Whatever Happened to Gomez?

Quite a lot actually.

Their fifth studio album 'How We Operate' comes out in June and the quintet are touring extensively in the US, after which they'll be returning to the UK in June for a run of live shows. While the band were in Minneapolis, bassist Paul Blackburn spoke to The Skinny.

It's been a journey and a half for Gomez; since 'Bring It On' won the Mercury Prize in 1998 each new album has registered increasingly underwhelming sales figures, culminating in their fourth album 'Split The Difference' going almost unnoticed. "We always get great turnouts at our shows, but there hasn't been much interest in the last few records," said Blackburn.

Every Gomez album has displayed an evolution of their distinctive blues tinged rock and garnered almost unanimous rave reviews. "It's about getting songs on the radio, and a lot of the time our songs haven't been quite right for the stations in the US and UK," explained Blackburn. When asked how the downward-spiralling record sales had affected the band he replied, "I guess if you thought about it too much you'd go mad."

Recently the lack of success has led press to speculate the band may split, but Blackburn is adamant that they've, "never thought about changing the line-up. We're all really good mates even though sometimes things get strained since we're in each others pockets all the time."

For this album they've worked with a producer for the first time, and not just any producer – Gil Norton who has previously twiddled knobs with The Pixies, Counting Crows and Foo Fighters. He was on hand from the beginning to shape the record and "looked at the whole jumbled thing and made sense of it… continually sculpting it and trimming the fat. He examined every part of a song and would be like, 'What's that bit doing? It's not really doing anything so do we need it in the song?'"

The result is, according to the band, the strongest album they're released to date. "We are absolutely rapt with the final product. The song structures are better and it's definitely a more focused and concise album," said Blackburn. With this album Gomez aren't just planning a career revival, but "complete world domination; a stately manner in the UK, a house in Hawaii, something like that."

Sarcastic answers aside, when asked if they worked so closely with a producer in order to produce more radio friendly material, Blackburn skated around an answer; "The song-writing has been affected to a certain degree, but we continually try to crank out the best songs we can and improve on what we've done before without worrying about it too much."

'How We Operate' is very obviously a Gomez record, and they have resisted the temptation to reinvent themselves like so many of their forgotten contemporaries. The title track is among the highlights, while the first UK single Girl Shaped Love Drug is concise and catchy, but more bouncy and safe than previous recordings and a little too much like the rake of pop-rock bands currently crowding the scene.

Although they've now been together ten years, their debut was released less than a year after they formed, and when they won the Mercury Prize they still hadn't really played live. "Things happened really quickly... we kind of stumbled through it." On winning the Mercury Prize Blackburn said, "We still don't really know how to react. At the time it was overwhelming but we don't really think about it these days."

While their live performances may have taken a while to gather momentum, they're now renowned for their jamming abilities, with most tracks having now developed into something quite different to what was recorded. With this album the band are relishing the chance to showcase the songs as they are heard on the record – a chance to be jumped at since, like most of their live material, a year from now it will most likely have evolved into something completely different – in a good way of course.