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Gomez
Background information
Origin	Southport, England
Genre(s)	Indie rock, Folk
Years active	1996–present
Label(s)	ATO, Hut, Independiente
Website	http://www.gomeztheband.com/
Members
Ian Ball Ben Ottewell Tom Gray Paul Blackburn Olly Peacock

Gomez are an English indie rock band from Southport. Their first album, Bring It On, won the Mercury Music Prize in 1998.

Contents 1 Early career 2 Career success 3 Personnel 4 Discography 4.1 Albums 4.2 EPs 4.3 Singles 5 References 6 External links

Guitarist and vocalist Ian Ball and drummer Olly Peacock had previously played together in a local heavy metal band called Providence. They joined with guitarist / vocalist / keyboardist Tom Gray and bassist Paul Blackburn. Ball met vocalist / guitarist Ben Ottewell from Matlock Bath in Derbyshire at Sheffield University, where they were both studying.

The band played their first gig together in late 1996 in Leeds without a formal name. The band left a sign out for a friend of theirs whose surname was Gomez to indicate that it was the site of their first gig. People saw the sign and assumed that the band's name was Gomez - the name stuck.

The band started recording four-track demos in Olly's dad's garage in Southport soon after. A bidding war erupted when they sent the demos to recording labels, with the band finally signing with Virgin Records' subsidiary, Hut, in 1997.

Gomez entered the recording studio in 1997 to turn their demos into a full-length album. The band spent the next three months in the studio and touring the United Kingdom with Embrace. Their first single, "78 Stone Wobble", was released in March 1998, while their debut album, Bring It On, was released a month later. The album received excellent critical response from both sides of the Atlantic, with Spin Magazine calling it a "damn beautiful album". Sales of the album in the United Kingdom were bolstered when Bring It On won the 1998 Mercury Music Prize for best album, beating out favorites such as Massive Attack's Mezzanine and the Verve's Urban Hymns. "Get Myself Arrested" and "Whippin' Piccadilly" were later released as singles, while Gomez toured the United States with Eagle Eye Cherry. Despite the critical acclaim, however, Bring It On is thus far the only Gomez album not to find a place on U.S. album charts.

The band's second album, Liquid Skin, was released in 1999, lending Gomez further success on the British and Australian album charts, as well as making the Billboard Heatseeker chart for the first time.

A collection of B-sides and rarities, Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline, was released in 2000.

The group's third album, In Our Gun, was released in 2002. It made the top 10 on the United Kingdom charts as well as the top 50 on the Australian charts. The single "Shot Shot" charted in the UK top 40, the top 20 in Portugal, and the Billboard Heatseeker chart.

While Gomez's first three albums had been self-produced, the band entered their new recording studio in Portslade in East Sussex with Tchad Blake as producer. Blake had previously produced albums by Tom Waits, Crowded House and Pearl Jam and a pick of the dozens of tracks produced during the 18 months in the studio became their fourth album Split the Difference released in May 2004. This album reached the top 40 in the UK and Australia. The first single "Catch Me Up" entered the UK top 40 in March 2004 and "Silence" was released as the second single.

Split the Difference received a good critical response, with the All Music Guide rating it as four and a half stars out of five and BBC Internet Music Reviews describing it as "one of the finest releases of the year so far. If you were one of those people who wrote them off two years ago, it's time to get listening again."^[1]

However, despite all the positive attention, Gomez were dropped by their longtime label, Virgin Records. Hut Recordings was discontinued by the major label and while the majority of musicians were moved to other labels within the EMI Records group, 20% of signed artists with Hut were released.

In 2005, Gomez signed a new deal with Dave Matthews’ (of the Dave Matthews Band) ATO Records. Under a new label, the band released their first live album, Out West in June 2005. The double disc CD was compiled from shows recorded at San Francisco’s famous Fillmore Theater in January 2005.

In an effort to build their popularity in the US, Gomez have been touring extensively in the past few years. They played at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2003. With Ian Ball relocating to Los Angeles, California with his wife, the band played at venues across the US in 2004 and were originally slated to be a part of the cancelled 2004 Lollapalooza tour. Spring 2005 saw the band join Cake as part of the Virgin Records Megatour of American colleges.

In January 2006 the band performed on Jam Cruise before returning to the studio to put the final touches on "How We Operate." After playing the SxSW music festival in Austin, Tom, Ian and Ben debuted material from the upcoming release in several US cities. The band's 2006 spring tour included stops in Asheville NC, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Denver, San Francisco, and Portland, OR. They also performed at several large outdoor festivals, including stops at the Beale Street and Bonnaroo Festivals in Tennessee, the Jazzfest in New Orleans and Sasquatch Festival in George, WA.

The Gomez studio album "How We Operate" was released on 2 May 2006. The album's title track was featured in the Grey's Anatomy episode Deterioration of the Fight or Flight Response. On 14 February 2006 their song "Get Miles" was featured in the House episode Distractions, and on 6 March 2007 their song "See the World" was featured in the episode "Half-Wit". They were also one of the many bands featured on a John Lennon Tribute aired on BBC Radio2 to mark the 25th anniversary of the singer's death. Gomez performed "Hey Bulldog" by The Beatles, and "Instant Karma!" by Lennon.

"How We Operate" is also the ending song to the remake of the cult classic "The Hitcher" and as the title music for the pilot episode of "The Riches"

A collection of A- and B-sides and rarities titled Five Men In A Hut (CD) was released on October 17, 2006. The two-disc album consists of released and unreleased tracks recorded under the Hut/Virgin label from 1998-2004. A DVD with music videos and interviews from their time with Hut was also released.

Gomez continue to tour, right now co-headlining a 2007 U.S. tour with label-mate Ben Kweller. At the end of March, the band will go solo with an Australian/New Zealand tour. Then in July Gomez will head back to the states headlining a second leg of their U.S. tour.

On March 2nd, 2007, Gomez recorded a concert at the Vic Theater in Chicago, IL that was streamed via MSN Music.^[2]

Vocalist and songwriter Ian Ball has recently begun a solo project, with an album entitled Who Goes There ^{[3] [4]}.

• Ian Ball (vocals, guitar)
• Ben Ottewell (vocals, guitar)
• Paul Blackburn (bass)
• Tom Gray (vocals, guitar, keyboards)
• Olly Peacock (drums)

The lineup has not changed since the band's beginning in 1996. Instrumentalist Dajon Everett is listed as a de facto member of the band on their official website.

Most Gomez songs feature more than one vocalist, but this is a breakdown of the lead vocalist on each track from the CD How We Operate [1]:

• Ian: Notice, Hamoa Beach, Charley Patton Songs, Cry On Demand
• Ben: See The World, How We Operate, Chasing Ghosts With Alcohol, Tear Your Love Apart, All Too Much
• Tom: girlshapedlovedrug, Woman! Man!, Don't Make Me Laugh

Title	Year	UK Chart	US Heatseeker	US Billboard 200
Bring It On	1998	#11	-	-
Liquid Skin	1999	#2	#30	-
Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline	2000	#10	#44	-
In Our Gun	2002	#8	#37	-
Split the Difference	2004	#12	#11	#191
Out West	2005	#145	#46	-
How We Operate	2006	#69	#1	#106
Five Men In A Hut (CD)	2006	TBA	TBA	TBA
Five Men In A Hut (DVD)	2006	TBA	TBA	TBA

• Machismo E.P. (May 2000) N/A
• Detroit Swing '66/Ping One Down (July 1 2002) N/A
• See The World E.P. (October 2006) N/A
• Girlshapedlovedrug E.P. (November 13 2006) N/A

Title	Date	UK Chart
78 Stone Wobble	April 6, 1998	# 44
Get Myself Arrested	June 8, 1998	# 45
Whippin' Piccadilly	September 7, 1998	# 35
Bring It On	July 5, 1999	# 21
Rhythm & Blues Alibi	September 6, 1999	# 18
We Haven't Turned Around	November 22, 1999	# 38
Shot Shot	March 11, 2002	# 28
Sound of Sounds / Ping One Down	June 10, 2002	# 48
Catch Me Up	March 15, 2004	# 36
Silence	May 17, 2005	# 41
Sweet Virginia	September 6, 2004	# 42
How We Operate	April 17, 2006	N/A
Girlshapedlovedrug	May 29, 2006	# 66
See The World	September 4, 2006	# 107

• Official Gomez website
• BBC Gomez biography
• NME Gomez page
• Gomez collection at the Internet Archive's live music archive
• Ian Ball Interview by Emily Campbell of Bmore Live (Nov 2007)
• The Citizen (South Africa) interview with Ian Ball: August 2006
• Lazy-i Interview: May 2006
• Gomez Interview on Music Towers
• Subculture Magazine Interview: July 2006
• All Music Guide Gomez article
• Interview with Blackie on Badvibes.net
• Interview with Ben Ottewell on ilikemusic.com
• Interview with Tom Gray on SomethingGlorious.com
• Gomez live on WOXY.com