• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • NEWS+OPINIONS
    • NEWS TO US
    • COLUMNS
      • APPARENT HORIZON
      • DEAR READER
      • Close
    • LONGFORM FEATURES
    • OPINIONS
    • EDITORIAL
    • Close
  • ARTS+ENTERTAINMENT
    • FILM
    • MUSIC
    • COMEDY
    • PERFORMING ARTS
    • VISUAL ARTS
    • Close
  • DINING+DRINKING
    • EATS
    • SIPS
    • BOSTON BETTER BEER BUREAU
    • Close
  • LIFESTYLE
    • CANNABIS
      • TALKING JOINTS MEMO
      • Close
    • WELLNESS
    • GTFO
    • Close
  • STUFF TO DO
  • TICKETS
  • ABOUT US
    • ABOUT
    • MASTHEAD
    • ADVERTISE
    • Close
  • BECOME A MEMBER

Dig Bos

The Dig - Greater Boston's Alternative News Source

SING FOR ME: HOW THE GO! TEAM CONVINCED MUSICIANS FROM AROUND THE WORLD TO APPEAR ON ITS ALBUM

Written by NINA CORCORAN Posted January 21, 2016 Filed Under: Interviews, MUSIC

MU_GoTeam_728

It’s been five years since The Go! Team last toured. Now, as the English six-piece band gears up to visit the States for a short tour, frontman Ian Parton can’t help but be proud of the crew he roped together. Given its newest album, The Scene Between, was created entirely by Parton, the live renditions of album cuts succeed from reinvention, imaginative expansions, and the return of original members like drummer Ninja and guitarist Sam Dook.

 

“I think we’re better now than we ever have been,” Parton says over the phone as he packs to fly over the pond. “With these three new girls and a couple of us from the original grouping here, it brings a real vibrancy.”

 

That’s saying a lot. Ever since The Go! Team’s first album dropped in 2004, it’s been churning out full-length sugar highs, and while those sounds are deliberately changed for the live setting—you won’t be hearing gospel choirs or scratched mixtapes for obvious reasons—fans get to hear full-bodied parts sung from new touring members. “That’s what I loved about us as a band,” says Parton. “We’re always so different recorded, live—culturally and visually. In that sense, we’re pretty unusual. My mission statement is to never be blokes with guitars who grew up together and like the same records and wear the same clothes. We swap instruments and run around all crazy-like instead.”

 

The Scene Between sees a plethora of styles at the display window, from wind-swept country songs to My Bloody Valentine weight. What gives it uniformity, however, is the curviness of Parton’s melodies. “I’m always imagining things like journeys and the Pacific coast highway and waves,” he explains. “At the same time, I want it to be filtered through a degraded VHS machine. I don’t ever want things to be too straight. Although I’m interested in catchiness—I’m not just interested, I’m obsessed with it—it’s never about making a hit for the radio. I’m not looking to make songs that pass you by. I’m making hooks; I think of myself as being in the hook business.”

 

While that uniformity is no doubt present, what Parton sought to do on the newest album was divvy things up even more. Even though he returned to the recording days of 2004’s Thunder, Lightning, Strike where he wrote and recorded every instrument (“It’s kind of liberating in that way; I don’t have to factor in whether anyone else will like it,” he says, laughing), he was still left wanting more. So he took a risk: He collaborated with musicians he’d never met.

 

“I think people always thought they knew what The Go! Team was,” he says. “There was a checklist for reviewers: car-chased horns, double Dutch chants, distorted drums, the whole bunch. I wanted to break from what they usually took away by focusing on singsongy melodies instead. Yet at the heart, there’s still that curvy, bubblegum sound.”

 

Parton scoured Bandcamp and Facebook for rising bedroom artists who encapsulated a sweet, naive sound, choosing virtually unknown singers over close friends in the England scene. Then he started saying hello, one by one, to musicians around the world.

 

“There’s a particular kind of voice I like: people who don’t over-sing, people who have a bedroom feel to their voice,” he says. “That’s another factor of The Go! Team—it’s championing slightly amateurish sounds. These singers aren’t amateurs at all, but it’s a penchant for slightly unfinished, lo-fi sounds. It’s almost like asking your girlfriend to sing to you in private.”

 

Even if they don’t have leading melodies or forefront hooks, the singers he brought onboard strengthen each track’s individual personality. Making sure they weren’t minor celebrities was part of the research. “As soon as you use a big name, that becomes the story of the record,” he explains. When he put Bethany Cosentino from Best Coast on “Buy Nothing Day” back in 2010, that became the lead headline. Her contributions are important, of course, but it strips the focus away from the song’s other elements.

 

This time, tracking people down was done on a song by song basis. Certain numbers called for the voice of a bratty American high schooler while others would work well with the sweet round tones of an Asian delivery. Deep digging was a lot of extra effort on his part. But passion, it seems, made the hard work worth it.

 

“One idea I had for the album was to make it choppy,” he recalls, thinking back to the early writing days of The Scene Between. “Each chord is from a different sample; there’s a G-chord from this psych record over here and a D-chord from this Bollywood track. Instead of that, it became a more conventional record—which is odd because I don’t think we have the right to do that. Conventional isn’t meant for our catalogue, yet what else would I make, another double Dutch chant album? It’s been 10 years since that lightning struck; it isn’t going to happen once more.”

 

THE GO! TEAM, GLOCKABELLE, HANDS AND KNEES. THE SINCLAIR, 52 CHURCH ST., CAMBRIDGE. FRI 1.22 8PM/18+/$15. SINCLAIRCAMBRIDGE.COM.

NINA CORCORAN
+ posts
    This author does not have any more posts.

Filed Under: Interviews, MUSIC Tagged With: 2016, Best Coast, Boston, Cambridge, Dig, DigBoston, England, Glockabelle, Hands and Knees, Indie Rock, Interview, Music, My Bloody Valentine, The Go! Team, The Sinclair

WHAT’S NEW

Unlocking Higher Education: Experts Make The Case For More College Behind Bars

Unlocking Higher Education: Experts Make The Case For More College Behind Bars

Amid Multiple Crises, MBTA Fields Pitches For New Agency Marketing Campaign

Amid Multiple Crises, MBTA Fields Pitches For New Agency Marketing Campaign

The Legendary Past And Uncertain Future Of The Harvard Square Theatre

The Legendary Past And Uncertain Future Of The Harvard Square Theatre

State Wire: Funds Aim To Support Municipalities With Expanded Mail Voting

State Wire: Funds Aim To Support Municipalities With Expanded Mail Voting

Parks & Checks: Wasteful, Opaque Bookkeeping At Two City Of Boston Nonprofit Arms

Parks & Checks: Wasteful, Opaque Bookkeeping At Two City Of Boston Nonprofit Arms

Surf’s Upcycled: Meet The Bay State Surfers Conserving The Oceans Where They Ride

Surf’s Upcycled: Meet The Bay State Surfers Conserving The Oceans Where They Ride

Primary Sidebar

LOCAL EVENTS

AAN Wire


Most Popular

  • Does Massachusetts Underestimate Its Greenhouse Gas Emissions?
  • The Most Expensive Massachusetts City For Car Insurance (No, It’s Not Boston)
  • If You Find A Mini Felted Animal Around Boston, This Is Where It Came From
  • FOTOBOM: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND @ TD GARDEN
  • The Legendary Past And Uncertain Future Of The Harvard Square Theatre

Footer

Social Buttons

DigBoston facebook DigBoston Twitter DigBoston Instagram

Masthead

About

Advertise

Customer Service

About Us

DigBoston is a one-stop nexus for everything worth doing or knowing in the Boston area. It's an alt-weekly, it's a website, it's an email blast, it's a twitter account, it's that cool party that you were at last night ... hey, you're reading it, so it's gotta be good. For advertising inquiries: sales@digboston.com To reach editorial (and for inquiries about internship opportunities): editorial@digboston.com