Neu Gengahr: “It’s slowly building up to something”

Avoiding legal disputes with New York rappers, touring with the UK’s best new bands - Gengahr’s first steps have been anything but subdued.

Words: Jamie Milton
Photos: Emma Swann
8th May 2014

Gengahr don’t exactly look rattled - they’re relatively pristine, considering - but they’ve just come out the other side of an insane couple of months. In this time, they’ve played Glastonbury, ruled the UK showcase fests and toured with two of the country’s most exciting new bands, Wolf Alice and Superfood. On any jaunt of that billing, the average group would be making up the numbers. Not Gengahr. Catch them at these early summer gigs and they’d be luring flocks towards the front of the stage. Something in their curious psych rock - left-of-centre but undeniably universal - speaks on a big level.

“I think it’s slowly building up to something now,” confesses Felix Bushe, frontman of a band who only have three demos to their name, despite managing to build up the excitement equivalent of a group on the verge of world domination. He cites early recording sessions back in October 2013 - the band’s first experience in a studio - as the first collective inkling that they were onto something. “Obviously something good was going on at that time - they all came out pretty great.” They heaped five songs up on Soundcloud under the guise RES, only to swiftly cull the full set of recordings in order to save one or two for a special occasion (“I think we just worried we might never write a good song again,” Felix jokes).

Shortly following an initial flurry of attention, they had to call quits on the RES name. “We had to make a decision really,” they remember. “We were either going to have some prolonged legal battle with a New York rapper or we’d pick a new name or crack on. We went with the easier option - we were never gonna win that anyway, to be fair.”

Gengahr: "It’s slowly building up to something"

Live, they mimic a grizzlier beast than the soft specimen introducing itself on record. Guitarist John Victor is already being spoken about in hushed, cautious terms as the country’s next great guitarist. His floppy fringe certainly speaks on a Jonny Greenwood-sort of level, but the way he wrestles with his instrument on stage - it’s like it’s an extra limb, one that ought to get removed in an operation. Comparisons to psych heavyweights Unknown Mortal Orchestra are already ablaze - “We take is as a compliment,” says bassist Hugh Schulte - and they’re even being introduced to new music by way of far-fetched contemporaries. “Someone compared us to Woods the other day. I’m completely new to them, and it’s nice,” enthuses Hugh.

Behind the scenes there’s the odd whisper that on their recent jaunt around the country, Gengahr were the designated party-starters, not Superfood or champions of raucousness Wolf Alice. “It was good, wholesome fun,” says Felix with a smirk. “Nothing too shady went on…” Still, if antics are being played up to an extreme, these guys do share a certain ‘90s-obsessed kinship with their tour buddies. “We’re of the 90s,” the frontman states. “The first thing we really got into would’ve been the 90s bands that are re-emerging in some form or another.” This doesn’t feel like a re-emergence, though. Their strange melding of psych and grizzly rock ‘n roll isn’t of the average ilk. ‘Fill My Gums With Blood’ is a song in part devoted to Luis Suarez, Hugh jokes. Already the four-piece stand out as a band bloodthirsty for more.