Interview: Goldrush

Irgendwo hörte ich etwas über ein neues Goldrush-Album. Goldrush? Nie von gehört. Aber ich las eine gute Kritik nach der anderen, und am Erscheinungstag war ich so scharf auf das Album, das ich es mir sofort kaufen mußte. Zum Glück gab es „The Heart Is The Place“ schon am gleichen Tag bei Finetunes. Meine Begeisterung über das Album habe ich in meiner Rezension ja schon zum Ausdruck gebracht. Und aus dieser Begeisterung heraus entstand auch die Idee, die Band nach einem Interview zu fragen. Auf eine kurze Anfrage per E-Mail kam auch eine prompte und sehr nette Antwort. Robin Bennett, Frontmann der Band, erklärte sich bereit, mir via Skype Rede und Antwort zu stehen. Das Ergebnis gibt es nach dem Klick.

nicorola: first of all: many thanks.

Robin: A pleasure to talk to you.

nicorola: thanks. you’re the first artist i’m doing an interview with via skype. the others were done via e-mail. ok…you’re in london right now?

Robin: I’m in Steventon, a small village 70km from London.

nicorola: ah, ok, I just saw it in my buddy-list.

Robin: how modern!

nicorola: so…I think I start with my questions..

Robin: fire away.

nicorola: I red something quite unbelievable about your first album: you were kind of dropped by your record company, and they even told the reviewers not to write about it. is that true?

Robin: I think the A&R guy who came in told Music Week not to cover it, while we were still signed to the label.. pretty bad!

nicorola: who came in?

Robin: A&R means the guy who deals with bands on a label. Artist and repertoire.

nicorola: no, pardon. I meant: why does he came in? I think a&r-managers have to work for you, not against you?

Robin: Because our guy was sacked, due to Mariah Carey’s album failing badly. When somebody new comes they want their own bands, like a football manager

nicorola: so you had a real bad start as a band. what happend after you were dropped?

Robin: one guy left, we continued and recorded 2 eps on our own label, one of them with Dave Fridmann in America. We also spent some time in the US with Mark Gardener. A lot of travel and no money unfortunately!

nicorola: is some of this material on „ozona“?

Robin: Yes, it’s mainly from those EPs and other stuff done at that time. It sounds a bit like a travel documentary, and the songs were recorded all over the place- London, LA, New York, Steventon..

nicorola: I like it a lot. you said in an interview, that some songs of „ozona“ were not even finished while you began to record it. did you change your way of writing songs before recording the new album?

Robin: some of the Ozona songs are more like a diary of where I was, usually America actually… a lot of the music was rehearsed with the band before the lyrics. This time I worked on them all in advance with either Garo or Danny, my LA friend. We took care to avoid any American references this time though.

nicorola: Garo plays guitar, right?

Robin: Yes. He also wrote some of the drum and keyboard parts. we worked in his shed where he has a piano and an organ..

nicorola: so you wrote the songs together….how does your brother came in? what instruments does he play?

Robin: he was less involved at that stage as he had begun living in Brooklyn. We decided this time to make use of his many instrumental talents- violin, trumpet, piano, horn and so on. He also enjoys playing with synths and did almost all the backing vocals.

nicorola: but you did all the lyrics?

Robin: Along with Danny and Garo. We discussed things late at night to come up with the ideas. Joe helped out on the title tracks as I was really stuck and about to leave it off the record!
I meant title track

nicorola: I’m glad you leave it on the record! one of my favorites!

Robin: me too! we really fixed the lyrics at the end and I think it’s my favourite now

nicorola: I bought your record online, so i don’t exactly know the lyrics. are they very personal?

Robin: a lot of them have personal elements but are extended to include wider ideas…they are more about the difficulty of remaining a person in the world right now, without becoming cold and disaffected.

nicorola:that’s one thing I really don’t like on buying online: no booklet

Robin: is the booklet not downloadable?

nicorola:no, not at finetunes. perhaps at itunes, but i don’t like any digital rights management

Robin: I’ll send you the lyrics!

nicorola: that would be fine! thanks!
by the way: did you heard of this band called koopa, who entered the british charts at 31 without having any single or even a record deal?

Robin: hmmm I’m always suspicious, but good luck to them. I’m sure their music’s terrible!

nicorola: yes, it is!

Robin: I think our production values are quite removed from the music business as a whole..

nicorola: what do you think of modern times? p2p, mp3, drm, itunes?

Robin: I’m more excited about my new vinyl player.. but new technology allowed us to make a big sounding record in a shed! it’s great for being on tour and not out of touch too..

nicorola: do you really produced parts of „the heart is the place“ in this shed?

Robin: most of it! and some in Truck Studios, which is really a shed. Then most of the mixing was done in Pedro (James Rutledge’s) bedroom. we recorded drums elsewhere

nicorola: awesome…shed- and bedroom-recording….

Robin: to think our first record was done at Abbey Road and Olympic..

nicorola: yeah, I red it. did you like it?

Robin: It was great. we were there when George Harrison died and there were a lot of flowers etc.. but it’s not really necessary to record these days..in an expensive studio
any more questions? I have to go soon

nicorola: oh, ok. are you touring germany in the near future?

Robin: yes, from Feb 17th, for over 2 weeks, it’s on www.goldrush.mu

nicorola: ah, ok. I’ll have a look at the dates. hope to see you on stage.

Robin: excellent.

nicorola: ah, cafe zapata…

Robin: a nice place?

nicorola: I don’t know it, sorry. but I will be there

Robin: Well, see you then and enjoy the album.

nicorola: Have a nice evening!

Robin: Cheers.

nicorola: And many thanks again!

Robin: No problem. Robin

nicorola: Cheers, Nico

Falls hier der ein oder andere Schreibfehler oder eventuell falsches Englisch zu finden ist: das ist so gewollt. Ich habe kurz überlegt, ob ich das Interview ein wenig glattbügeln oder gar übersetzen soll, habe mich aber dann dagegen entschieden.

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Hörproben von „The Heart Is The Place“:

Every One Of Us

Auf der MySpace-Seite wird das komplette Album gestreamt.

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Das Album „The Heart Is The Place“ bei Amazon, bei eMusic, bei akuma oder bei finetunes.

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Im Februar und im März sind Goldrush bei uns auf Tour. Hier sind die Daten:

17. Februar – Gleis 22, Münster
18. Februar – Knust / Haus 73, Hamburg
19. Februar – Cafe Zapata, Berlin
20. Februar – Das Bett, Frankfurt
21. Februar – MuK – Gießen
22. Februar – Gebäude 9, Köln
23. Februar – Projekt 7, Magdeburg
24. Februar – Objekt 5, Halle
25. Februar – Scheune, Dresden
26. Februar – Nato, Leipzig
27. Februar – Orangehouse, München
28. Februar – Schocken, Stuttgart
2. März – Jugendhaus Flösserplatz, CH Aarau
3. März – Bad Bonn, CH Düdingen