Slaves To Gravity - Interview

Mark Verney – Lead Guitars
Tommy Gleeson – Vocals / Guitar
Toshi Ogawa – Bass
Duncan – “Drummer and Guitar Tech”

Formed in 2006, Slaves To Gravity have been gaining momentum, sweeping everyone along with them since the release of their debut album Scattercrow. Since then their second album Underwaterouterspace has been receiving great reviews, and the band have been playing at selective gigs and leaving a massive lasting impression. After a great show at Sheffield‘s o2 Academy we catch up with the band.

You released your second album Underwaterouterspace in April, and you described it as a big step forward in every department, so if you could tell me a bit more about that and how you think you’ve grown as a band?

Tommy – Well there were a few things that we did differently, and the most obvious one was having a producer involved. Not in as much he came in and started writing for us, but we had always been a pretty much self contained unit, and we’ve never had the benefit of having a kind of audience member to bounce ideas off and who could give us an honest answer if something wasn’t working or not. But Bob was really really good being a mirror for us, and he kept us a lot more focused. I mean we did the record in three weeks whereas the first record took us twelve. So having him involved just gave us this extra focus and direction which enabled us to work a lot harder, a lot quicker. He created this environment in the studio and in the pre-production where all the lines of communication between everyone in the band were wide open, and we could all talk honestly and put ideas forward without any fear of, you know, of it being s***, which I think in the past, almost out of, I don’t know, some form of misguided sense of respect for one another, we never wanted to hurt anyone’s feelings. Really he made us grow up a bit, and get on with it. All of that conspired to mean that we felt really free to try things we perhaps wouldn’t have done in the past, and that started coming through in the music. The basic blueprint of dynamics, melody and big heavy riffs are still there, but we were able to embellish that we all kinds of other things.

You’ve got a great fanbase, your first album got to the top 20 in the British Rock Charts, and you won Best British Newcomer with Kerrang in 2008, but on the off chance that somebody may not have heard your music how would you describe it, or your band?

Duncan – Sexual Chocolate.

(everyone laughs)

Tommy – Well, I’ve always just thought of us as being a Rock and Roll band. I know that’s a bit of a broad term and to some people they may not think that’s applicable. We’re just focused on writing good songs with melody, coming from an honest place, and there’s elements of early nineties grunge stuff that we just happened to, when we were growing up and first started buying records that was the kind of stuff that was around, that American, all those American bands like Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Jane’s Addiction and Guns ‘n’ Roses and stuff like that. That’s what we all grew up listening to. All of that sort of filters through in what we do but with all sorts of other stuff as well.

The writing process, how do you go about it? Does one of you do the writing, or do you collaborate together?

Mark – Dunc does it all (laughs). You write all the songs.

Duncan – Yes. Yes I do (laughs).

Tommy – Everyone writes. It normally starts out at someone’s house, just with them. I mean, I’ve got a small setup at home, so has Mark, we just kind of get our ideas and sometimes we come in and they’re relatively fully formed and at other times we just kind of have a sketch and then we kind of start going through it as a band working out works and what doesn’t. Usually when songs come to the table though they have a basic structure and then everyone starts to put their contribution, their influence in o it.

You played Sonisphere last year, and Download this year, could you just tell us what it’s like playing at a festival? And it’s been a little while since you’ve headlined your own tour hasn’t it?

Mark: It’s been ages

Tommy: Yeah, it’s been a long time yeah. I think it was 2008 we last did a headline tour on our own.

Mark: Has it been that long?

Tommy: Yeah it was the “Scatter The Crow” album tour. We have done plenty of headline shows though here and there, but not a full tour, unless I’m forgetting a chapter of my life, which is not beyond the realms of possibility!

So what are the festivals like for you guys?

Tommy: It’s great. I mean, every f***ing band wants to play at Download, Reading and Leeds, Sonisphere. It’s a really cool thing to do, being able to do it, but you do have to fight tooth and nail to get on the bill! Download this year was a little bit different for us in that we did an acoustic set, so we had to strip all the songs down, and rework them a little and not just do a verbatim version, and tried to make it a bit more interesting. Sort of harking back to the old days of the MTV Unplugged sessions, and put a bit of thought into it. So that was a lot of fun, and hopefully next year we’ll be able to do Sonisphere again.

So when can we expect another headline tour?

Toshi: Possibly the Autumn time.

Mark: Yeah, we’re still talking about that.

Tommy: We’ve got a few options for that Autumn / Winter time, one of which is sort of a co-headline tour with some friends of ours, possibly doing some more dates like this one where we’re touring with the likes of Papa Roach, a big support tour. The thing for us, we’re not quite at that level where we can be totally self sufficient, so doing a gig like this (Papa Roach) you can reach an audience of two or three thousand a people in a couple of nights, whereas doing your own headline tour, to reach that same sort of audience number, you’d have to do two or three weeks, and of course a lot more money. We try to pick the smart gigs. Of course we’d love to be able to just go on the road all the time, but the reality is that bands can’t do that anymore. So yes, just trying to pick the right gigs, and if we don’t do the headline thing, then maybe next year we’ll be in a position to be able to do that and make it work. You know, you’ve got to have everything set up, you’ve got to go out and tour for a reason! We’re not eighteen anymore so we’re not really going to be out playing every night!

There was a comment on your Facebook that read “You guys were awesome last night! The Bassist is HOTTT!”. Do you run your own Facebook page, and how do you deal with personal comments aimed at?

Toshi: Brilliant! I don’t have my own Facebook account though, so I don’t really know much about Facebook etc.

Tommy: Yeah we do it ourselves, Mark and I deal with Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and all of that. And we’ve kind of got a blog.

Mark: It’s by us.

Tommy: We haven’t got a team of monkeys armed with typewriters doing it on our behalf or anything.

Mark: It’s nice when you see the compliments and stuff though. Sometimes we might see some comments on Youtube, and they’re normally quite funny.

Tommy: Yeah absolutely, if someones going to have a f***ing go at you, if they’re at least going to be inventive, then that’s hilarious for us. But of course it’s nice when anyone compliments you on what you do. But we know when we’re good and when we’re s***.

If you had a chance to redo it all over what would you change?

Mark – Well, we wouldn’t have invited Dunc (laughs).

Tommy – Haha, the butt of every joke, sorry Dunc. It’s an interesting question, hmm. I mean, record labels, there’s no standard now with how you do things. You have to keep trying to find the right or new way through. It is difficult in approaching and getting deals with the record companies, and they may not be coming from the same place as you because they are there to make money, they’re not charities. So you have to, not so much limit your expectations but, temper your ambition and be realistic and aware as to what the record labels are all about.

Mark – Or just have been born 15 years earlier, when people were still buying records and the internet wasn’t around.

Tommy – Yeah (laughs) that might have made a big difference. We’re somewhere in between the curve aren’t we. 15 years ago, I’m sure a lot of bands like us that are around now would have sold a lot more, and maybe 5 years from now when it’s considered retro, it’ll be cool again. So we’re either ahead or behind the curve! Drowning somewhere in between (laughs). There’s millions of things that we could have done better or differently. I feel that we have all given it all that we could, and that we’ve done it for the right reasons. So in that respect, I’ve kind of got no regrets. Maybe we could have made some smarter decisions along the line but who knows.

So what has been your biggest / best moment in the band so far?

Mark – One of them would have to be walking out on to the stage at the Hammersmith Apollo supporting AlterBridge. That was pretty cool.

Tommy – For sure, yeah I agree. I saw my first ever proper gig there, and I went to see Extreme of all bands, and of course they did “More Than Words”. They were still waiting for the “Punchline” tour, so they had a different drummer and stuff, trying to be grunge or whatever. Yeah over the years we’ve been at so many shows, but that place just has such a great history. To do that gig was a definite “moment”. AlterBridge were fantastic, they really do have their s*** together, and they’re lovely people.

Mark – Yeah totally sound.

Tommy – Yeah very humble. When you’re going to do a show with a big band you don’t expect them to be nuns or anything, and you sort of fear the worst, but no, Alter Bridge were absolutely brilliant guys.

How did the Papa Roach fans take to you?

Tommy – They’ve been really good actually. We’ve only done a couple of gigs with them, but I think we got a really positive response from them. Obviously a lot of them don’t know the songs so it’s not like they can sing along, you know, stand there and sing their hearts out to it, but, but there’s a definite sense that we got their attention, and some of them came and got our CD’s too, so I think it’s been a really positive experience. We’ve toured with a lot of different kinds of band, I even remember opening for the Goo Goo Dolls, and that was really good too, but for some reason we seem to do that, get on well with another bands audience. You have to go out there and play like it’s your gig and own your time on stage, there’s no point going out there cap in hand apologetically saying “we’re sorry, we’ll get this out of the way as soon as we can”.

I noticed at the start of the set, some issues were going on with your sound Mark, what happened?

Mark – Ah, it was the power, the plug at the back of the stage kept falling out, yeah it was alright after half a song.

Tommy – It’s a drag when s*** like that happens, sometimes you can go through the longest sound check ever and think you’ve got it all sorted and absolutely straightened out, and then you walk out on stage, and then something like that can happen. You know, when we were with the Goo Goo Dolls we counted something like 60 guitars, so they weren’t taking any chances (laughs), it was like a shop.

Mark – Yeah, it was funny watching the guitar tech open them up, and the look on his face, knowing he’d have to restring them all.

Tommy – I think they had a lot of different tunings going on, that was the most overkill guitar.

With the Internet / iTunes enabling people to download single tracks, do you think bands are now sharpening up their acts and not releasing “album filler” tracks, or do you think potentially we might be losing albums that work as a whole, such as concept albums (Queensryche’s Operation Mindcrime etc)?

Tommy – I’ve never understood anyone who can approach an album with the attitude of “oh well, it doesn’t matter if there are a few s*** songs”. Surely you want everything that you write to be f*** brilliant, and I can’t understand why anyone would settle for anything less, if it’s not then you should f*** off. Dream Theater, Coheed and Cambria are the extreme examples of concept albums, but yeah I know what you mean, the journey through the record from start to finish that the songs take you on, is maybe, getting a bit lost on people now, which I think is a shame. I’d like to think most bands put a bit of though into how their album flows, I mean our album is by no means a concept album, but when we were choosing the track listing we were thinking about how each one would lead into the next song, and kind of the emotional connection and how the whole picture comes into focus. Some band might not do that, but then, that’s their prerogative.

What sort of things do you do outside of the band? Hobbies and interests etc. For example, Jerry Horton from Papa Roach is an awesome photographer.

Tommy – Really? I didn’t know that about him. That’s really cool. You know that’s funny, I know quite a few guitar players who are really s*** hot photographers. Dan Spitz from Anthrax is like a master watchmaker or something. There you go, a bit of random piece of information.

Did you know that Brian Marshall from Alter Bridge has got an Art Degree, and he does architectural drawings?

Tommy – Now there’s a trade! But no, I honestly don’t have a hobby to that sort of degree. It seems sad to say, but no. I’ve got plenty of interests outside of music, but nothing kind of, you kow, with all those sorts of guys doing great stuff, music is kind of it for me. But when I’m not doing those things I work in a guitar shop.

Which guitar shop?

Tommy – Vintage and Rare Guitars of Denmark Street in London.

Aah, that’s where I know you from!

Tommy – Yeah it’s a cool shop, mostly high end guitars.

You’ve said in the past that the video element of music is important too, just how much do you get involved with the planning / direction of those? Or do you trust other people to interpret your music?

Tommy – In the initial stages we’ll most certainly put forward any ideas that we have to the people we’re working with, Jam Flicks who are an extremely talented group of guys, and they either talk us out of it and explain why or kind of take it into consideration and incorporate those ideas into the video, but for the most part, we leave it to the professionals!

I was reading on the Internet some of the things you’d experienced on tour with the band, such as being frog marched to a cash machine and so on?

Tommy – Yeah, that was Dundee, no I can’t elaborate on that (laughs). But yeah things like that happen. We actually got lost trying to find our way to the stage here, not tonight, but another night we were here. There’s like this tiny corridor down to one of the smaller Academies, and it’s like the width of one man it just goes on and on.

Mark – Yeah it’s a bit like that scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (everybody laughs).

The guys are shattered after their excellent performance, so we say goodbye and let them get some rest!

You can find out more about Slaves To Gravity by visiting their website here: http://www.slavestogravity.com/