Interview “The goal of any show is to connect with everyone in front of us” - Gurriers reflect on playing live, their debut album and new single ‘Erasure’

Last week, you took to the stage at Wembley Arena in support of Kneecap! How was that as an experience?
Playing to a packed arena is always a surreal experience but even more so this time with the weight in the air hanging over that show. Seeing twelve and a half thousand people turn up for Irish music was heartwarming, but more importantly to see such huge swathes of people in support of a free Palestine in Britain’s capital felt historic in the face of a genocide being live-streamed while politicians twiddle their thumbs and search for scapegoats. That night in Wembley felt like a real once in a lifetime honour to be a small part of something so much bigger than us. 

You’ve also been playing a huge amount of shows - both headline and festival slots - across the last year. What do you think you’ve learned from having to take to such different stages and play in front of so many different kind of audiences? 
The goal of any show is to connect with everyone in front of us whether it be to a crowd of 20 or 20,000. When we began playing to larger crowds it could feel really daunting. ‘How do we step up our game to reach the nosebleeds of a basketball arena, often to people who’ve never heard a single note of our music before we walk onstage?’ For Gurriers, we realised it’s the same ethos and plan of attack no matter what the size of venue or profile of the audience; learning to scale the performance you’re already confident in to capture a larger room is something that simply comes with time and experience. It can be a steep learning curve when you graduate to playing to a new level of venue for the first couple of tries. But as the size of the crowds has grown so has our ability to grab the people at the very back straight from the jump. Mistakes and technical mishaps, while frustrating in the moment (especially in front of 10,000+ people), are the best teachers and with positives like increased growth, comes growing pains. To be great at something you have to be willing to be shit at it for a while first. Having a great tour manager and FOH engineer helps massively too… Shout out to Mike Thomson and Harley Cummins for keeping the wheels turning on and off the stage even when this hamster isn’t feeling so up for a spin!

What’s become your favourite thing about playing live, and how do you think songs from your debut album have grown or morphed via your live performances? 
My favourite thing about playing live varies from night to night. When we play to a more familiar crowd, I love seeing people’s faces light up and hearing them roar when we play ‘their song’. Depending on the tune, maybe they reach for their partner and hold them tight or maybe they make a bee line to the nearest opening in a mosh pit right before all hell breaks loose. Point is, witnessing our songs give anyone even a fraction of the joy that the music which shaped me did is something I’ll never take for granted. 

The tunes have definitely evolved over 120+ shows in the last year. Nothing too drastic - nobody is getting a piano ballad version of ‘Nausea’ anytime soon but playing together so much we understand how we can draw certain parts out more for greater effect or audience engagement. We’re all big fans of electronica, banging techno and great mixing, there’s very little room in that world for the stop-start nature that you often have with a live band. When sequencing a setlist we factor in how easily and gracefully we can directly transition from the outro of one song into the beginning of another so there’s no dead air during the show, sometimes making adjustments to parts or adding interludes to create a more seamless experience for everyone. When we play live we want to create a world that people can get lost in for an hour or so. The less yapping between songs the better.

It’s now been almost a year since ‘Come And See’ was released. How do you feel about the record a year on; do you think your relationship to the songs has shifted at all? Are you already itching to move on to the next chapter?
I’m very proud of our first album and we owe a massive debt of gratitude to everyone who supported us on this journey from the beginning and to those who joined us along the way. I’m not one for patting ourselves on the back too often but we self-released independently and, despite having the opportunity to work with other such means, we bypassed any label deal or infrastructure which made things difficult at times, especially from a financial standpoint. However, one year and a relentless touring schedule around the world later I can confidently say it has paid off majorly. We have our management and whole team to thank for the sage advice in biting the bullet early and learning that even in a vulturous industry you can do things on your own terms and succeed. A massive shout out & big love to our former members Jesse Donnelly and Emmet White, who both left a massive mark on the band, the songs and all of us as people. Alex Greaves who produced and mixed the album was also paramount in pushing us into becoming the band we are today, never settling for anything less than our best. 

The songs we write are like having children of your own; it’s impossible to pick favourites, but sometimes we do it anyway. Hindsight is always 20/20 and it’s easy now to say we should’ve done X or Y to this song at the time, but since releasing it to the world the album is no longer ours and we have to accept we made the best possible decisions with the skills we had at the time. While I am very proud of ‘Come And See’, I know we are all very excited to move on to a new chapter soon, expanding the sound & scope of the band further. 

Speaking of next chapters, you’ve just released your new single ‘Erasure’! Can you tell us a little bit about how the song came to life? What did you want to explore on the track?
Sonically we wanted to further explore the influence of dance and electronic music on the band while still making sure it was true to us. We’re also obviously huge fans of The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and basically all of the early 2000’s NYC bands who sounded gritty and grimey but always had a sexy rhythm you could shake your ass to. All of those bands - and many more - were super important touchstones on how to carry these dancier influences over into something that felt authentic in the context of a loud scrappy rock band.

Do you think ‘Erasure’ is a good indicator of sonic things to come, or do we have to wait a little longer to find out? Is more new music in the pipeline…?
I think ‘Erasure’ is a snapshot of us continuing to grow into the band that we’ve been threatening we can be since the beginning. Like the first record, this next one will have a wide breadth of influences and sounds albeit more focused, confident and mature in our songwriting. 

And now, this weekend, you’re gonna be playing the SON Estrella Galicia Soundhood event in Hackney! How’re you looking forward to the show, and what should the people lucky enough to have a ticket be expecting?
A good fuckin’ time.

Gurriers play Soundhood Hackney on Saturday 27th September. Head here for more info and to join the waitlist for tickets.

Tags: Features, Interviews, Gurriers