Band: Gob Members: Tom Thacker and Theo Goutzinakis Label: Aqurius Location: Jet Nightclub - Edmonton, Alberta Date: Saturday, January 19th, 2008 Interviewer: Bobby Gorman

I still remember it quite vividly. I had just finished grade eight. It was Klondike Days and Gob were playing the Telus stage. I was excited to see them, it was going to be my second concert ever and I was really geting into The World According To Gob. The band stepped onto the stage and ripped into their set and the pit went wild. Me, being the fourteen year old kid that I was, was not expecting it and quickly moved from the front of the stage to somewhere further back away from all the mayhem. I slowly made my way back up and got into it a bit but I was breaking all new grounds and didn't adventure off all too much. It was my first proper introduction to a full out mosh pit.

Now, over six years later, I've grown up a bit. I've been to many more concerts, including two or three more Gob ones and I have yet to forget that moment or the feeling from that night. So suffice to sat, I was quite excited to talk to the band that introduced me to mosh pits back in the day and ask them about their memorable concerts, their new album - Muertos Vivos, American Idol and much more. It was a good interview and the guys were incredibly nice. I got there a little early and started with Tom and Theo joined in two thirds of the way through. Thanks to the band for doing it and to Joanne for setting it all up.

Bobby: I guess starting with the basics; you guys are in the middle of your Western Canadian tour. Does it feel good to get back out on stage and perform?

Tom: Yeah, definitely. It’s awesome for us to get back to Calgary and Edmonton and everywhere we’ve been. It seems like people are loving it, all the shows are sold out so it’s cool.

Bobby: Before the release of Muertos Vivos you guys weren’t touring or playing live all that much. As a performer, how hard was it not to be out there touring and playing your songs live?

Tom: I guess it’s kind of hard if you’re sitting idle to not get out and play… let me start again. For the past four years… You know, we’ve been touring basically non-stop for the about ten years. So we kind of took a breather. We were doing the odd show here and there in B markets or C markets – like I don’t even know. Whitehorse, Yukon. Going to places that people just don’t usually go and play. We were doing the odd thing like that. Lost a bass player, replaced a bass player. A lot of things happened, me and Theo were working on other projects. So it didn’t really feel like nothing was happening. It wasn’t really until the record was done that things went really slowly. The record was done last January. We were pretty certain that we didn’t want to put it out through Nettwerk just because of things that were going on, the talks that we had been having with them. We were looking for another label and it just took a long time to get things to happen. We found a label, the label, Sanctuary, dissolved in the US. It was just about when we were about to put the record out. A lot of things like that happened and kept us from getting the record out to the public and getting out playing shows again. It doesn’t make sense to go and play shows without a new record unless you want to be a novelty band and that’s not what we wanted to do. We had these new songs ready to go.

Bobby: You were talking about looking for a new label and the album was released on Aquarius in Canada and Cobraside in the States. How did you meet up with those labels?

Tom: I actually met Aquarius, the people from Aquarius, through Sum41 and they wanted to hear the music. We got along really well and they loved the music so they wanted to put it out. There were a lot of labels that wanted to put it out but they seemed really cool. They were interested in doing things our way as opposed to working their own agenda; and of course they do. I mean, they’re going to work the record the way they work the record but they really respected the way we wanted to do things. We’ve been around a while and we’ve been through a lot, we’ve done a lot of things in a lot of ways and a lot of things happened. They were cool and did things our ways. Cobraside, we met through our manager. They’re a small label in the US that really concentrates on digital. They print CDs and vinyl but really you can see that the trend is going towards digital downloads so that’s sort of where they’re concentrating. It didn’t make sense for us to look for another major, big label. I mean, we would have possibly put it out on a big indie label but everyone’s got their own agenda and ours didn’t really mesh with theirs. So Cobraside seemed like a good fit.

Bobby: Your album, Foot In Mouth Disease, was released on Arista Records. After that they dropped you from the label, did that come as a surprise for you or were you kind of expecting it?

Tom: It didn’t come as a surprise. With labels like that, their projects are… I remember them talking about us selling millions of records and that was just unfathomable to me. I know that it happens to artists but I mean we’ve been doing it for a while. It would be great to sell millions of records and that’s what they were talking about. We went out on the road and we were doing well. That record did sell quite well for our standards but for major labels standards who were expecting it to sell two million records out of the box basically, it didn’t impress them. So when we saw some of the numbers at the end of the day they were looking at somewhere around two hundred thousand, not two million so we kind of had an idea. Then they started to get tight with funding and stuff. They bought us tickets to go away on tour, bought us plane tickets to go to Europe but didn’t fund the rest of the tour. Right there that probably would have been another twenty thousand record sales. But that’s just the way that they think. They have a deadline and it’s black and white. We weren’t surprised and, actually, we asked to be dropped. The label had a lot of trouble and that’s probably why everything was so black and white. I mean, they were hundreds of millions of dollars in debt just from the stuff they had been doing. Major labels, there’s a lot of money going in a lot of directions and none coming towards us. So we were like “can you let us out?”

And there were bands that actually got stuck signed to Arista Records when the company dissolved. It’s a bad place to be if no one cares. I mean, if you’re Avril Lavigne then it’s like “okay, well let’s take care of her.” But if you’re just the band that no one’s ever heard off, it’s all new staff and they just have this contract binding you to this record label. Record labels aren’t really necessarily cool about letting you out of your contract. They’re like “well, who knows? Maybe they’ll do well. Maybe let’s keep the record in case it blows up. We’re not going to do anything for them.” We got out and we were happy to get out, we were lucky.

Bobby: That seems to be the trend with a lot of bands right. Like Reel Big Fish just separated from Jive. Thursday left Island, The Ataris left Columbia. Also all the big named bands like Nine Inch Nails, And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead, Madonna and Radiohead. They all separated from the label to start fresh again. Why do you think so many bands nowadays are wanting to separate from their labels and start fresh, start new relationships?

Tom: Well basically the music industry is fucked up. It’s built on a system where… Like when they were manufacturing LPs and cassettes which are quite costly to make, they started making CDs. CDs cost a lot less to make but they charged more for them. So you see it’s just so greedy and it’s almost karma, I mean, it is karma that downloads are ruining the music industry. It kind of sucks because I’m a musician; this is what I do, this is what I want to do. This is what I love. But it needed to be a revolution in the music industry and it’s a good thing that it’s happening. I mean, Madonna can go anywhere she wants, anyone will sign her.

Bobby: She just signed a hundred and twenty million dollar deal with Live Nation, a 360 deal.

Tom: Exactly, she’s going to move into the future. Record labels - they don’t know what’s happening. They don’t know what is going to happen. But there are people that are taking steps in another direction with music and of anyone, Madonna is going to be able to meet with those people and know what time it is. With bands like Thursday, I would imagine that they were sort of in the same place as we were. They might have had a few more record sales then us but at the end of the day, major labels, they’re not going to nurture a band that isn’t buying the CEO Bentleys. The record sales aren’t buying them big fancy cars. Whatever.

Bobby: Let’s talk a bit about your new album, Muertos Vivos, which came out in October in Canada and November in the States. Was it good to get back into the studio after the four year break?

Tom: Yeah, well, we didn’t get in the studio after four years. We got into the studio after about two years and we recorded it over a year’s time in intervals, not a year straight. Like I said, it was done in January. So it was already completely finished by last January so we started about a year before that. Yeah, it was awesome. Some of the songs had been written four years ago. I got together with the guys and was like “we really have got to just do this because it’s not going to happen if we don’t just do it.” So we set it in motion. We had gone into rehearsal space and worked on some stuff. It would kind of go and then meander off into nothing. So we had to set deadlines basically to make it happen.

Bobby: Ignoring the title, Muertos Vivos, and the artwork of the album, the music itself is very dark and gloomy. Was that intentional when you guys were writing it? To make it a darker album compared to Foot In Mouth Disease?

Tom: I think that melodically, it’s not like we set out to choose darker sounds but it just sort of what appealed to us. And lyrically, I sort of went about this with letting it come out. I wanted it to be more like a stream of consciousness. I didn’t want the songs to have a narrative or a plot; I wanted it to almost sound like it’s just blurting out. A blurting out, like whatever you happen to feel at that moment and not for it to even necessarily be jointed. It didn’t really happen… *someone knocks on the door and Tom goes to answer it.* The tour manager knocked on the door and walked away. So yeah, we didn’t really plan to go in this direction, we didn’t have a concept necessarily, we chose what we thought were the best songs and then wrote the lyrics and then at the end of the day chose the name of the record.

And the title, because it seemed dark and there were a lot of songs that touched on death, I just liked the idea of the Mexican day of the dead. All of the Latin American countries celebrate “Dia De Los Murtos” and I think it’s a really healthy way to look at death. Everyone dies and our sort of Western way of handling death, it seems uncomfortable and weird. It seems a lot cooler. Muertos Vivos, I guess it would be like “Los Muertos Vivos” but we weren’t really trying to make it mean anything but it was like “dead” and “alive.” Juxtapose those two words and it seemed right. It had a good ring to it so it was the title for the record.

Bobby: Like you said, a lot of the lyrics talk about death. In “Still Feel Nothing” you say “I could kill with pain without a painkiller” and talk about dancing on graves…

Tom: Pissing on graves actually.

Bobby: Oops, pissing on graves, my mistake. Then on “Underground” you have “I went out to find a funeral, no one died, I was waiting.” You also have the singles like We’re All Dying and War Is Cemetary. “Prescription” is all about becoming numb with all the drug use. So there are a lot of references to death and numbness in the record. Did that just happen naturally?

Tom: It definitely just happened naturally. I think that it’s pretty easy to just look around and turn on the news and the human race is just at an all time low. Humanity seems really bleak right now with all the war that’s going on, the oil profits and with global warming and you kind of see that humanity should be moving towards a certain direction. But no, it just wants stay on its track towards certain death. I guess it’s almost metaphorical because we’re killing ourselves. It’s all about business, it’s all about greed. The same thing with the music business. It’s almost an unconscious thing, like I didn’t really want to have to say that but it’s just things that were blurted out. I think it’s just a natural feeling. It’s a good thing to get things out and I think that’s almost what it is. I mean, at times the lyrics definitely sound morbid but there are morbid thoughts. There’s the ying and the yang to everything. It’s not like we’re depressed or anything but there’s depressing things happening in the world and if you talk about it then you feel better about it.

Bobby: Yeah, instead of holding it all in and letting it build up; just letting it all out and releasing it.

Tom: Yeah, I mean every artist says that making the record is like therapy and that’s what it’s supposed to be.

Bobby: In May, you guys announced the track listing in all its alphabetical glory. You also said that one song may also end up getting cut from the album. Obviously it didn’t, but what song were you thinking about cutting and what saved it?

Tom: Well, the thing is that we don’t start working on twelve songs. We start working on about thirty songs or maybe even more and we twiddle it down from there. If things aren’t feeling right we lose those songs. It’s not that we don’t love the songs or whatever; we just want to make the best record possible. But who knows? I don’t know. I’m always the one who wants to cut songs, I’m the song cutter for sure.

Bobby: You guys also had a b-side called Girl A that was released as an iTunes bonus song. What made you guys give it to iTunes as a bonus track and will you guys ever release it anywhere else?

Tom: I think there were probably about three or four songs left at the end, but we’re not going to make a record that’s sixteen songs. And people want bonus songs when you release a record in Japan. It’s sort of an incentive for people in Japan buy it from Japan and not buy it from an American import or whatever. There’s just certain reasons why whoever’s distributing the record want a bonus track. We sort of kept that in mind, like our manager’s always like “you need bonus tracks!” There are always extra tracks and I just want the record to be the best record it is. If you cut the fat, you get a better product. You could shoot a film and it could be eighteen hours long and have everything you want in it and you notice when you get the director’s cut of a film or whatever. Like you get the film and you see the deleted scenes, usually, in my opinion, they should be cut. They don’t really add anything to the film; I understand why it’s cut. It makes the film better to have them out of there. That’s why the songs get cut and that’s why there are bonus tracks. Songs get cut to be bonus tracks.

Bobby: So do you have any more b-sides hanging around for Japanese releases or anything like that?

Tom: I don’t know. I mean, there’s other finished songs that no one will probably ever hear. I don’t know, we want to release the best stuff we have – I want to release the best songs we have. I mean, it’s going to be somebody’s favourite song. We could put out a song that we didn’t intend to release and it might be someone’s favourite song. But everyone’s got different tastes, we know what we want to put out.

Bobby: You guys also had to re-shoot some scenes for the “We’re All Dying” video because you lost some footage, did you ever find out what happened to that footage?

Tom: Yeah, somebody really wanted to see the video really badly so they broke into the production company and stole the video so they could watch it. Luckily they had a backup but they didn’t have a backup of everything.

That’s the exciting story. The actual story is that it was a problem with the hard drive. But the other one’s better, you should go with that one.

Bobby: Back in 2004, you guys promoted heavily the Much Music movie “Going The Distance.” I also read that you guys made an appearance in the recent movie “Sharp As Marbles.” It was released last March in Vancouver but hasn’t seen much of a proper release since then. Are there any other plans for a wider release?

Tom: I think there were plans for it to see the widest release it could possibly get. To be honest, I haven’t spoken to the film makers in a while. I’m not really sure what the plans are. I think they were relying more on television or on distribution than they were on a wide theatrical release.

Bobby: How did you get involved with that?

Tom: They saw our performance in “Going The Distance”… Actually, they wanted Theo to play one of the characters in the film or something. I don’t know what happened, lines got crossed. They never got to him in time, so they just asked us to be in the film, like a bit part. It was fun. It was a good time. I mean, I wouldn’t be opposed to doing it again.

Bobby: You guys were also in the YTV cartoon “Being Ian” in the episode “Band 'o' Bruthaz.” What makes you guys do all these little TV cameos and stuff like that? Just for fun?

Tom: Yeah, basically. And you know, we appreciate it when people appreciate us. It’s a fun thing to do. I’d rather be in a TV show or be in a film then work fast food or pretty much anything. I would probably rather be an actor if I could act than be a musician. It seems like a pretty cush gig. I think anyone would do it if they got offered something like that. Of course we check it out and see if it fits our moral standards or whatever; or our taste. It also helps us out; it exposes us to other people and shows that we are multi-faceted as well. We can play guitar and do a couple other things.

Bobby: The episode you guys were on, “Band 'o' Bruthaz”, was based on a contest called “Burnaby Idol” which is, of course, a take on Canadian and American Idol. You guys have been touring and playing since ’94, what do you think of the people who just go on Canadian Idol or American Idol and win a contest and are able to go out and tour without all the hard work building up to it?

Tom: I don’t know. Here’s Theo! What do you think Theo?

Theo: I don’t know. I think it’s just like a TV show that’s made to make that person popular. It’s made to be marketed so that a bunch of mainstream people that like that kind of music buy into it.

Tom: It really is no different than the music industry itself. A lot of artists don’t write their songs. This isn’t a new thing. It’s been going on forever; they’ve had song writing teams since whenever, like the sixties – way before that. They had song writing teams that wrote all the popular songs, the mow town songs and everything. The artist is basically just a face. “We can market this face, this voice. We can market this. The masses will love it.” American Idol is brilliant. It’s just a fast track. How many people watch TV? How many people watch reality TV? There you go. You have millions of viewers to watch these artists. Instead of developing these artists like they would have in the old days by getting them on MTV and do this and do that, put them on a TV show. Boom. Instantly famous.

Theo: It’s kind of like the new thing. They had the radio, or vinyl. Then vinyl to cassette, eight track, now it’s like the internet and MySpace. It’s a whole new breeding ground for marketing bands. It’s a TV series for marketing bands, to make them look cool and make people fall in love with them.

Tom: Everyone sees that it’s manufactured but they still buy into it.

Theo: It’s supremely cookie cutter. And they’re young; the kids are young that are doing it. They’re like “I want to be a star!”

Tom: I don’t think Taylor Hicks is very young.

Theo: Well, except for him. But most of them are pretty young.

Bobby: He just got dropped from his record label. Him and Reuben both got dropped from their record labels which prove that even if you win the contest or come in second you’re still not guaranteed to survive anyway.

Tom: In the major label world. They may have a career still if they play their cards right.

Theo: I think that Kelly Clarkson was the first one who won the contest; she’s probably the one who has the most going on. But then again, I don’t know. It’s the whole thing with images. I don’t buy into it. I mean I watch it for amusement and laughs and you think “oh well, that Simon guy’s an asshole.” But that’s part of the show.

Tom: It’s all a brilliant fucking fast track to success, to fame, and that’s what sells the record. I guess at the end of the day it’s the song that matters. If they have a good enough song and people think the song is good they’ll buy it. Fair enough I suppose.

Theo: Most of the times the stuff that they sing in the final, when they have that one song written by the producers, these are the songs that ninety-nine percent of the time they just suck. It just sucks. They’ve been singing all these hit songs that are from previous artists that are guaranteed big hits and then they come out with this song that these producers write or whatever, new up and coming producers and writers, and these songs are just so bad. If they had great songs then they would probably have success.

Tom: We’ll have to go out and find a funeral for people fucking making these songs. We’re waiting, we’re fucking waiting.

Theo: Yeah, exactly.

Tom: Nah, that’s awful. I’m bad.

Bobby: Going off on a different tangent, I know you guys are great friends with Sum41. You were talking about it earlier. I know when Craig left to go tour with Avril Lavigne, Cone came in to fill in on some tours. Tom just filled in for Dave in the last Canadian Sum41 tour. How did that relationship come about and is it fun to be able to swap members every once in a while?

Tom: Swapping is always fun. Cone didn’t actually tour with us, just when we toured with them… We met them just by touring with them basically. They had played some shows with us and they took us on tour in return. Before they were signed they played shows with us, after they were signed they brought us on tour. That’s how we became friends with them. Cone would just come out and play. Like when we played in Toronto he came out and played a solo with us. It’s just a sort of our ritual thing, he’s that kind of guy, he makes friend with people. When Dave left, it’s not like it’s necessarily fun. I mean, it’s fun, but they needed a guitar player so they asked me to play. With Craig leaving, well that wasn’t really fun at all because he was like our brother and left the band to go play in Avril’s band. Fair enough, I mean it’s a good gig and that’s cool that he got to do that and that’s probably a once in a lifetime chance for him. So that’s cool. But I mean, that was a little bit of a bummer to lose our bass player that we’ve had for so long.

Bobby: One thing I noticed during the Sum41 tour when you were playing was during the encore when they did a cover of Soda and you took the lead vocal duties. When you guys play that at your shows, like you played that at the Red on Whyte as the last song of the night and it was by far the fan favourite and everyone absolutely loved it. When you guys played it at the Sum41 show, it was weird looking around; very few people actually knew the song.

Tom: Oh really?

Bobby: Well, where I was anyway. Is it weird seeing that difference from being the fan favorite to not as many people knowing it?

Theo: I guess it’ll be different for different cities, they respond differently. I know in Vancouver when they played it, it went off really well. I don’t know about other cities.

Tom: Well, there are always people that completely freak out when they hear it. But I guess they do have a little bit more mainstream of a crowd so there would be some kids that might not know it. But it seems to go over well. I mean, they wanted to do it for that reason.

Bobby: Still speaking about Soda, do you guys still think that that’s the ultimate summer day? Sun shining down on the beach, drinking soda with friends? Still a good summer’s day for you guys?

Theo: Well, that was when we were younger so those sodas have matured into a beer. But I still drink soda.

Bobby: And do you (Tom) think you’ll ever sport the liberty spikes like you had in the video for Soda again?

Tom: I don’t know, who knows, we’ll see.

Theo: Did you know I was Tom’s hair stylist for that video shoot?

Tom: It’s been off and on my hair style.

Bobby: Nice, nice, did you pick the purple hair color too?

Theo: Well it was blue, atlantic blue I think.

Tom: Earlier when you said something about vocal duties, were you saying doody like poo? You were saying my vocal was like poo?

Bobby: *laughs* Nope.

Tom: Okay, just wanted to make sure.

Theo: Vocal doody.

Tom: You fucking made vocal doody all over the place! It stinks!

Bobby: I love going to concerts and I try to go to as many as I can. Of course there’s always some that are a bit more memorable than others. Thinking back, what are some concerts that you went to or played at that were really memorable for you?

Tom: It’s hard with played because we’ve played so many concerts that it’s hard to really pick one or two out. The last show in Edmonton was pretty awesome. Canada Day. That was a good one. The rest just kind of go into the archives and you don’t really think about them. A lot of our shows are a lot of fun so it’s hard to say. But as far as other people’s shows…. I saw this girl that had a band called Saint Vincent that was really impressive. I saw her in New York and it was really cool. That was a newer one that I’ve been too. I saw the Scissor Sisters, that was fun. They put on a good show. Mötley Crüe.

Bobby: Back in day or one of their many new tours of the past few years?

Theo: Vince Neil… Mötley Crüe when they did Shout At The Devil in Vancouver. He did Looks That Kill as the opening song and he said “now listen up” – which are the first lyrics – and he got pulled into the audience. Then when they came back for Theatre of Pain, he came out and “I remember you fuckers” like how they all pulled him in last time and everyone cheered because it was almost like they remembered the last time they were in Vancouver.

Tom: How do you know that?

Theo: I don’t know… I saw James Hetfield get hit in the head with a beer bottle once and it bounced off his head like he had a shield or force field on his head. Then he totally played through it. It was like bing! Like ricochet and it didn’t even affect him. Then after he finished playing the song he said “I hope someone sees the guy who threw the bottle at my head and teaches him a lesson” or something like that and the guy got fucking beaten by the whole audience. That was a good move though, that guy deserved to get his ass kicked.

Bobby: Yeah, it’s so stupid when people throw stuff at the band that’s playing. It’s like, well why are you there if you’re just going to throw stuff at them anyway?

Theo: I don’t know. I don’t know if people are throwing shit just because they’re going crazy. I remember when I threw a seat out at the audience, but that wasn’t at the band. *laughs*

Bobby: I guess one more question, when you guys were growing up whose poster did you have on your wall?

Theo: Holy shit…

Tom: Oh man, I had all the heavy metal. Iron Maiden. A lot of Kiss. I liked the Kiss.

Theo: Yeah, Maiden. Eddie Van Halen.

Tom: I think I may have had a Van Halen one too. They just didn’t look as cool as the Iron Maiden ones.

Theo: George Lynch.

Tom: Iron Maiden and Kiss were the two that stick.

Bobby: That’s about it, thanks a lot. Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to add?

Tom: That’s cool. I think we got a lot done. We covered a lot of ground. Nice interview.