Down The Pub With The Goa Express
Image: Tom Preece
With a ‘make do with what you’ve got’ attitude, long-time friends The Goa Express encompass everything there is about a band with something to say. Having played together since their tender years, the five piece hailing from Todmorden and Burnley have released two singles ‘The Day’ and ‘Be My Friend’ to critical acclaim, since finding their place among the Manchester music scene. We caught up with them over a pint at the Rose and Monkey to hear all about it. After the obvious pandemic talk is out of the way first…
“We’ve been doing little bits of recording over lockdown. We set the drum kit up in the front room,” lead guitarist Joey explains, “so we’re just practising most days and trying to write tunes, or just fucking about on our instruments.” Although, as many others have during lockdown, some members looked to different creative outlets to rid themselves of the quarantine blues: “Sam is a pretty good painter actually,” keys player Joe says. “He paints all this abstract shit with plastic knives and that. It’s mad.”
With no gigs currently being held, almost every musician's live life has been put on hold. “Yeah, it’s ‘pretty whack’ as Joe would say. We were thinking of putting on one ourselves, but I don’t think people would be too happy about that,” says guitarist and lead singer James, before Joe interjects shouting that ‘bad press is good press!’
“Yeah, I think even if people were moaning about us I’d be happy,” James continues. “We’re not doing it anymore anyway, but it’ll happen at some point. At the minute we just want to get demos down of all our songs. To be honest, it’s been nice throughout lockdown just to have some space. There’s too much shit to get down about these days.”
Image: Tom Preece
Produced respectively by Fat White Family's Nathan Saudi and Ross Orton [Arctic Monkeys, Working Men’s Club] in a series of recording sessions, ‘The Day’ and ‘Be My Friend’ discuss fears of being stuck in one place and the inevitable fragility of ‘single-serving friendships.’
“Both sessions were very chaotic, but they knew what they were doing and we did too, so it worked.” James explains. However, unsurprisingly each outing had its moments: “We got there and Nathan couldn’t get any of the equipment to work. He was banging the fucking laptop on the table and shit,” lead guitarist Joey laughs. “He kept playing us his beats saying ‘Listen to this one!’ It was mental. As the day went on though it was well good and we all got proper into it.”
With a laidback perspective to life themselves, the band found comfort in the unconventional process of working. “We don’t really want to be treated as a band, we just want to get treated as people,” begins James. “We don’t want to turn up to a recording studio and have everyone raving on about this thing, that thing. It’s more important to get on with them, so that was quite nice. We just turned up and hung about like mates.”
The latter single of the two was released earlier this year, written whilst lead singer James was still in university and having contradicting feelings about being there. “‘The Day’ was quite fun and chaotic, making fun of things, but this is quite pessimistic,” he says. “Bumping into people that you didn't really want to bump into, but you had to because they were always there. Getting a bit sick of hanging round and doing the same things all the time. Looking for a new lease of life.”
Image: Tom Preece
Major interest in their releases subsequently resulted in being taken under the wing of Rough Trade, where before, bassist Naham would sort out the gigs and it was “fucking terrible,” I’m told. Securing management relieved them from the pressures of PR and self-management, giving the band a whole new direction and allowing them creative freedom. “When you constantly have to go out of your way to get a gig or try and talk to someone to get you one or play a festival it can be hard,” Naham explains. “If you’ve got a platform it’s just much easier. We’re more exposed to these opportunities, whereas before we just didn’t have the chance to. The music has always been there - people just hadn’t got on to it yet.” James nods his head, adding: “Also, the people we’re involved with know more about the business side of the music industry more than we do. We’re out of our depth with that sort of stuff. I’m glad we are though, I don’t want it ever to affect the music.”
Unsurprisingly, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. The band were subjected to some degree of bad luck in their formative years. Although, a negative run in with an ex-label gave them a boost they never knew they needed. “When we were 16 or 17, we signed a contract with them to do a single and an EP, then they went bankrupt,” Sam laughs. “Yeah, it wasn’t really what we expected. But I’d rather have that earlier on than have it now and fuck everything up you know?” Naham agrees, saying: “It’s a nice learning curve because when you’re so new to everything you don’t know any better really. It gets to a point when you know more about people and you know what they are about.” Before James adds: “Without those mistakes there wouldn’t be any of this... We still manage to make a few to be fair though.”
Due to complications with their original idea and the slight obstacle of a global pandemic, the band were forced to create and edit their own music video for ‘Be My Friend’ in one never-ending night, using years of - strictly PG - footage from their phones. “We sent the video over to the guy that was meant to be doing the original and he did a mockup, but it didn’t really capture what we wanted, so we ended up just watching YouTube videos on how to do it.” Before keyboard player Joe adds: “We’ve got a cool little video camera these days though. We wanted to just start using it to record everything basically. It’s like a proper porno camera,” he laughs. “It’s been a great purchase that camera,” says James. “We get up to a lot of shit so there’s always something funny going on. Can’t share a lot of it, but it’s definitely getting filmed. I don’t even think about it now, if one of us does something stupid a normal person would probably react to it, but I don’t even notice anymore.” I proceed to make a comment about the iPhone being the 2020 equivalent to 90s kids seemingly always having a VHS camera around. “Yeah, but no one wants to see themselves in 4K. Everyone looks minging!” James laughs.
Image: Tom Preece
The overwhelming feeling I get from the band is that, like many musicians, they collectively strive for new experiences and have a strong need to keep moving forward. “I think as people we’re always trying to find something new. Going to new places, wearing different things, reading different books.” James continues, “We don’t like sitting in the spot we’re in, we don’t like staying stagnant at all. I don’t think we’re ever going to be happy if we’re settled. We’ll always be looking for it.”
Friends for over a decade, the group always put the good times first, with the band merely a bonus to their antics. Speaking of which, has not been hindered at all by their musical career. Whether it’s playing above their local shop to 50 people in a cramped room and nearly caving the roof in, or having mohawk-wearing fans throw themselves in to canals in the middle of winter - they have been sent on more than a few crazy experiences.
“I think together as mates, being in a band gives us another purpose,” bassist Naham begins, “It’s just another thing that makes you tighter and gives you another thing to do, you know what I mean? You’re doing things, but you’re doing them because you’re part of the band. It’s just a journey you’re all on together.” Joey agrees, shouting: “Yeah, you’ve got an excuse to do it. You’re not just a bum!” They proceed to reminisce over a particularly lairy night on the Hull to Rotterdam ferry: “We nearly missed it! Sam had to hold the ferry for us!” Joey laughs, before Naham adds: “Yeah pacing up and down trying to sweet talk them in to not setting off! Me and Joey were in the casino til about three or four in the morning. They had to bank transfer me the money because the machine couldn’t pay any more coins out!” Joey continues to detail a not-so-pleasant morning, being woken up via the ferry loudspeaker: “Worst wakeup call I’ve ever had. Had to get up and carry all the fucking equipment. I’d love to wake up to a French woman every morning, not so much an angry Dutch man.” After continuing to exchange anecdotes from their various trips in a roar or laughter, James states, “It’s only just started in terms of the shit we’re gonna get up to. I reckon we’ve got another 20 years of this.”
Watch the video for ‘Be My Friend’ here:
This interview was first featured in Yuck Magazine Volume Three, available to buy here.