CityLife

Interview: The Gilded Palace Of Sin

The Gilded Palace Of Sin

FOR most musicians, there are obvious tell-tale signs of whether an audience is enjoying your live performance. An audience might cheer, dance, jump around; either way, all of these responses usually end with a smile.

However, for Salford gothic-blues band The Gilded Palace Of Sin, the whole subject of audience enjoyment is a far more complicated subject matter.

“We played a show recently and this one woman had her hands over her ears... she looked utterly frightened,” says the band’s singer/multi-instrumentalist Michelle Lock, over beers in a Northern Quarter bar.

“This might sound strange, but it was one of the best responses we’ve ever seen!

“I like the idea of audiences being a bit fearful during our gigs. You don’t come to our shows to get three-minute pop songs and a cosy experience.

“Our gigs are more about challenging audiences and being unpredictable. We like unsettling people.”

The term unsettling couldn’t be more apt. Manchester music might not be lacking in alt-country bands at the moment, but The Gilded Palace Of Sin sit proudly at the more sinister, nefarious end of the Americana spectrum.

Expect no Rhinestone Cowboy clichés here; rather, TGPOS trade in murky, noir-ish gothic-blues allied to tales of sin, redemption and shady characters who’ve taken the wrong path, yet are happy to exist in this amoral maze.

Theirs is a world that owes much to Nick Cave’s foreboding blues, Tom Waits’ grizzled poetry and the cinematic heft of David Lynch; a worldview, as they hinted at earlier, designed entirely to provoke fear.

Darkly evocative

“We can be quite sadistic when we perform live,” insists the band’s rockabilly-styled singer Pete Phythian.

“There’s no point in being in a band and being subtle, what’s the point?

“When we play live, there’s a real sense of running free and seeing how far we can take things.”

Running free is something the three members of the band have been working towards for quite some time.

Over the past decade, the three members of TGPOS – Michelle, vocalist Pete and drummer Vini Taylor – have lost count of the number of local bands they have not only played in, but felt creatively restricted by.

When Pete and Vini felt compromised too far by their previous band, the punk outfit Kangaroo, they decided to cut loose, and, as Pete declares: “Wrestle back control and play the sort of country music we had always wanted. Without any compromise.”

Recruiting Pete’s girlfriend Michelle to sing additional vocals and play multiple instruments (including ukulele, theremin and mandolin), the band effectively took their name and whole aesthetic from the Flying Burrito Brothers’ celebrated 1969 album The Gilded Palace Of Sin.

Suiting the band’s gothic blues to a tee, the name gave them a perfect framework in which to run wild and craft their sinister, darkly evocative narratives.

“The name just seemed to fit the band like a glove,” enthuses Vini.

“The Gilded Palace Of Sin album is one of our favourite albums, and it’s almost quite fortuitous how that name just seemed to synch with the music we were making.”

The band’s highly acclaimed debut album, You Break Our Hearts, We’ll Tear Yours Out, would firmly attest to those ambitions. 

Released earlier this month, the album’s 10 darkly compelling tracks have drawn comparisons with Tom Waits, Johnny Cash and the writings of Charles Bukowski, both fans and music critics buying wholeheartedly into the band’s gothic shtick and portraying the three band members as shadowy troubadours living a life of licentious pursuit in the Mojave Desert.

But the truth is that, for this most proudly Mancunian band, the truly dark tales are not the work of fiction, but actual reality right here on our doorsteps.

Good fun

“It’s quite funny when reviewers portray us as these dark, shady characters living in the American desert,” laughs Pete.

“In reality, some of our songs are inspired by life in Salford where we live.

“There’s a real dark sense of romanticism to what we do, and Salford has a lot to do with that.

“We live in Pendleton, and it’s definitely a place we’ve romanticised in our lyrics. The people, the sights, the sounds.”

This blurring of dark sensibility and skewed romance is probably not surprising when you consider that the band’s mentor is Barry Adamson, the Magazine bassist and former member of The Bad Seeds.

Adamson, who is currently back in action with punk legends Magazine, was in the process of launching his own independent arts label, Central Control, when he stumbled upon TGPOS’s MySpace page. Within a matter of days, he had signed them up for an album deal, arranged them time in a recording studio, and even blagged the band some support slots with Magazine.

“Basically, he gave us a colossal kick up the backside and helped us focus what we wanted to do,” says Michelle.

“The early tracks on our MySpace page were quite badly recorded home demos, so it’s amazing that Barry saw the potential in us.

“It’s an honour to be working with him he’s a real hero and he’s opened so many doors for us.”

Kind words for their esteemed mentor, but you suspect TGPOS are talented enough to open most of those doors themselves.

But then again, when life is this disgustingly good fun in the Palace Of Sin, just why would you want to venture anywhere else?

The Gilded Palace Of Sin play Ruby Lounge on December 2, 2009. Their new album is out now. For info visit myspace.com/ thegildedpalaceofsin.