As an accomplished actor within the film industry, Liverpool born Andrew Gower has always had a passion for exploring new creative territories. Having grown up in a household where music played a central part of his life, it is no surprise that years later away from the screen he decided that love for music to the next level, as he introduced his band Gustaffson to the world.
Following the success of EP, The Jacaranda (released back in 2022), this year saw Gustaffson tease fans with a selection of singles and live dates in preparation of debut album, Black and White, due for release in early 2025.
With those excitement levels running high, we caught up with Andrew himself when he came to Manchester as part of the tour.
How are you doing? How's your week been so far?
I just arrived on a late train from London to Manchester, but apart from that, it's been amazing.
You know, one thing in this country, you can never rely on the trains, but yeah, very good. Excited to be in Manchester for the show tomorrow night. Brilliant.
So, tell us what these past few weeks have been like for you in the run-up to these series of shows?
It's been exciting. We've been releasing music from the new album, Black and White Movie.
It's a 13-track album which we've been sat on since finishing recording in January. January 24 we finished, so it's just been exciting to have our music out. On Broadway came out on the 11th of October. Then we had a gig up in Glasgow, our first ever Scottish gig.
How did you find those Scottish crowds?
One in a million, I mean, I'll tell you. Fantastic.
You think you've seen all crowds and then you get a Scottish crowd. Yeah, they were great. I've filmed a lot as an actor up in Scotland, so I've always wanted to go there with the band.
It was a big tick off their list. Glasgow is kind of like if Liverpool and Glasgow were brothers, they would be brothers that are too similar and fall out a lot, but they love each other deep down. So, we had Glasgow and then we had a homecoming to Liverpool, which is where I'm from, the Jack around us, sold-out gig.
Now we're back in the place where we made the album in Manchester with another single landing on the same day for Alice. It's been amazing. That's a bit of a quirky fact.
Being from Liverpool, which is your home city, what do you love most about that part of the world?
The storytelling. Obviously, a lot of the time comes back to the Beatles, right? Wherever you go in the world, people hear Liverpool and they think of football or the Beatles. I love them both, but for me, Andrew would be the storytelling. Whether you sit on a bus, whether you go to a pub, whether you listen to music, whether you listen to somebody talk about football, at the heart of it all is storytelling.
Before we get into the record and Andrew of the 2024, tell us a little bit about your journey into music and at what point you started to realise, OK, this is what I want to do?
I grew up in a musical household. My brothers always would share records with me. Grandad had vinyls on the whole time, so music was always there. I was in bands at school, but then I went to drama school at 18.
I was told to stop the music, which is fair enough to focus on my craft, but behind the scenes I was always writing lyrics. Ever since I was a kid, I've got books and books and books of lyrics in my house. And then it was COVID time, with my dear friend and guitarist from the band Webbo, we decided that we're going to form Gustafsson as a home for our songwriter.
At the core, the beauty of that is the fact that I've been writing since I was 15, 16. The stories I have to tell and some of the stories even on the album have come from both now and my past 15 years as an actor, but also they've come from my childhood as well, which I think as far as storytelling goes, I think there's a purity to what you can write as a teenager and then looking back at it as a mid-30s man is a real interesting journey. But also it wasn't until I met, the lucky thing for Gustafsson is that I met Craig Potter from Elbow on a film set.
I met him on a film set. So it wasn't until we met him that we sort of had a vehicle to give us the confidence to take all the music you've written, you and Webbo, form a band and put it out to the world. So, yeah, that's the journey.
So when you are getting into the art of storytelling, how do you navigate through that, especially when you're going through powerful personal stories? And how do you navigate through that, but also do the story justice?
The story should always be for the audience, right? So whether it's a personal story that's heartbreaking or joy, I would never put a story out there that has no universal feeling. It should feel universal.
It should be written for an audience. So every song can start with me, a voice note. It can start with me writing a poem in a book. And then often I'll bring that idea into the room with the band. And sometimes the melody's already been written in my head. But the main thing is it's about not spoon feeding the audience, but also at the same time making sure that the song lives beyond the band.
It can last forever. And that's why, you know, if I was to talk about the Native Hotel in Manchester, great, I could drop it into a lyric. But Native has also got to feel universal to people.
It's got to be presented in a way that a song, I think the best songs are written, should be accessible for everybody.
Yeah, and I guess in a way it's kind of like trying to make music that's authentic rather than music that's clickbait.
Completely. There's so much music these days that's being made purely to get onto TikTok, purely to get on the radio, being two minutes. Gustafsson, we want to make music that will go beyond this.
Because who knows, TikTok in 20 years' time may not exist. Music will always exist. So we want to make songs that in 10 years' time they have the same relevance as they do today.
So coming on to the album itself which is also your debut album. What was the overall vision behind it, and did that add to the overall pressure trying to stay true to the narrative?
I mean, I always had the idea after we made the EP two years ago that the next thing was the album. I always knew that having been an actor for 15 years, it was probably going to be centered around or use the stuff I've learned, the storytelling I've learned. I'd never imagined I'd obviously work with Elbow on the album.
I never imagined we'd have Bear McCreary, who does the music for The Walking Dead. I didn't think we'd get Sir Ben Kingsley. So all of those things took me by surprise completely, but the essence of the album has, I think, the purity of it has stayed the same from beginning to end.
And the nice thing with that is I feel like we've invited a load of people, people I've admired from afar for years, into the journey and into the story. But at its heart, yeah, it's the purity of why I wanted to do it and the excitement behind it. In my head and my heart, I still feel like the 15-year-old who was sketching down poems and lyrics in the Jacaranda back in Liverpool.
So can you remember some of your earlier lyrics that you wrote as a 15-year-old?
Oh, yeah, yeah. Similar to a lot of people who write when they're back there, you know, I can't remember which musician said it, but you're either talking about wanting to get away from where you're from or dreaming big, often as a kid. And a lot of the lyrics are slightly romantic, but I think the nice thing is that, you know, well, I've been told this, that they stand the test of time.
They fit into the music nowadays. But, yeah, there's a romanticism to them, which I think is quite nice as well.
Do you recognise the 15-year-old you in the 30-plus youth?
Yeah of course. I think we all do, right? We all do. Because isn't that... Your first question to me was why did I get into music? Now, shouldn't the reason why you get into music always stay pretty much the same, right? Absolutely. So, in a sense, that purity should always stay the same.
It's just the BS, the other stuff in life that maybe gets in the way a lot of the time, you know? A lot of the meritocracy, a lot of the paperwork, a lot of that. But at the core of why I'm sure you got into what you do and why I got into it, the purity. We're always searching for that and we always should hold on to that, I think.
That's beautiful. So, in terms of the tracks on this record, was there any particular track which was both a beautiful blessing but also kicked you a bit at the same time?
Recording, we had grand ideas of... We had some amazing choirs and backing vocalists coming onto this album, which is something we've always wanted to do. That's a great question, actually. Getting them into the studio, that logistically, I mean, we did this without a manager, we did this without a label.
I was coming up with schedules and facilitating people to come in and at one point we had an 80-piece choir come in. Now, you try and organize an 80-piece choir. Then also having make sandwiches for the 80-piece choir. Even the penthouse wouldn't have been big enough here.
That was an interesting day. But the beauty of that, within the struggle, there's always the magic when you get through that and you overcome those obstacles. And, you know, hopefully next time I'll have a choir master helping out or something, you know? That's the plan. But to get that sound and that authentic sound and the feel to the track, it's worth all that struggle and all the sandwich-making, you know?
So, when you do have the likes of other creatives coming on board for something you're passionate about, how do you find knowing who to say yes to and who to say no to?
. I've been lucky that I haven't had to say no to people because everybody who's approached, or I've approached to say, it's usually been my choice to say, would you be up for it?
For instance, with Elbow, I've admired Elbow since I was the 15-year-old and now I'm in the studio with them. So, in answer to that question, I'd say it's been pretty seamless. I think you know based on the energy in the room.
The nice thing about working with Craig and Burr and Sir Ben is that they all bought in. They all kept referring to the lyrics. They all kept referring to the story.
Same as the directors we worked on with the music video and the actors. They were like, hang on a minute, but why did you write that? And I think there's a beauty when they're treating what you've written with the respect you know that you're in good hands.
In regards to the album artwork itself, how did you decide what you wanted as the visual first impression?
The album's called Black and White Movie so was important to reflect that in the aesthetic. We work with an amazing designer called Greg Whitehead. His day job is he's an artist designer, but he's worked with us on the EP and now the album. And I'm a big believer in championing his work. I've loved his work. We've known him for a while.
A lot of the photos from the album are taken by our bassist, who's one of Manchester's best photographers. Seriously incredible, David Gleave. He's not just good on the bass. He's great with a camera in his hand. So, it's the amalgamation and championing those people.
I'm a big, firm believer that if people have similar tastes to you, you should champion them. But with the album, it's got a giant picture of a panda on, which, I mean, the message behind that, it's a black and white animal, but also it's, don't panda to your audience. Fundamentally, it's cool.
It's handwritten, it's organic. And then we have the film artwork on there too, which is really nice. So, Greg and Dave have done an amazing job between them.
How did you find that step up from going from EP to album?
Really exciting. I mean, you know, you talk about, I always said to myself, you only make your first album once. And then you get the, you know, everybody says the second album syndrome, right?
But you only get that first album once and I just wanted to chuck everything I have at that album. The beauty of it is we've, now as a band, because I've been writing since I was 15, 16, we've got so many other tracks that we could have chosen. But we made sure that the ones we put on the album felt right.
So in answer to your question, it's just been a joy. I wanted to make sure that I had no regrets.
And going from EP to album and then translating it to the live shows. What was that part of the process like?
It's been nice. We've sat with a lot of the tracks from the album live-wise. They've grown with us. As I always say, everything's made for an audience. We're not at the lucky stage yet where we can have a beautiful quartet of brass with us or the choir, the 80-piece choir.
But maybe one day in the future we'll be able to translate that over. But I feel like the songs as a core five band really, you know, I want the people who read this to come and see us live because if they like the records, that's where they'll hear the sound even more organic and electric. Awesome.
So what has been some of the feedback that's stood out to you from the listener perspective?
Yeah, I mean, it's been really interesting seeing the age demographic that come to our gigs. You know, we have, you know, a group of 14 men in their 40s come in and then you've got people in their 80s who've come down to the Jacaranda because they've heard that Sue Johnson's in the music video.
But I feel like the biggest thing that I've taken away is the fact that they've connected to the stories. We've had people say that they feel like they haven't had music written for them for a long time.
And they come to a Gustaffson gig. That means a lot. And then you go to, you know, you go to the Guy Garveys and the Joe Wileys and the Chris Hawkins of the world who speak about the people who I've listened to their radio shows for years and they say everything and more about the music, about on Broadway the single that they've been playing.
So I guess, the biggest thing I've taken is that it connects to people. It feels the timeless element has come across and also that people want to share it. And I think that the biggest thing I like in music is sharing music.
What do you think it's taught you about yourself and how it's opened your eyes to how even more versatile you are as a creator?
Yeah, take risks. I think the world sometimes and the older we get maybe shapes the fact that we shouldn't be taking, we should take less risks. You know, before COVID, I didn't think I'd ever make a record. It wasn't even in my headspace.
People are probably more into the individual as opposed to a collective, a band. And I feel like people reading this, I'd say, you know, that thing that you've been maybe sitting on for a while, take a risk and do it because, David Bowie used to say, you make your best art when your feet aren't touching the ground. You know, that's where the best art's made, I think.
So when you think about the next chapter ahead, what's making you smile the most?
People. We've been sitting on the album since January. I've been sitting on some of these songs since I was 15.
Some of the poems. So people listening to them, having a full album as a collective piece of work out there to listen to, live shows tomorrow night, being in front of a packed Manchester audience, getting to play in really unique buildings that if the buildings could speak, they would tell you tales of their own.
Also finding our tribe, our audience, people especially as we're a new band. You know, we've been around two and a half, three years. So we're finding our audience as they're finding us. So yeah, creating that tribe, that Gustafsson tribe of people.
Well, on that note, Andrew, I wish you all the best.
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Article By Thushara Chandrasiri