The Go! Team

• Posted: Wed 19 Jan 2011
• By: Kev

The Go! Team are an essential British band for me, as well as producing some quality music they bring a brightness and energy to the live stage that is seldom matched by anyone else and more importantly, I can't think of another band that sounds like them.

At a time when so many other bands are trying desperately to fit into a certain scene or capture a certain element of music from the past, The Go! Team just plough their own path in technicolour glory.

They are back with their third album this year and that is proceeded by a brilliant hook up of a single...so all in all the perfect time to chat to them, we spoke to Ian recently to find out how things are for The Go! Team at the moment.

Firstly, it’s been a while since we heard from The Go! Team, was it a conscious decision to step backfor a while or is that just how it worked out?

 We never really stopped - we were touring for ages going all over the world - like singapore, ukraine, china - plus I had a kid which always slows things down - in a good way - and the music takes a long time to write. I ain't no genius so I work best by hoarding ideas with lots of trial and error. there were no left over songs at the beginning of album 3 it was a nice blank slate.

From the new single i’ve heard it sounds like the time has been well spent, there is a real freshnessto the single and it feels like the energy is back with the band, which I felt was a little lacking on the last album, is that fair comment?

Mmm not sure - lots of people say there was too much energy and that it was an exhausting listen! Proof of Youth was a deliberately relentless record but this time I tried to make sure there was light and shade. I really love contrasts and wildly different types of songs rubbing shoulders to make each thing count - Rolling Blackouts has got that.

Buy Nothing Day is the new single due out in a week or two, as I said it’s got a real fresh feel, for me it has an almost Californian sunshine pop feel to it, were those sort of influences in your mind when you wrote and recorded the track?

With Bethany, I had a song called Buy Nothing Day that had a californian girl group kinda a feel and I discovered Best Coast on myspace and loved her voice -this was about december 2009 so before all the Best Coast hype. It has more of a jangly girl group feel than anything else we've done. its all crashing waves, pacific coast highway and flipdown shades

How much of an indicator is that track for the sound and feel of the new album?

Kinda - its more singalong, more melodic. Some songs are "fuck me is that the go team" others are clearly the go team like Apollo Throwdown or Voice yr Choice. It's definitely more eclectic than the last 2 records.

It spans Ennio Morricone-esque gospel, kinda street corner psych hip hop, groovy country, little radiophonics workshop interludes, noisy guitars, wall of sound girl groups but I think it all sounds like the go team rather than 13 different groups. it was quite a natural thing cos I feel like i'm always getting pulled in different directions by music and each day my favorite music is changing.

You are heading out on tour shortly, you’ve always stood out from any other band in the live arenawith a very visual and energetic show complimenting the music, how do you keep that side of the band fun and fresh both from your own point of view and for your audience from year to year?

Yeah even now we've been together about 6 years I still feel like there's no one else like us - sonically but also as a band maybe cos we're such a mixture of different people. I never dreamt we'd still be together after all this time. One thing I can say is the energy is still there on stage - we've never phoned in a show.

Any surprises lined up for these shows?

Nothing really gimmicky - lots of swapping instruments, lots of jumping around. Our drumkits have flashing light up stars on the front of them now and we have a typewriter on stage with us!

Is anybody else in music exciting you at the moment?

I'm digging Best Coast, Deerhoof, The Ghostbox Records stuff, Blackmoth Super Rainbow.....