The Gordons Q&A

Local acoustic duo The Gordons are looking to release their second EP in the coming months. They have been working on it for some time but so far are not quite happy with the results. I sat down with them to talk about how they got started and what their plans are moving forward.

How did you guys get started with music?

Marc: Ahh I’ve been playing music since I was really young, I played keyboard in primary school, and I played the tuba for my primary concert band, which was a highlight. Then I suppose I started playing guitar in high school and that was the only instrument that I really stuck to for a long time. That’s pretty much me.

Mitch: I started playing piano when I was four. I did that for 7 or 8 years then I started guitar in year 7 and had lessons up until year 12 and am still going.

Do you play all of your own music, or do have other people come in to help you out for gigs and recording?

Mitch: The only real ring in is Ethan, a friend of ours who is a drummer.

Marc: Yeah Ethan played drums for us on our EP when we recorded it. So when we play any bigger kind of gigs, we’ll use Ethan if he is around town, but we do gigs just the two of us as well.

Mitch: Yeah, just the two voices, and two guitars.

[quote]It was easier for us to work together than it was to work with a group of people. So we pretty much split off and spent three months just writing songs, heaps of songs. – Marc[/quote]

How did you guys end up playing music together?

Mitch: With a rock band, probably about 3 years ago.

Marc: Yeah maybe three or four

Mitch: Yeah, it started and I was first in it, as a guitarist, and we never amounted to anything and it fizzled out completely. I stopped because of year 12 and I had a bunch of stuff going on. Then next thing I knew, Marc was in that band, and I kind of jumped in as the bassist. We kind of rolled with it for a little bit, but we never really amounted to much.

Marc: In the end we kind of decided we wanted to split off to do our own thing and work as a duo. It was easier for us to work together than it was to work with a group of people. So we pretty much split off and spent three months just writing songs, heaps of songs. That’s pretty much how it started. We just split off to just do two acoustics, and play little gigs, and record some stuff and see where it takes us.

Did you know each other outside of music?

Mitch: We went school together in year six, only for that year. I went to a different school and Marc stayed on where he was.

Marc: We were still friends through high school when I joined our old band.  We started recording and I spoke to Mitch about it and got him to hop back on board with bass.  But yeah we’d pretty much see each other once or twice a week anyway, so we were friends beforehand. Which I suppose helped.

Mitch: It wasn’t just “I want to start a band, I’d better find some one to start a band with.”

Marc: Yeah it was a more that we just liked hanging out and playing music.

[quote]I guess our genre is hard to put a label on. I’ve been trying to figure out what it is since we started doing this thing. – Mitch[/quote]

How would you describe your music? What genre would you call it?

Marc: I Suppose our vibe is pretty easy listening, kind of folk and acoustic.

Mitch: A bit of pop as well.

Marc: Yeah, my personal influences are very different to Mitch’s. I listen to a lot of American pop punk, and a bit of hardcore and just a whole range of things, where I suppose Mitch listens to a lot more indie stuff.

Mitch: Not indie, acoustic. A lot of Aussie acoustic and folk stuff I suppose as well as some of the bigger international bands like Boy and Bear. I suppose we find common ground in things like Coldplay and You Me at Six, Ed Sheeran, and John Mayer.  We’ve got a lot of influence from him.

I guess our genre is hard to put a label on. I’ve been trying to figure out what it is since we started doing this thing. It’s sort of an amalgamation of whatever our influences are. So they sort of meet in the middle and make something unique. I hope that’s not too cliché to say.

Marc: I grew up and spent a lot of time listening to Mayday Parade, and they were huge for me, and then one of their old lead singers, Jason Lancaster, is one of my favourite musicians of all time and so pretty much anything he’s involved with I’ll listen to. It’s all pretty similar as far as that goes, but then I also listen to bands like Underoath.

The Script is another one of my huge influences. I suppose it’s hard to dub down my influences to one or two. It’s a broad spectrum but I think it is definitely more poppy than what Mitch brings to the table. I think that’s why it works because we kind of have that folk and indie feel and then something a bit more generic at the same time.

[quote] I don’t know what the most common way to write a song is so I don’t really know if there is a right or a wrong way. -Mitch[/quote]

How do you write your music?

Marc: Normally it starts with a game of FIFA to get the creative juices flowing. When we pipe down and get to it a lot of our songs stem from one of us writing a chorus or a just a guitar part. And then someone will write a verse and we’ll look at that. Then the other will write the next verse or we’ll work together to write the next part.

It kind of starts and we just bounce backwards and forwards. There are only really one or two songs from our first EP that were written by one of us. Everything else we kind of bounce off each other, we’ll send a verse through to the other and then we’ll get together and make a little recording of it. See what the other thinks of this. Then we’ll maybe add some stuff and see which way it goes. It’s a lot of back and forth.

Mitch: If we come up with something at practice sometimes we’ll just be chilling with a guitar part looping in the background, almost trying to force something out. Then something will just spark and we’ll go, “yeah! Let’s get that going,” and then it becomes like a snowball effect.

Marc: Yeah, once we get started it just sort of morphs

Mitch: I don’t know what the most common way to write a song is so I don’t really know if there is a right or a wrong way. I think sometimes people will fill journals with lyrics and words, and then try and write that into a song. Me personally, though, I like to start with humming something like a melody, then maybe find a line of lyrics to add to it to see if it goes anywhere. If it doesn’t, then I just forget about it.

Marc: I think Mitch is normally pretty good at writing the first verse or chorus and having a melody for that, and then I just help working off that. As far as songwriting goes I have never been incredibly creative but once there’s an idea I can work off that.

What can we expect from you guys in the future?

Marc: I think we will, in the next few months, be wanting to be putting out some fresh things and keeping people engaged. It’s been a quiet few months as a band, we’ve both been super busy. I started a new job and Mitch is flat out with his. Definitely wanting to settle back into it and start gigging again.

We have new material that we recorded but I think our biggest issue is that we don’t want to go backwards. So when we listen to it, we don’t want it to be worse than our first EP. We want it to be better. So I think the struggle is trying to find a way we can use what we have but then dig deeper so that when we bring it out it is a step forwards and that people will still engage and think it’s fresh.

Mitch: Maybe not so much immediately, as we are still working on figuring out what to do with what we have just recorded, as well as putting pen to paper and writing new stuff, and exploring maybe slightly refined or different sounds. In terms of releasing anything, not too sure of a deadline or a date. It’s more a focus on what we want to get ready and what we should get ready. So hopefully new music, but it’s all in the process.

[quote] I suppose for us, its more important that we stay honest to ourselves and what we want and believe in instead of trying to become famous artists that travel the world, as cool as that would be. – Mark[/quote]

What are your aspirations as a band?

Mitch: From a music perspective, it is to write music that is as honest as possible, and then I suppose that you just have to hope, if you want to make something from it, that other people like it. With that, I think also writing stuff that is going to be relevant and thought provoking and full of emotion in good ways. From a music side I think that’s important. Staying honest in terms of stature as a band, it’s something that is a very difficult thing. But it does depend on how we define success. Are we basing success on how big we get, how many records we sell or how many people we impact with music?

Marc: I think for me, if we can get someone to connect with the music we write then that’s successful. There’s no real metre on success, you know when do you deem yourself successful. If someone can listen to what we write and connect with it, if they can just relate to it in a positive way, then we’ve achieved what we want to achieve.

It’s so hard to reach the heights of the bands that everyone knows, but there are so many great bands that people will never hear about that people connect with on that level. I suppose for us, its more important that we stay honest to ourselves and what we want and believe in instead of trying to become famous artists that travel the world, as cool as that would be.

You can listen to their first EP here.