Short of renaming our website Goldhearted Brighton we’d be hard pressed to wear our affections for Goldheart Assembly more clearly on our sleeves. But then again, unlike some bands, who tricked us into liking them with clever vinyl packaging or racy shoes, or even plain old bribery, our ever-growing love for the London collective was always as organic as a Latvian pumpkin farmer’s harvest. So in that spirit, and due to certain contractual necessities, we decided it was high time to open a public dialogue with the sexiest rock’n'roll sextet in Blighty. And here it, just for you…
Firstly, for any newcomers to your music, would you care to say a little bit about what Goldheart Assembly are all about?
TOM: Six men on a mission to challenge the conventions of modern fashion, whilst playing a tune or two and getting in the odd round of crazy golf.
What music and which bands did you grow up listening to and who were your biggest influences?
DOM: Only bands who wore beards. Only kidding. I think each of us have been in different sections of the music library in their youth, from New Wave and ’80s US indie to Stax and the West Coast singer-songwriters and now we’re making music together it all swirls into one. Apart from the keystones of the Beatles and Dylan, I’d say there’s a little bit of every single record ever made in history in what we do. Ever.
As a band you do like a bit of mini-golf. Who is the Seve Ballesteros of the band and who is the Tiger Woods?
JAKE: Our sound man Vasken, who didn’t appear to know what golf even was when we started playing, thrashed us all last time we were in Brighton. On the fairway he is affectionately referred to as Tiger Vasken. John and our tour manager Dan are insufferable on the golf course. May the Lord reign down on he who so much as breathes whilst they are composing themselves for a drive.
It’s been a while since we first saw you play back in March 2009 and it’s been a crazy ride. Would you like to sum it up in a sentence?
JOHN: It’s like playing a particularly challenging round of crazy golf.
You told us back then that you very much wanted to grow the band naturally and had no desire to be part of a PR machine. Have you had any regrets about doing things naturally?
TOM: Not at all. I think doing things naturally has cemented us as a band and we’ve moved in a direction that we’re all happy with. Naturally, if we see success, we’ll no doubt have to contend more with this PR machine you speak of, but at least we’ve built the solid foundations for our own identity. Longevity and creative freedom is the key, and you don’t seem to get that when you’re part of that machine from the start…Plus we had to do it naturally anyway ‘cos no-one would sign us up, like.
Let’s talk about the debut album “Wolves and Thieves”. How difficult was it for you to decide on the tracklisting and leave out some familiar old tunes?
DOM: I don’t think there was too much doubt about which songs were going on the record. If a drink and an arm wrestle could settle it we took that route. Where disagreement lingered, pinches were employed.
JOHN: The main thing is to strike a balance between making the best record possible and satisfying your own need to communicate your current ideas. I think it’s important that records should reflect the time/place that bands find themselves in — sometimes older songs cease to be relevant. The tracklisting fell into place quite quickly, there are some songs which could only have gone on one place on the record — “King of Rome” didn’t really fit on the album anywhere other than as an opener, “Jesus Wheel” had to be somewhere in the middle and “Boulevards” had to be last.
You self-produced the album, so was that a non-negotiable part of any deal as far as you were concerned?
JAKE: We were always keen on the idea of self-producing, but we asked Laurie Latham to produce some of the tracks on the album so it wasn’t exactly non-negotiable. The creative freedom that comes with self-producing is great, and doing it in the museum allowed us to try out weird stuff like putting an amp upside down in the bottom of a concrete pit. Didn’t use that idea in the end, it sounded awful. But hey ho, it was nice to have the option.
JIM: Not at all. We’re very lucky that within the band we can do everything ourselves, if we need to, from recording, engineering and producing to making videos or artwork, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not open to outside input or support. When we decided with Fierce Panda to make the mini-album that we had recorded into a full album, we were delighted that there were producers who wanted to work on the final tracks with us. We certainly don’t need a producer to help us make records but it was great to work with Laurie and find out how he approaches recording and I think the album is better for it.
The songs have a blend of being very much melodic pop music and then again there are a lot of elements in there that are unusual. Was that a product of the very diverse range of talent you have in the band?
DOM: A very good question, Lazy Brighton. Nice eyes. Everyone likes a melody, don’t they? We do anyway. The melody can say as much, if not more, than the lyrics, I think. Having said that we’re contrary and wary and if things start to get too sweet or light then we like to darken them.
JIM: There is a definite range of musical talent in the band. The range goes basically from John and me: No musical talent at all, to Nicky, Jake and Tom: musical talent in abundance. Dom doesn’t fit on the scale because his wielding of his one instrument is unworldly. He might possibly be one of the greatest lead guitarists that has ever lived.
We sincerely believe that you’re six of the most handsome men in Europe. That’s not a question, we just wanted to say it.
JIM: Shame that didn’t end in a question; I really thought you had something going there.
Mr Herbert and Mr Dale, you both write songs in the band. Can you define the difference between the kind of songs the two of you write?
JOHN: Jim’s songs are usually in a higher key.
JIM: John’s songs are brilliant and mine are average to poor at best. Oh and his are in a lower key. Usually.
Are you still claiming to have once been zookeepers…?
TOM: Do you still believe that we were zookeepers? Go with your heart…
JIM: We were zookeepers. John looked after the elephants and I looked after the tropical fish. Just don’t call Whipsnade Zoo and ask about it though because they had to delete all records of our existence after we tried to get the Red Handed Howler Monkeys (or Alouatta Belzebul) involved in a jam session.
How difficult is the battle between striving for some degree of commercial success and simply trying to produce music from the heart?
JOHN: It isn’t really, and I don’t think it’s something that we considered that much. You write first and foremost for yourself I think, and good songs, whatever they may be, will always translate something to the listener. You make the record you’d want to hear and hope that it finds an audience.
JIM: It’s not really something that ever comes into the process really. We’d never chuck something out because it did or didn’t sound like it had commercial potential and commercial potential doesn’t really mean what a lot of people assume it does anyway. Tom Waits has massive commercial potential with everything he does now that he has proven to a lot of record executives over a vast number of years that there is a market for what he is producing. I’m sure there were plenty of people who thought that “Swordfishtrombones” had no chance of commercial success. You eventually make your own market/commercial success by producing something valid and original. If people get on board straight away then it’s great and if they don’t you have to just keep going until you carve your own path out.
We like the artwork on “Wolves and Thieves”. Can you tell us who did it and how that came about?
JOHN: It’s taken from a painting by a Russian artist called Boris Anrep. He was part of the Bloomsbury group and is famous for his mosaics, some of which are in the National Gallery. We did some preliminary collages using the imagery and sent them off to a guy called Dominic Thomas who made it look more professional.
What are Goldheart’s greatest desires for the rest of 2010?
DOM: Apart from Lazy Brighton’s continued and meteoric success then I’d quite like to be on Top Of The Pops. Expectation management.
JIM: I’d love to pay my rent ideally but maybe more realistically I think I’d like to see Dom play tennis again. (He runs like Hamburglar)
Which month would you like to represent on the (now infamous but still mysteriously delayed) Lazy Brighton calendar and why?
DOM: April is the cruellest month.
Goldheart Assembly play New Hero in Brighton on 30 March, with support from Oldwick and Jake Beattie.
Check our LB Live! page for details
