Gama Bomb Interview

We LIKE Irish thrash band Gama Bomb, no, more than that. We LOVE Irish thrash band Gama Bomb. For a start you know you can call them a thrash band and they're not going to argue with you. They play thrash. Proper old school thrash. They are, therefore, a thrash band. I could describe them as the illegitimate son of Nuclear Assault and Anthrax, but rather than that why not go here, download their latest album for free, listen to it and form your own opinions. Go on.... off you go.

Right, I'm glad we have got that sorted. Gama Bomb have been establishing a reputation for themselves as a great live band, and playing live is what they love to do. We were lucky enough to catch up with the band at their recent show in Sheffield supporting Sepultura.

So, starting at the beginning, we were curious about how Gama Bomb got together, I mean in these days of whatever-core, how do you find 5 people who want to play proper old-school Thrash Metal ?

According to main man Philly, Very gradually. "It was a lot of graft. We first formed around 8 years ago, it was our 8th birthday last week. Originally it was myself, Luke and Joe, and we formed the band doing Megadeth covers and things like that with two other local boys".

A period of gigging round Ireland followed, and members came and went, with just the constant 'core' of Philly, Luke and Joe. Fortunately their growing stature and reputation meant that they could attract musicians who shared their dedication and drive. An On-Line advert was answered by drummer Paul. A "good long while" followed without a guitarist until the final piece of the line-up dropped into place when Domo was persuaded to get in touch with the band by his girlfriend, who was a fan.

So it came to pass that the Gama Bomb lineup was complete, and the fact that it has been stable through 4 years fraught with the rigours of two albums and seemingly constant touring is a testimony to how well these guys work together, and how well they get on. Philly describes it as "a happy marriage.... generally".

Gama Bomb are a busy band, back again only a few weeks ago they played Sheffield as part of a headline tour, and although Philly does emphasise that the band have struck a balance between touring and having "day to day lives" it's still pretty full on. "It is pretty regular. We do something at least every month and we never have a period where we don't gig for 4 months or something like that".

"This year for example we're doing the UK now with Sepultura, then in September we're going to do Europe, then in October we're doing Mexico, and then in November and December we're doing the US".

The US tour will be something else. Gama Bomb are touring with Overkill, Forbidden, Bonded by Blood and Evile. Now there's a line up we REALY want to see in the UK.

This daunting tour schedule doesn't phase the band in the slightest. As Philly says "We like to keep busy, we're all about gigging and that's where we're at our best. I like the albums but the best stuff is what we do live".

This brings me to an interesting factoid. Gama Bomb are the first band to release a full studio album while being signed to a record label. This is an odd state of affairs, why would a record label invest money in the band, pay for the album to be produced, then give it away for nothing? I asked Philly the question I am sure he gets asked a lot, do Gama Bomb see the Album as a way to promote the tours. "I wish I could lay claim to that being my philosophy, but you can read any feature or article or on the internet about the state of the music industry, and it will always point out that the main dynamic has changed. The dynamic used to be that you did a tour to sell an album, and now you do an album to have an excuse to go and do a tour".

Although this new dynamic is leading to a lot of head scratching and whining from record labels, Philly is much more realistic about how things are. "The time for being frightened and terrified by the state of the music business has passed. It's time to knuckle down, roll up your sleeves and make money if you want to make money, and make a name if you want to make a name".

You may think that the record labels would be reluctant to go down the free download route, but when Philly and Joe suggested the idea to their label Earache, they thought it was a great idea. Philly explained that the record company had been thinking along similar lines. "Apparently they had been waiting for a band to come along who would do it".

Gama Bomb are, as I may have mentioned, a thrash band. I asked Philly if there had ever been any suggestions that they would be anything else?. "No, Never. In fact we have a set of rules, unwritten rules, that we follow that mean that the style of music can't change. We're all about more of the same".

This staying true to your roots is programmed into their very DNA. Why should they change what they all love doing. "What would the point have been ? A lot of people form bands, and there are loads and loads of examples of this, especially in Indie where bands are around for years being one style, and then they change their style and because it's a bit like Kaiser Chiefs they'll get signed by Domino. That's not where we came to it form. We didn't come into it trying to be famous, we came to it trying to be in a band. The whole point was to have fun and play the kind of music that we like playing, and nothing else is as satisfying as what we play live. Other kinds of music aren't as enjoyable, and if you're not enjoying yourself being in a band......".

In addition to their music, Gama Bomb are well known for their comic book album sleeves and T-shirts as well as the recurring themes through their songs, zombies, space, science fiction and general weirdness. This is very much a product of the interests of the guys, according to Philly. "That's an agreement that just sort of happened between us. Me and Joe have been friends for 17 years and when we grew up together we always loved comics and cartoons and sci-fi and horror films and there was no way that wasn't going to inform how things turned out later on. There was no question that it wasn't going to be cartooney". But it's not just cartooney, it's high quality cartooney. This is important to the band. "So much of Metal art, so much of rock art and design and stuff now is so terrible. The invention of PhotoShop has 'slain the dragon' of quality art, you know, really terrible photo montages and photos of skulls, and stupid things like that. So we always make a conscious effort that the image is nearly as important as the music. I think we do a good job of that, I think our last album has one of the best album sleeves I've ever seen.

Talking to Gama Bomb's eloquent frontman, it was refreshing to meet someone who just wants to be in a band with his mates and play this sort of music. Fashions come and go but Gama Bomb don't let that have any effect on what they do, and they plan to maintain their present level of activity, although there isn't a plan to make another album yet. According to Philly "We have a plan to do something bigger than an album that we can't talk about, we're sort of thinking of it in terms of being a group of people who have projects, and people go and work on a project. We're thinking of broadening out even beyond albums.

So I leave it to Philly to sum up the band's intentions. "We've already made history by being the first band ever to give away their album while they were signed, so the next thing we're going to do is something even more stupid"

Cheers guys, looking forward to it :)

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