Supergrass Singer Gaz Coombes Reveals All About Debut Solo Album

His band only split last April after 17 years together - but Gaz Coombes, former frontman of Britpop legends Supergrass has told Spinner he's almost finished his debut solo album.

Talking to us from his home in Oxford -- which has a basement studio -- Coombes revealed the as-yet-untitled record was more than half-finished.

He says, "It's going well actually, I've got five or six completed and totally mixed, so half the album's totally finished, and the other half is written and just in the process of recording bits and bobs and finished vocals. It's sounding great, I'm really chuffed."

Coombes explains that oddly, he'd been galvanised into action by the Supergrass split rather than wanting to take a break.

He says, "I just really wanted to make it. I had a really productive couple of months, after the split. There's a lot of songs that came from frustration, that feeling of ants in your pants, just a lot of energy blasted out."

As to what his solo material would sound like, Coombes hints, "It's upbeat in many places, mixed with driving beats, in a cinematic, sort of psychedelic way. Will it scare Supergrass fans? I really don't know."

The record is being co-produced by Sam Williams, who was behind the desk for the first Supergrass album 'I Should Coco,' and features Coombes playing all the instruments.

He explains, "When I started out, I was recording it on my own in my own time and doing a lot of the drums, and basically just playing everything, how I could hear it. I suppose through years of playing different instruments I'm able to do it. I feel quite lucky that I can do that. If I've got an idea, I can just do it quickly.

"It just ended up being that way and I surprised myself in so many ways. A lot of the drums are different odd cut up beats and weird things which I love. I need to do those things, get them out quick and spontaneous. That was the idea, spontaneous quick expression of my basement world."

As for why he decided to make a break from the band he'd been in since a teen, Coombes explained that he just felt that something was missing.

He said, "I think we felt it just wasn't connecting. We were wanting different things, or we didn't know what we wanted. There were a lot of clashes. We're still really good friends though. But the three of us just weren't connecting the way we had done before so, there was no point doing it. I just felt everyone should go on a little adventure."

Coombes, who is currently making his acting debut starring as himself in an ad on British TV for the Toyota Yaris car, is looking to release the album is the autumn and is in discussions with a variety of record labels.

You can see him making his acting debut below:

Excellent, I will be getting this on Day One. Supergrass was (is) one of my fave groups from the UK.

Rick A.

Former Supergrass singer Gaz Coombes: 'I don't want to be in a band'

Former Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes has said that he is relieved to have gone solo and doesn't miss being in a band.

Coombes is set to release his debut solo album 'Here Come The Bombs' on May 21, with a single 'Hot Fruit', preceeding it on May 14. You can stream his new track 'Sub Divider' now by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking on the link. The track is his first new material since Supergrass announcing their split in June of 2010.

Speaking exclusively to NME, Coombes said: "With my solo album I'm making the kind of music I want to make. I don't have to have a discussion with a bandmate where I'm trying to convince them of the direction I want to go in. Right now I don't want to to be in a band or anything like a band."

He continued: "I get a bit anxious because of my experiences. I don't want to sound negative, because it was great to spend 18 years in a band with guys I love. But I'm happy doing what I'm doing now."

The singer told us that the new album was influenced by the soundtrack work of John Barry and John Carpenter. "In terms of experimenting with sounds, using synths and finding sounds, I was looking to soundtracks," he said.

Coombes added that he would love to collaborate with Tim Burton on the visuals for the project. "He'd do some great, strange animation for it," he said.

Speaking about the track 'Sub Divider', Coombes explained: "It has two distinctive sections. It doesn't have a verse or chorus part. It's one of my favourites, it's about identity."

Gaz Coombes: I should Camus


Pretty easy-going … Coombes.

As Gaz Coombes is constantly being reminded, people have strong memories of Supergrass, the Oxford band he fronted from 1994 to 2010 (and whose I Should Coco was the biggest-selling debut album on the Parlophone label since the Beatles). For the generation who sang along to piano-pumping anthems like Alright – in which a teenage Coombes sang: "We are young/ We run green/ Keep our teeth/ Nice and clean" – the band will for ever be synonymous with cheeky chappies, Britpop optimism and the Chopper bikes featured in Alright's video. Then there were Coombes' outsize sideburns, arguably pop's most famous cheekbone adornments since Elvis Presley's. "I grew them at school because no one else could," chuckles Coombes. "It was my way of being different."

Today, with the sideburns still in place, Coombes doesn't regret the quirky image. "That's what we were like," he says, remembering the time he and drummer Danny Goffey formed their first band, the Jennifers. Coombes was 15, and they planned to tour the country in a Transit. "We left from our house," he grins. "Mum brought out a packed lunch with sandwiches. If I was with any other guys, it would have been embarrassing, but we all laughed."



Coombes is now a 36-year-old father of two who reads Albert Camus, digs absurdist theory and has just made one of the year's most unexpected albums. Called Here Come the Bombs, it marries dark guitar anthems with sparse electronics, creating a haunting atmosphere of dislocation and contemplation. "I've always been a split personality," he says, explaining that the electronics were a consequence of being freed from a guitar band. As for the moody content, he says, "I'm a pretty easy-going guy, but I think about things a lot and have dark areas I visit occasionally."

The sublime opener, the eerie Bombs, was inspired by TV reports about Libya. "I got this feeling that there are a lot of people around the world who aren't listened to and they're being wronged," he says, after 20 years in pop still looking so youthful you expect him to suggest a game of conkers, not comment on world events. "It had an effect on me – a very strange emotion – enough to make me start writing stuff down."

The song began as a poem, written from the point of view of a bomb travelling at the speed of sound. "You see aerial footage of bombs dropping and it doesn't seem real. But down there, it's fucking mental." Equally powerfully, he sings of millions of sleeping ghosts waiting for vengeance on those who have wronged them. "The idea that they'd get their comeuppance through karma or guilt. You can see that in Tony Blair's face: he's not comfortable."

It's a long way from Alright, but Coombes has always been good at capturing a mood or moment. Supergrass's first single Caught By the Fuzz was inspired by a real-life incident. Coombes had been in an old Ford Fiesta with a headlight out and got pulled over. "I stuck the hash down my pants, but I had it in a little metal tin. I was standing on the pavement, and the tin just went all the way down my trousers and landed on the pavement with a ting. The copper went, 'What's that, son?'"

Coombes spent a night in the cells, but the song kickstarted the band: at 17, he was touring the Americas. "We did the Rock in Rio festival with the Cure, in front of 80,000 people. It was a really quick growing-up." But his melancholy side crept in as early as the second album, in songs like the reflective Late in the Day. "There's a darkness in the four of us," he says. "Some distance is needed before the honest biography of Supergrass can come out. Too many people could be hurt, but there were dark moments, man. That came out in the music without anyone else knowing." What sort? "Drug problems and the like."

While Goffey loved the spotlight, Coombes remained more detached. "I was confidence-driven. If I felt confident, I could be a great frontman. Other times I'd stand there thinking, 'Why are these people looking at me?'"

In 17 years, the band made six albums before Coombes pulled the plug, feeling they were no longer firing on all cylinders. He still loves "the guys", though, and is writing songs with Goffey, possibly for their sometime band Hot Rats. While many of his Britpop peers are now mining the lucrative nostalgia circuit, he has no interest in a Supergrass reunion, though he does concede: "Who knows what I'll say in five years?"

He plays everything on Here Come the Bombs himself, through a desire to be spontaneous. "Not: 'Hey look at me, I can play this stuff!'" Being solo has been a liberation, and given him a chance to experiment with drum loops, old analogue synths and keyboards he built himself. "There's one which is fucked, so there's this discordance. I just love those sounds, their imperfections."

There's another influence on the new album: the death of Coombes' mother, a teacher, in 2005. The following year, Coombes bought his old family home from his father (who wanted to build a house nearby) and lives there with Jools, his partner since his teens. "It was a very happy house," he says, "always full of parties and family. I didn't want anyone else to get it."

If Coombes had any advice for his younger self, it would be to enjoy those days more. "In the early years, I was often at the back of the tour bus, alone. I'm not one of those people who can't bear silence. There's always going to be a part of me that likes my own space. But with fatherhood, and people you love disappearing, I've realised we're not invincible, that it's not just the evil people but the best people in life that can leave you. That makes you stronger in a way. It's definitely made me want to enjoy the limited time we have."

Coombes is a more complex character than his cheeky Chopper-riding persona suggested. Does he ever wonder how he ended up being a frontman? "Oh that's easy," he says, the schoolboy grin returning. "I could sing and I had these massive fuckin' sideburns."