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My interview with Good Shoes singer Rhys Jones started off pretty awkwardly; they released their second album 'No Hope, No Future' earlier this year and I wanted to find out what people have been saying about it. “You’re from Gigwise aren’t you?” asks Rhys when I probe about how the album has been received. “Not well with you guys,” he says.
Our reviewer gave it just two stars in her review, which was published a matter of hours before I picked up the phone to interview Rhys. It wasn’t the best way to start the interview, but luckily for me, Rhys is the nicest, most chatty musician I’ve interviewed and he was more than willing to discuss their most recent reviews.
The overall response to ‘No Hope No Future’ has been “pretty good,” according to Rhys. “You get bad reviews and you get good reviews, but that’s the way it goes. I don’t really read anything.”
I wonder if reading negative reviews would put the band off their writing, but Rhys assures me this isn’t why he doesn’t pay attention to reviews. “I don’t know if reviews have any worthwhile place in the world,” he says. “It’s easy to be a critic, but I don’t see many people who do it making music.”
“I think I wouldn’t mind reviews if it was done by my peers,” continues Rhys. “I don’t know, I just feel like there are albums that have had bad reviews and I’ve really loved the album. Also, you’ll read a really good review and you’ll read a really bad one and you’ll only remember the bad one.”
Good Shoes’ sound is different to the days of Small Town Girl and Never Meant to Hurt You. There are some standout tracks on ‘No Hope No Future’, which were released as singles, and which Rhys says are two of his favourites: The Way My Heart Beats and Under Control. Both songs are clearly tracks by Good Shoes; they show off their trademark mix of snappy melodies, jerky guitars and Rhys’ unique voice.
‘No Hope No Future’ opens with The Way My Heart Beats, which is a clear indication that the band hasn’t diverted completely from their winning sound. But they haven’t played it safe and simply re-produced another album full of Photos on My Wall either. The album sounds darker; it’s not the snappy, jerky, indie sound from before. It feels like Good Shoes have matured and with that has come this updated sound.
“We didn’t really [change our sound],” insists Rhys. “I guess the music was probably a lot heavier when we were playing live, and then when we went into the studio we just started trying to use distortion. We never think about this stuff, we just do it.”
“We work together,” he explains, “and as the four of us are all influenced by different stuff, we’re gradually gonna evolve. On the first album all we were listening to – we were 17 – was the Strokes, so it was gonna sound like that.”
Rhys explains that Then She Walks away is his favourite track, apart from the singles: “I think the lyrics are quite concise about the whole theme of the album,” which he tells me is about breaking up with a girl. “I don’t know, musically it’s really intricate but it’s really catchy. It’s not really direct quotes, but you try and capture a feeling; [it’s] trying to capture how people are feeling.”
To launch the album Good Shoes put on a mini-festival in London, and Rhys clearly enjoyed it: “It was really amazing. We played the Stag’s Head off Kingston Road. It’s the best pub in East London really. We played to like 800 people in four days in this tiny little pub; it was mental basically.”
At the moment Good Shoes are touring Europe, and then they’ve got a UK tour after that, followed by plans to “play every festival” they can this summer. Rhys thinks they band will be away playing for the entire year; they have plans to tour in Russia as well as North and South America.
And he’s really excited about the support band for the UK tour. Good Shoes have asked one of the bands from their mini-festival to tour with them: “Is Tropical are supporting. They’re gonna be playing every day of the tour… They’re really good. They’re friends of ours. We had La Shark support us before, and the Wild Palms. Both those bands are really good. They’re worth checking out.”
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