An Interview with GUM (Jay Watson)
Words by Sarah Morrison
Photo by Sam Kristofski
It's finally been revealed that GUM (Jay Watson) will release his fifth studio album 'Out In The World' on June 12th via Spinning Top Records, along-side his latest single release ‘Don’t Let It Go Out.’
"This album is my attempt at making a record that combines my fascination of how other people live their lives, with my own internal desire to analyze mine and improve it."
Ahead of the announcement, we rang Watson to chat on how he’s keeping busy during lockdown, ‘the nervous fear,’ the importance of different musical structures and sounds, working with Laura-Lynn Petrick, and playing around with multiple forms of media.
Before everything started to slow down, were you out in LA or the UK?
I lived in LA and London, UK, for a little bit. I live out in Australia now and have been for the last three years. Most of us guys in Pond and Tame live back in Australia now, there's only a couple of them that live over in the States.
I guess also between now and then, you've managed to get involved with other acts such as Faux Real?
Yeah, that was really cool. I was actually sick then, I had bronchitis (laughs)! I had done some GUM solo shows around the world; ten shows in two weeks or something like that within Australia, the States, and Europe, which just killed me. But the EP they have coming out, I think is really good!
I've been doing a lot of that sort of stuff, little bits, and remixes for people and production.
Is that a hobby of yours or something you'd like to start doing more often?
It's not really a hobby, I only work on material that I like. But I'm also trying to have a job and a career that doesn't rely on me touring forever necessarily. I think that's important to me, not because I dislike touring, but I'd like to have the option one day to work on other things.
I have a family now and at the same time, I don't want to take it for granted especially at times like this when nobody can tour. I like doing as many different things as possible within music. I’m not really good at anything else, I'd like to keep doing as much production, mixing work, recording, and songwriting, as much as possible.
With everything going on right now, has this affected any sort of goals or plans that you had for the upcoming year? Did you have some people you were going to work with that you now have to wait to jump in with?
Not really, I don't have goals for each year. I like to stay as busy as possible without ruining my life. Although we can't do all the touring this year with the bands, I'm still working on remixes and working on stuff over the internet with people.
To be honest, I've never really done that many collaborations in-person with people anyways. When I've had time off, I've just wanted to be at home and work from home. In that sense, it's going to be an interesting time. I try to chip away a few hours every day at a couple of things.
How are you filling your days at the moment?
I just listen to music really. We have a young baby so I look after him quite a lot but that's it really, we're not allowed to go anywhere (laughs). I just listen to music, work on music, and I've got a tiny studio set up here in our living room. We live in a lovely house but it's quite small so we make use of every little corner/nick in the house.
Let's hop into your newest single 'Out In The World.' It's fucking brilliant by the way, I've had it on a loop since the release. It's very different from the material you've previously released.
Ah, thank you! The most similar stuff is probably the first GUM album. The production and such is different but that type of songwriting, the first album had that jangly guitar. But it's always different. On the new album, almost every song sounds completely different, it's not very coherent (laughs).
I thought it would be cool to do a... I had a cover for the 7'' just because I had the cover and I didn't want to put it on the album but I still wanted to put it out.
“Out In The World” focuses on the theme of giving up and removing yourself when things get hard. Was this a topic or focus point that you had been struggling with around the time you wrote the song?
When you were a little kid, did you have that thing where your mum would tell you off or something and you'd get really upset and you'd think ‘ah, I'm not talking to anyone ever again!’ You would try to be very bruting and serious? Or, ‘that's my vibe for now on!’ And then of course about an hour later you'd get hungry and want a big cuddle from your mum. I guess this is the adult version of that sensation. Sometimes it can be catastrophic or you can just be pissed off with your mate.
I think a lot of my songs are sort of abstract. They're very rarely ever literal but it just depends on how much I'm trying to avoid a specific feeling.
Your past releases have also been centered around other forms of anxiety. What are ways you’ve learned to deal and cope with this?
I think most of my life, certainly my adult life, I had really bad anxiety. Not so much social anxiety but really bad health anxiety. A lot of it was drinking too much and being hungover all the time; ‘the nervous fear' as we call it. More and more people have crippling anxiety; it doesn't seem like a huge thing but it's more prevalent than when I was young and felt really weird all the time.
It's obviously really hard for a lot of people but for me, I can totally manage it if I exercise heaps and eat well. I know, that sounds dumb and obvious but if I don't exercise for a few days or I ate McDonald's for lunch or slept for tour hours on tour, I get really, really, bad. If I don't do any of that then I can manage it quite well.
Do you still drink on tour or is that something you've outgrown to prevent the anxiety?
I drink but I very rarely ever hungover anymore.
For years, the high was the thing and the comedown wasn't much of a thing. It was equal for a couple of years and now it's just not worth it. Have a little bit of fun and then you'd be in bed for a week. Just destroyed, you know? I don't get that broken anymore.
But also, I'm almost thirty. It doesn't sound super old but I've been doing it now for almost twelve or thirteen years; touring and playing music, so I don't need to be drinking and partying like that anymore.
Has becoming a father given you a bit of perspective?
It's certainly very surreal but I've never really changed my outlook in that sense. It hasn't changed what I do outside of home that much because I've stopped going out heaps for the last couple of years anyways. It's changed my life inside my house a lot (laughs)!
Circling back to the single, I heard it started off as a 12 string folk tune. In what ways did you reshape its original format to make it [as you say] Fleetwood Mac meets Cleaners of Venus?
Well, I was going to put real drums on it but I didn't have access to a drum kit of awhile so I used heaps of samples. Everything is real drums except for the sample parts. It changed the rest of the vibe of it; it suddenly sounded like an 80s sort of thing other than an organic/folky sort of song.
Drums change a song quite a bit. You can the exact same song with completely different drums and have it change the vibe of it a lot.
Are drums your first instrument? Is that something you look for or notice when you start writing?
Drums were the instrument I had formally training on but I barely had access to record live drums since, well, forever! I've just never had enough room in my apartment or house.
It is important. I probably don't put as much effort into them as I should compared to other people I know where it's super important for them. For example, Tame Impala, the drums are a super important element for them. With my solo stuff, maybe when I get mic'ed up I'll pay a little more attention to them.
You’ve spent a lot of time touring over the last year, do you spin quite a bit of 80s while on the road that influenced the album?
I listen to a lot of different music and the full-length album is all over the place. It doesn't sound like one particular time period or type of music. It's a bit of a mess! But that's sort of how I've always liked to make music. I think POND is a bit like that to.
There's not a type of music that I feel aligned with or attached to, you know? Especially this era of the playlist; I have this massive playlist, maybe six or seven hundred songs now, and every time I find a song I like, I add it to the list and put it on shuffle in my house all day. I think that's the way most people consume music now.
To be honest, unless the record is top or amazing, my attention span is too short to listen to similar-sounding stuff for forty minutes anyways.
It would be disingenuous to make a record where it all sounds the same. I try to make each song sound like a different band almost.
I think that's why a lot of people say ‘oh it sounds like you're heading in a new direction,' but it's not really a new direction. Each song, hopefully, sounds quite different.
I really liked BECK when I was younger and his records were always like that; every genre in one, to some extent.
Does that mean with the rest of the album, we won't get that jangly guitar sound again?
It's just that song that's like that. There are other songs on the record that are completely synth or drum machine focused.
What about 'Out In The World' stood out to you from the new repertoire? Why release it first?
It was one of the more obvious and easiest ones to listen to. Sometimes I don't like to put out a single, but I don't know, I just really liked the song.
It was one of the most effortless ones for me to write and record which is nice. And it's not always like that, sometimes there are those easy ones on the record that aren't your favourite. But with this specific one, I really liked it, and it's easy to listen to so it was a no brainer.
And the record will be released through Spinning Top! You’ve been releasing with them for as long as I’ve known of your multiple projects, what’s it been like working with them?
They put out our records and a couple of our mates records which works really well for me because I've done so much for them over the years and I can hand my records when they're done and get them out with minimal fuss! Some labels can be really tough to work with sometimes so it's great that I can put out material with people I know really well and everyone's on the same page.
They'll tell me when they like songs versus other songs but they've never told me they don't like the record or asked me to change anything. I think that's really important.
I think times have changed in that sense a bit. 90s band's record labels would tell them they don't like it and to go back and change things if they wanted that deal but I'm not sure how much that happens anymore but maybe I'm native.
You worked with Laura-Lynn Petrick on the music video while out in Los Angeles. You didn’t want to video to be obviously shot in Los Angeles. Was there a specific creative decision for that?
She just wanted to have it look like it could be any city really! There are certain landmarks that people would know but it wasn't supposed to look distinctly like L.A. or California.
Had you worked with Petrick prior to this experience or how did two get involved?
No I hadn’t, but I liked her other stuff and we have quite a few mutual friends in L.A.; she lives there. It was really nice, we just hung out for a couple of days, cruised around, and filmed stuff!
Like a lot of your other videos, you decided to have an older stylistic quality to it; using a 16mm, Super 8, and a Camcorder. What about that aesthetic is something you prefer?
I like the idea of having as many film mediums as possible so some of them are used with 16mm, Super 8, and Camcorder, some may even be digital! Just like with music, I like smashing through a bunch of different formats.
When I record I try to not write songs entirely on tape or entirely in a laptop, I try to use whatever little bit I have and that have the coolest sound. I don't like my music sounding like the past but I don't want it to sound like the present either, I think it would date fairly poorly.
You're always trying to find a balance. It's a bit of a turn off for me when people look too retro or on the flip side when they have all the latest gear.
I guess it's one of those things, like when using tape to record, it's harder for something to look shit. Not necessarily making something brilliant but certain sorts of film will look beautiful; you could film a tree doing nothing and it will look really nice. But if I filmed a tree doing nothing on my iPhone you might not want to watch it.
It will always be around. There's lots of stuff that you think looks really nice, for example, a Super 8, and that's an old fashion format that they were obsessed with using in the 90s. Stuff comes and goes, and comes and goes, and loops around. There will be little hipsters in 2040 filming on iPhone three's.
Kristofski ended up getting his hands involved by helping shoot the underwater pool scenes. Was that something that came preplanned?
We just filmed that for no reason. We were going to use it for something else but I really liked the look of the footage and so did Laura-Lynn so we just put it in.
I didn't like the way I looked in a lot of it. That's always the problem when you're filming stuff, I won't put out what was probably really nice footage because I didn't like the way my hair or body or some shit looked. But unfortunately, that's just the way it goes. Every year you get older and every year you look rougher.