Gloo: Always A Hint Of Cheekiness

Fun loving south coast three piece GLOO prioritise having a great time whilst performing their songs, making sure to create an infectious live atmosphere. It therefore comes as no surprise that the members themselves have these playful personalities, that make it hard not enjoy the music they produce. Brothers Thomas [vocals/guitars] and Mark Harfield [drums] spoke to Distorted Sound about their newest release, How Not To Be Happy.

The sound of the band is said to be ‘indie punk’, yet the members themselves struggled to put a label on the style of music that they create. Thomas described it as rock and roll pop, whilst Mark went one step further as to say, “we’re like NIRVANA on speed without the miserableness”.

A big statement which on listening to their music can be seen, but the band value playing what sounds good and what they enjoy rather than trying to stick a label on it. Mark went on to say, “we always reference recoding wise we just want it to sound really good, which is like every release in the world, but in terms of stylistically, I don’t really know if there’s something like it. We knew that we wanted a lot of background noise, weird little ra ca ca sounds and things like that.” Thomas went on to explain that the meanings of the songs are more important than a definitive sound, but said there’s a specific feel to their music. “More than anything, we like to get across, it’s not necessarily the sound, but the style, we like to keep it as raw as we can getting across a certain feel, which is probably like, you’d have to go back to like the 70s and go to IGGY POP and AC/DC, to really get across that feeling, rather than what’s technically going on. We’re almost about it sounding like the best live gig you’ve ever heard. What the music is about is more important than anything for us.”

This newest release from the band has been said to stick to this “tongue and cheek” element that the band has established into their music, whilst also differing from their previous releases A Pathetic Youth and Stop and Stare, as they felt they were more themselves in what they chose. “On some of the parts we just did what made us laugh as opposed to what fit the track best.” The album itself is based around escaping from the everyday pressures that every individual experiences, and trying to be cheered up by the high energy tracks you’re listening to.

Thomas went on to explain, “I’d say the best part about it is that it can give people this escapism from their everyday normal bullshit. We always like to think our music is like bringing a party, so we want people to listen to it and actually have a good time more than anything. There are deep bits in there, but with every bit that’s sad there’s always a hint of cheekiness, either in the lyric or the music so you can get uplifted by it.” The name of the album itself demonstrates this element of cheekiness, aspiring to raise interest of a potential new listener. “The name of it is meant to be like a play on a self help book, it’s almost like I want someone to see it in a record shop and think what is that doing there. I would always see and I’ve bought self help books, and just thought it’d be funny to just have a play on words from that. I think it’s a good one to have in your collection on your mantelpiece or on your book shelf.”

This new album was recorded during the lockdowns due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, which was said to be a blessing and a curse for the band. As Thomas mentions, “there were positives and negatives because we didn’t have any distractions, so we had a lot more time to dedicate to it than we probably would have before. We probably would have gone out drinking a lot more and stuff like that. Negatives, probably there were some times where it was just getting a bit too much being in the studio in the same room doing takes after takes. It was just quite hard mentally sometimes to try and motivate yourself when you’ve just been sat in the same room for a long time.”

When asked about the cover art for this album, the band mentioned that they usually produce this all themselves, but not this time around. They said they had always wanted to get an artist in to create something for them, and this came about almost by chance. “There’s this guy in America and he had blue tick on Instagram, and he was an artist so we were like ‘woah this guy is a big deal’. But he used to comment on all our stuff, he’s called Kev Von Holt. He did the Ride cover, the Down cover, gave us some bits like that, and we just hand painted the How Not To Be Happy bit.” The colourful cover art sure does have an impact and cool aesthetic, and Mark jokingly mentions. “We needed to get the trendy artwork vibe in there just to pull in all the uni students that just fall for the fads you know.” The brothers went on to say that they think, “this is the best bunch of songs we could have given as a package with the coolest art, and the best videos we could give.”

How Not To Be Happy is out now via Hassle Records.

Like GLOO on Facebook.