Many kiwi music fans are no stranger to Gareth Thomas. One of the founding members of Goodshirt, Gareth has recently returned to the music scene with his latest solo release, Lilly Knows Electricity. Having come through a rough breakup, Gareth had been writing songs focused on the topic, with encouragement from good friend Buzz Moller (of the band Voom), sending the unfinished tracks backwards and forwards.
It wasn’t until a chance encounter at AUM Festival that sparked the unlikely birth of a comeback. After being given tickets from his sister to “get out and have some fun”, Gareth and his friend Francis headed to the New Years’ festival, and Francis suggested they go and check out Wellington band Mermaidens. “He said we should see this band from Wellington, the girl makes guitar pedals and solders them. Her name’s Lily, I think. Lily knows electricity.”
Clad in psychedelic festival onesies discovered in the camper van, Gareth was immediately struck by the tightness of the band. “They just did such a good performance, I loved their performance. One of the songs I particularly liked sounded quite a lot like my song Sophie, and talking to them afterwards briefly, they said ‘oh my god yeah, we were referring to Sophie when we were recording it as well’… just being inspired by them, and hearing that they’d been inspired by me, that was like ‘bingo’, I’ve got to get back in the game.”
Quickly writing the song Lilly Knows Electricity and sharing it with Mermaidens, and realising the mutual inspiration, was enough to make Gareth want to start recording again. “Hearing back from them, when I sent it to them, and just how fast it happened made me go ‘right, I want to start recording again’. And realising that music’s a continuum, it’s a conversation goes backwards and forwards, and I just want to jump back in.”
The conversation is never a straight line, but more circular. In his younger years, Gareth was heavily influenced by artists like Split Enz and Chris Knox, with Knox’s home recordings encouraging Gareth to record music at home himself. Musicians can be particularly humble, and learning that Sophie, a song written about a high-school crush, was inspiring other artists today had a particular impact. His friend Buzz (Moller, Voom) was a huge inspiration, with Gareth describing his songwriting as being “just on another planet” with how good it is.
Gareth’s music is notoriously upbeat, but often tackles heavier or more meloncholy subjects. Lilly Knows Electricity itself contains a deceptively bright surface, but the lyrics instead represent the emotional trajectory of someone emerging from a difficult period, and discovering that feeling good again is possible. “I think that’s why indie music’s always called meloncholy, because it’s usually pretty heavy topics done in a major key. If you go through all my tunes, they’re always in a major key, but it’s nice to keep it bouncy. A bouncy bit of darkness is quite alluring.”
In the creation of the track, Gareth included contributions from previous Goodshirt bandmates, Rodney Fisher and Mike Beehre. While the band are all on good terms, and play shows, they haven’t yet written any new music together. “This song, I merged with a song Mike was writing. Hea’s just learning guitar and wanted to start writing songs, so he’s got a writing credit. Because he’s just learning guitar, he plays some quite random chords, and that’s why the song changes keys all the time, it’s quite psychedelic! It goes all over the show, and I just love the way he threw the chords together. It changes through about 3 different keys, possibly more. It’s just nice feeding off that. Mike came and gave ideas at the end, and then Rodney really liked it and came out with a good harmony and chorus. We nearly made it a Goodshirt song, but I wanted it to be sort of disco, and the guitarist didn’t want that, so it didn’t become a Goodshirt song, but at least we were writing together.”
While Gareth can’t see the band returning to writing music together, “I’m just happy that we get on, and play music together, and perform, and whatever it may be.”
Gareth’s return to songwriting isn’t simply the desire to make another record, but instead seems to be more in tune with his changing relationship with creativity. “As Buzz says, you’ve just got to follow the magic dragon down the hole. You’ve gotta dig deep and see what you pull up. I like what Jane Campion says, when writing films it’s like throwing blood and bone into the ocean to see what you dredge up. And basically, you want to dredge up stuff from your subconscious, and you don’t want to put any constraints on that. I love the analogy with the throat, but a boat in the ocean, jump in the ocean. You’ve just got to invite something creative to happen. You’ve got to be in a position where it’s inevitable that it will happen, and you’ve just got to let anything happen.”
With an upcoming album expected later this year, and a string of shows in the works across the country, one thing which Gareth finds himself energised by is forging new musical relationships and unexpected forms of collaboration. Now with a new partner and two stepkids, Gareth loves playing his new songs with them, with the eight year old being his “biggest fan.” Connecting with the boys through music, playing and singing together and seeing them come out of their shells, “it’s awesome.”
Joining Gareth for some of the shows is the boy’s piano teacher. “She’s really lovely, and she loves synthesizers as much as I do. Like, she’s great on synthesizers. I’m going to be playing some shows with her, so collaborating with new people, in new ways, is the big buzz for me.”
Music is nothing if not evolution for Gareth. While Goodshirt are back on good terms and playing shows, this isn’t a version of himself which he’s trying to reclaim. Instead, Gareth is more interested in finding out what happens when he says yes to whatever, or whoever, next sparks his curiousity.
