After only forming in 2014, it’s hasn’t taken long for people to catch on to Melbourne post-punk band Gold Class. Sonically driven by attacking rhythms, bristling guitar, and the deep vibrato of singer Adam Curley, the four piece have been packing out band rooms all over the city.
The band recently signed to taste-making label Spunk Records (home of Ocean Party, Mac DeMarco, Jessica Pratt and so many more) to release their attention grabbing debut LP It’s You.
Now on the back of their stunning debut release, local and international signings and impressive live shows (including a very buzzed Bigsound performance) it’s fair to say that the attention on these guys is growing exponentially. We decided to chat with the frontman Adam Curley to get to know Gold Class a little better, check it out below and for more info on the band visit their Facebook page. It’s You is out now via Spunk Records – order it here.
Tone Deaf: You guys only formed last year, can you tell us about how you all came together? Were you in other bands previously?
Adam Curley: Yeah, Jon and Mark play in other bands – Bone and Possible Humans – but Evan and I weren’t playing in anything at the time, which was partly why he gave me a tape of a few guitar ideas he’d been kicking around. But we were just hanging out a lot, going to the same shows, working in the same bar, talking about writing bits and pieces of fiction, so it was a pretty relaxed start. It took the course of the summer to finally get into a room together, but then we wrote a song that first jam and just kept writing.
TD: Having only formed in 2014, you guys started playing live and writing/recording music almost immediately, was it easy? Why do you think?
AC: We were into the idea of playing as soon as possible and not caring too much if we were playing perfectly. You know, I don’t think you have to have everything figured out before you get onstage. That can be interesting, too. We had maybe five songs for our first show at Sunday School at the Public Bar, and I think I was still figuring out lyrics for a few of them, but we made some noise and got a nice response. Two of those songs we were happy to record for a 7”, primarily because we wanted to play shows and no one knew what we sounded like. I suppose it’s hard for us to say if any of it happened quickly or easily; we were just writing and doing what we had to do to play some shows. We still are.
TD: Can you tell us a bit about the process behind recording It’s You?
AC: We recorded it with Simon Grounds at Head Gap over four days. It was intensive, but don’t think we’d have taken any more time given the chance. Simon had a pretty clear idea of how we operated from seeing us live, so he came in with some ideas, but mostly the idea was to get our set down in the best way possible. We used an old 24-track tape machine to keep everything sounding a bit warmer.
TD: This new album was written with a rather focussed angle, can you tell us about it? (we’ve heard it’s a feminist album written from a male perspective)?
[include_post id=”457738″] AC: I think I’ve mentioned that I wanted the lyrics to partially reflect a feminist perspective, but I’m not claiming the album to be any kind of feminist statement. It isn’t that, and I have no interest in speaking for women. I guess I’ve found it somehow important as a man in a band of all men to identify myself as a feminist from the outset in this context – although I would anyway, if anyone asked – and the lyrics are going to reflect my politics because they’re about personal experiences and that’s going to come up. I wasn’t having the easiest time when we started out and, for me, looking at it now, the album is lyrically more about the relationship between internal and outside forces. You know, the struggles you have with yourself are always informed by external forces too, and you can fight against that, or embrace it sometimes. But the lyrics are there if anyone wants to pay attention to them.
TD: You released It’s You via two very well respected and much loved labels Spunk Records in Australia/NZ and through felte in the USA/Europe. How did you team up with these guys?
AC: We were lucky to have been on Spunk’s radar reasonably early on, and we all have a lot of respect for the label and the bands who’ve been involved in it. So when it came time to think about what we wanted to do with the album, after we recorded it, Spunk were at the top of our list of labels we were interested in working with. Aaron from Spunk was excited about the record when he heard it so things moved along pretty quickly, and then Jeff Owens who runs felte in L.A. got in touch with us because he’d been listening to the 7”, which someone had given him. We were about to send the record to press so we had to move fast with him. We’d heard great things about him and he’s released bands we know personally and love, so it was a reasonably easy decision.
TD: Obviously there’s a strong sonic post-punk influence, but what other types of music/ art inform you work?
AC: We’re all into different things. I mean we’d each been doing our own things for a fair while before Gold Class happened, so there’s probably no real answer to that. When we’re together we listen to Kendrick or HTRK or Cured Pink or something. We played at Volumes in Sydney not long ago and we all watched Blank Realm after our set, and I think we all felt the magnitude of that band these days. They play for themselves and there are a lot of ideas going on, but it translates into something pretty huge and accessible.
TD: Do you have any local bands you were inspired by?
AC: Again, I’m not sure there’s really an answer to that. Right now I’m listening to the Mollusc tape a lot. They have some great hooks and production on there. Yaws and Karli White are doing good stuff.
TD: What are your plans for the next 12 months?
AC: We’ve got a run of our own shows coming up and we’re supporting The Fall in Brisbane and Sydney in October. We’ll spend summer here and we’re pretty keen to get over to the US early next year; we’re figuring out how that’s going to happen. I think we’re all looking forward to writing more and hopefully recording again before too long. I’m mostly thinking about the shows right now.
Upcoming Shows
September 24 | John Curtin Hotel | Melbourne
Supporting The Garden w/ Miss Destiny
October 9| The Tote | Melbourne
Album launch
October 20 | The Zoo | Brisbane
Supporting The Fall
October 21 | Metro Theatre | Sydney
Supporting The Fall
October 23 | Brighton Up Bar | Sydney
Album launch
