Gama Bomb: All Aboard!

2020 has been a year filled with twists and turns and learning to acclimatise to the guidelines and safety measures that have been established along with the ongoing pandemic. This has caused the music industry to think outside of the box and be innovative in order to ensure their future. Touring has become a casualty in the wake of recent events but it has also given bands the opportunity to knuckle down and focus on writing new material. Loveable Irish thrashers GAMA BOMB have just recently dropped their seventh full-length album; Sea Savage. An effort which has ushered in a new chapter for the band in more ways than one.

“A big change for us this time round was that our drummer Paul who’s been in the band for 16/17 years left. Paul has always been the super thrash guy in the band and was kind of the beat police,” jokes bassist Joe McGuigan. “He’d make sure none of our songs got too slow or anything so when he left we kind of came to a consensus that we would try and do something a bit more heavy metal oriented. There is some material on the new record which sounds a bit like JUDAS PRIEST and IRON MAIDEN, that kind of vibe. For GAMA BOMB, progression has never been about writing eight minute songs, it’s always been about writing catchier choruses and improving our general songwriting rather than trying to bring out our Black Album or anything. I think people know what to expect with GAMA BOMB now as we have a sort of AC/DC approach to thrash and we’re not suddenly going to drop a totally different style of album at this stage. People know they can rely on us and that works for us.”

With Paul departing the band, GAMA BOMB were left with a conundrum on how they were going to fill the void of a long time band member and friend. After some searching they managed to acquire the services of one James Stewart who some of you may know from his work with death metal legends VADER and DECAPITATED. This addition has added some further firepower into their arsenal.

GAMA BOMB have garnered a reputation for being jokers with their comedic lyrics and wearing their love of Sci-Fi on their sleeves. This time round they have opted to go on a voyage along the waves in the form of Sea Savage. “Me and Philly have both been individually kind of interested in maritime disasters and things like that since we were kids because we grew up here in Northern Ireland,” Joe explains. “There’s a lot of history and we live right beside a big lough and a lighthouse so there was a lot that piqued our interest. I think it was the TV show The Terror about the Franklin expedition and we both recently watched the film The Lighthouse, the Willem Dafoe movie which had just came out so we thought this would be a great opportunity to explore that angle. This is our seventh record and once you’ve got so many under your belt you start considering themes like Egyptian or whatever and we thought a nautical themed record would be really cool. It was quite funny as a few years back we were considering doing a space themed album and then MUNICIPAL WASTE released The Fatal Feast!”

Whilst GAMA BOMB have built up a considerable fan base and the reliability of being dependable composers it hasn’t always been plain sailing. “A few years back Philly got vocal polyps and his voice was completely shot so I ended up having to sing for a few shows,” Joe says. “He had never really had any vocal training on how to sing or anything so when we got back from tour he had to have surgery and I don’t know if you’ve ever met Philly but he talks literally non-stop and it’s impossible to get him to shut up. For three weeks after surgery he wasn’t allowed to talk or do anything at all and he kind had to mime his way through life. When he recovered his high falsetto voice had kinda gone so you’ll probably notice that Terror Tapes and Untouchable Glory didn’t really have that kind of style on there. He went down a more Bruce Dickinson, more bellowy direction with his voice. He went to an opera singer to learn how to actually sing and on Speed Between The Lines he kinda came full circle and had the best of everything. He’s got a lot of character in his voice so now he can do the fast stuff and the high stuff too. We’re very luck to have him!”

Sea Savage is out now via Prosthetic Records. 

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