think we’ve maybe just sort of transitioned beyond being a new band so people are coming back to see us for the second or third time. I think that’s probably the main difference.
Genaghr embarked on an extensive but intimate tour across the country which is a great opportunity to showcase brand new material. Where is better to do that than in their local surroundings?
Felix does not hide the excitement as he says:
I think tonight is probably going to be the best because obviously, this is our hometown so we’ve got a lot of friends and family coming down. We’ll probably have a little party after but only a mild one because we’re playing tomorrow. I’m excited but all shows have been good you know.
Any interesting, bizarre perhaps, stories to share?
Oh no, we’re very professional now. It is a very long tour for us so there’s not much time to recover between shows. I think we’re doing around 20 shows with about four days off so that’s a lot. I think now we’re doing nine back-to-back which we’ve never done before even when we were doing festivals. But on these ones I think we’re still a little bit nervous so everyone is trying to look after themselves and survive till the end.
I had a throat infection before we started, a week before I couldn’t even rehearse, I could’t make a noise so that was a little bit scary. Thankfully it worked out and I’m feeling okay now. But it’s a new experience for us you know, this level of professionalism – he laughs.
Last year saw Gengahr releasing their debut album, A Dream Outside, meeting a wide critical acclaim. The praise over their unique guitar-driven sound had not stopped as they kept bringing dreamy psychedelia to their thrilling shows.
Now stepping into the recording studio a new chapter for the guys has been set. There’s been a few rumours and a couple of secrets surely. Either way, the hype is real and many people are looking forward to hear new snippets.
So the debut is out, the times of discussing Pokémons are over, how’s it going with the album number two?
We’ve done a lot but it feels a bit different this time around. I guess there is more pressure. We want to make sure that it’s right and we want to be 100% happy with it. We didn’t want to feel it was rushed at all. I think we’ve got more than we had even expected to by this point.
We’ve got a pretty strong idea about what the album should sound like
This tour is an opportunity for us to really play some of the songs we’re happier with and see what people’s responses will be. The show reviews have been really positive so far so I think we must be on the right track. We’re happy with a lot of stuff, we just need to pick what we’re gonna do and record it. It’s an interesting stage for us now. There’s a lot to choose from.
Well, that definitely sounds encouraging. There are always great expectations when it comes to sophomore albums. Some bands struggle at the start, some meet a creative obstacle in the middle of the process, some never see the end, while the fans relentlessly wait for the outcome.
What has been the biggest challenge?
I think starting is fine. You feel fresh because by the time you finish touring after a year and a half you’re really like itching to get into writing again you know. I still feel a little bit like that now. I still feel very positive about writing and I haven’t got bored of it yet.
Maybe that’s one of the reasons why we haven’t quite decided it’s done yet, because until it feels like it’s not fun any more we should keep going with it. I think it’s very close now but I kinda want to give it another month just to see what happens over that period you know.
I think you get to realise what it is you want to achieve
Let’s delve more into the songwriting process and recording methods. Any significant changes?
We’ve tried a lot of things. We were writing pretty fast, playing live and just doing live demos. Then we went and did some more in depth stuff. We played around a lot and spent three months doing kind of production ideas. It’s a luxury we didn’t have before and it is great because you get to try different things, and I think you get to realise what it is you want to achieve really. We’ve got a pretty strong idea about what it should sound like. I think a lot of challenges have been met.
The first time around we didn’t have an idea about production style we wanted to go for. Now we’ve got something to compare to. So you kind of have lessons learnt but also things you want to achieve, which you didn’t get quite right the first time. It is a different prospect but I feel we’ve got a good starting point.
Despite forming Gengahr only a few years ago Felix’s band mates John Victor (guitar), Hugh Schulte (bass) and Danny Ward (drums) go way back. Every group must experience better and worse days I think, but apparently this one shares a pretty strong bond.
No, we’ve known each other for too long for fights really.
Well, surely that’s a new. I mean four lads on tour, that must get a bit messy sometimes.
No, no really. We get on really well. We’re best friends. I was in the same class as Danny and Hugh in school and if we were gonna fall out we probably would have already you know. And they went to primary school together so it’s very much happy family.
As for a happy family then, what has been the highlight of this journey, the moment you thought “Oh wow, this is it”?
Like out the whole of Gengahr? Hmm.. maybe when we went to Australia. It was probably one of the big moments for us because we were actually signed there before we were signed here, but we didn’t really know what was going on ’cause obviously it’s very far away. But then we played Splendour in the Grass Festival. It would’ve been last year. We went there with no real expectations of anything, the crowd was massive and everyone seemed to know all the songs. We were really stunned.
We played before #1 Dads – quite big act there – so we had an early slot. The tent was huge and we were kinda thinking “They must have put us in the wrong place” you know. I think we played to maybe twice as many people as we’d play at Glastonbury so that’s pretty mad to go to the other side of the world and experience that. That still sticks out for me as the strangest, maybe the happiest sort of surprise so far.
Judging by the band’s success to date I am sure the future holds more surprises as such, if not even better.
Any other plans in the diary?
I think we’ve got hands full with the album. That’s pretty much what we focus on really. When that’s done, then we’ll carry on doing this again, which is touring.