Goodtime Boys, going somewhere?

‘I don’t really think like we’re ‘going anywhere’, I just like to think we’re building on what we have’

So says Alex Pennie, Goodtime Boys’ frontman and vocal chord shredder as we sit outside the Hope & Anchor on a rather windy October evening. Since I last spoke to him in May Goodtime Boys have toured Europe, been featured in both Rocksound and FRONT magazines and are just announcing a CD rerelease of their debut EP (along with tracks from their split with Solutions) on the much loved Holy Roar record label (that will be released around the time this is published). Perhaps then, it’s a little odd that Pennie seems a reluctant to agree that the band are ‘going anywhere’.

Certainly in the traditional music industry sense, they are staying firmly where they are, with no manager or press agent and with a mantra along the lines of ‘If someone wants to book shows with us, we feel a loyalty to them, we’ll stay with them…as long as we trust and like people and they want to do positive things then we’ll do that…but I don’t really want to get into the music industry, I don’t really like it’ its highly unlikely you’ll be seeing them on the books of EMI any time soon.

goodtime boys from toby Thomas on Vimeo.

Goodtime Boys playing on the first date of the Tangled Tour (the day before this interview)

However you have to agree that they have been ‘building on what we have’ at an impressive rate. This summer saw the band perform twenty three shows in twenty three days across Europe supporting Californian hardcore band Dangers and playing shows with Touché Amore, Ceremony and Bluenote. Pennie describes that tour on its own, never mind everything else going on for the band, as ‘bizarre’ and a ‘Once in a lifetime opportunity…it really felt like that and it was amazing’ before adding with a smile, ‘but I think we’re going to be doing it again’. Of course, playing a large European tour can be pretty hard work. Being self-supporting may give a band a huge degree of freedom but when you’ve got to drive yourself fifteen to twenty hours across Europe for one show then back again for another it doesn’t take much to imagine to stress that can cause. ‘It was hard work, I’m not going to lie, Dangers were really lovely people and we got along with them really well, but we’d never been away for that long together before…’ is a quote that you should think about whenever you see a band on tour. Although Pennie will go on to joke about ‘Metallic style’ group therapy sessions and point out that although the band argued ‘…we all came home and we’re still a band so it was a success’ you get a sense that there were times when home seemed an awfully long way away.

The summer now done the rest of the year looks to be about as busy. Another European tour in December (which will be about to start by the time this is published) with At Daggers Drawn will come after the band try and use a quiet November to get some more writing done. The summer may have only yielded two news songs but although the band ‘write really slow’ they hope to have another EP sorted out and ready to record by the end of the year. The news songs (both played at the show later) are promising, continuing in the vein of their debut EP but, as far as you can tell live, expanding upon it as well.

Apart from that though there really doesn’t seem to be ‘a plan’. Just like when we spoke in May there is no timescale put on a potential studio album release and the in-the-works EP appears to be growing organically rather than to a set time scale. The band prefer just to get things out ‘when they’re done’ rather than on any form of release cycle which is probably the reason that, although there isn’t much in the Goodtime Boys discography, it’s all top notch. You’re going to be kept in the dark about whatever is coming next, but it’ll probably be worth the wait.


So, going somewhere but not anywhere they don’t want to go might be a better way to describe where the band are at. It’s clear from both the full on touring schedule and the hectic, dynamo of a live show they give later in the evening that this is a band still fully committed to and enjoying being the band they are. I’ve said this about other bands but it applies here too, a lot of people could learn a bit from Goodtime Boys work rate and energy. If the UK hardcroe scene (whatever that means) didn’t have bands like them it would be a much, much duller place.

Patchx

(Goodtime Boys play a free show at The Star of Kings tomorrow (30/11/2011) supported by Witch Cult and Self Loathing at the start of their European tour. Their EP/Split compilation is available now from Holy Roar records.)