A Chat With Wesley Gonzalez
DIY punk’s enfant terrible turned pop-sophisticate Wesley Gonzalez is back today with his new album, ‘Appalling Human,’ a post-therapy project ladened with an orgy of high-end synthesisers, mixed for the dancefloor by James Greenwood (Ghost Culture, Daniel Avery, Kelly Lee Owens).
The record, released through Moshi Moshi, is ironically more accomplished than his 2017 release, ‘Excellent Musician.’ It portrays the sound of a twenty-nine-year-old getting a handle on life, even as a long-running love affair buckles; becoming the collateral in a family bust-up. With a forensic attention to writing, Gonzalez’ songs are anything but the traditionally charmless, self-help pop anthems of our time. Instead, self-deprecation and a sense of perspective make even the album’s most self-affirming lyrics emotionally complex and interesting.
There’s been a three year gap between Wesley’s first record ‘Excellent Musician’ and his latest release ‘Appalling Human’. After describing the former as ‘pre-therapy’ and the latter as ‘post-therapy,’ Wesley confirms the session will never quite be completed. “It's definitely gotten much better coping with my own demons, therefore I feel like now I find it easier to write about some of them,” he begins. “Definite progress, but I don't expect I'll ever be 'cured.’” Wesley had the record finalised, fresh off the press and ready to be released a lot earlier than it was, but due to family health issues the project was postponed. “It does mean I've stored up more tracks for a third, to get working on as soon as I can,” he reveals.
As well as the band’s line-up; the record was mixed with James Greenwood, to give it a more ‘dance’ feel, and used co-producer Euan Hinshelwood’s saxophone throughout. “He’s a fucking brilliant engineer,” Gonzalez enthuses, “I wanted to get someone from a dance music background because I find that every mix I’ve ever done, there’s always been certain things lacking. Things that dance music takes very seriously, that in indie production you don’t get; like sub bass, kick and bass - the importance of that in every track.” Such influences are prominent throughout the record, with a new professional gloss, Gonzalez has almost certainly made his mark on the modern music scene, cementing a truly unique sound.
“On every record there's a few things you didn't initially plan that become your favourite part of the track, but this record was very planned out and meticulously thought about,” he explains. “It was a real obsession. Having said that, you collaborate and get the brilliance of others involved and both Euan and James gifted me with some fantastic sonic ideas for which I'm very grateful.”
Initially Gonzalez aimed for a “really dry and weird post-punk thing” with the record’s production, taking inspiration from the likes of ZE Records, Liquid Liquid and Patrick Cowley. “A lot of which is as much disco as it is post-punk or avant-garde,” Gonzalez explains. “I don't think the songs were ever going to channel those things fully as they were written as full on pop songs to begin with, so both of those influences kind of worked in tandem with one another.” The influences on the record are such a wide amalgam that at times it's hard to focus on where all the influences come from, but it never felt unnatural to him letting them all live as one on the LP. “I was listening to loads of house music, hip hop, soul and funk too,” he adds. “The more dance music you listen to, the more you go like ‘Oh, it’s okay not to be dreary the entire time.” Far from Dreary, ‘Appalling Human’ will leave you feeling a lot more uplifted than the title suggests. Still retaining the sardonic bite of his earlier work, Wesley has obtained a gift of communication and dynamic skillset far surpassing it.
Despite the pop-iness, the album certainly has a melancholic tone running through it. The tracks focus on intimate situations - some heartbreaking, others heartwarming - although it’s almost constantly told in a sort of tongue-in-cheek kind of way. On the fifth track, ‘Change’ we are presented with the first overwhelmingly positive lyric, detailing a drinking partner’s journey to sober-dom. The song’s disarmingly simple chorus conveys an endearing, pure message: “I won’t be cold, so just call.” With such a stand-up’s take on complicated situations in life, I wonder if this is how the record’s protagonist has always written. “It's how I process dark stuff, to make light of it, I'm really fascinated by society's rules on what's okay to talk about and what's not in terms of your own emotions, I've always been very open about what I'm like or how I feel or at least i've always attempted to be,” he begins, “so I developed a way of presenting really unpleasant parts of life in a humorous way to make it more palatable, I guess. It's also like a challenge to discuss the worst parts of your life without making anyone feel too alienated, it makes your brain work a bit harder.”
Getting into this creative phase, along with therapy, taking better care of himself and learning to write on piano, was due to the choice of people he chose to surround himself with. The new lineup around Wesley contained bassist Joe Chilton, singer Rose Dougal, drummer Bobby Voltaire and Callum Duffy on synths. Happy to sit back and accommodate Wesley’s demanding notion of how things should sound; he embraced this method of benevolent dictatorship in the studio on the first record and didn’t change much for the second outing. “I don't think I exude that energy forcefully, the last thing you want is a room full of grumpy musicians pissed off about being told what to do,” jokes Gonzalez, “it's totally like a group of pals meeting up and making music, but I think it's very clear at all times what I'm driving at or what I've conceptualised.”
Rather than rehearse the songs to death until he gets sick of them, Wesley demos and re-demos the tracks at home, sending them to the band as he goes, “so they sort of see my thought process and when it comes time to record its really springy and no ones in the dark about what i'm after. There's room to inject ideas I wouldn't have come up with on my own.”
As this new way of working unblocked Gonzalez’s creativity, so did the environment around him. He was going into work at a Soho record shop, wanting to throw himself into traffic, then patching himself up with music; though not every day was as normal as the next. “There's tonnes of tales I've amassed from working in record shops over the years but a lot of them are stored up to tell people in pubs,” he jokes. “I don't know if my boss would be happy with me divulging seedy stories about our most insane customers. I worked at a different record store when I was a teenager and there was also a connected vintage clothing store. There was a guy who would come in regularly and hide in the dresses, masturbating into high heels. There's one for ya!” Wesley laughs.
Obviously touring the album for Wesley is a no-go at the minute, but he has been keeping himself busy doing live sets on social media, such as Rough Trade last Thursday, and plans on continuing when he can. “We are trying to figure out how to get the whole band in a room at the moment, there's only so much I can do on my own and I miss working off other musicians so that seems like the best way to broadcast live streams, we are just in the process of finding space to do it in!” he says, positively. “The ones on my own have been fun but weird. In a way I really enjoy being in complete control with filming and editing from home or adding visuals, but it's a lot of work! So I'd love to have the band back around me to give it a bit more energy.”
Despite the electronic mainframe that embodies his solo project, at the heart of his music there is a depth and character that is so often lost among its counterparts. There’s a flamboyance akin to Harry Nilsson or Andy Partridge of XTC, juxtaposed with a melancholic lost innocence. Gonzalez’s sensitive feel for characters and situations embodies a depth that becomes more and more apparent with each release.