A few weeks ago at the amazing 2000 Trees Festival Rae Dowling and Adam Howlett caught up with Liam Kearley and Joe Gosney from new UK based alternative supergroup VOWER after their incredible performance at the festival.
Was it surprising to see a tent that packed out, considering you’re quite a new band?
Joe Gosney (Guitar) : I don’t think we had any expectations; you just never know. It’s our third show as a band, and first festival as a band. It’s always just a nice surprise when things like that happen. There’s never any expectation of “is it going to be packed?” Whatever happens, if there’s people there, we are happy.
Liam Kearley (Drums) : It’s kind of like the second day of the festival really, so it’s nice to see a good amount of people here already, just stoked for the weekend.
You said it was the third show you played; you played two, I think, club shows before this with Karnivool, a band that you guys are quite into?
Liam : [Jokingly] A little bit.
Joe: I think collectively, they’re one of our favorite bands in the world. It was always a proper pie-in-the-sky sort of thing, like “I would love to play with that band at some point.” And then it ended up being the first shows we played as a band, so you can imagine how amazing that was for us. It was a really special thing to do, supporting one of your top five favorite bands of all time.
Liam: It’s up there in moments, right?
Joe: Absolutely. Try to imagine what that felt like. The shows were special, and we just had a great time, so yeah, we were so stoked to be there.
Liam: What’s kind of wild is we found out that we got the gig, I think, six or seven days before the actual show started. But they were quite vague. I don’t know whether it’s just the Australian way, but they were just very much like, “Yeah, it’ll work out,” and we were like, “Can we get a confirmation?” [Laughs]
Joe: A week before, we’re thinking, “We’ve got to make some merch and all that sort of stuff,” and then three days before, they were like, “So here’s the stage times,” and we’re like, “Cool, alright, we’re doing it.”
Liam: So that was great. It was an amazing start to this band, like we said. I think the shows were already sold out before we joined, so the fact that there were people already there to see Karnivool, and it was a completely new audience that we were kind of joining on to, it was amazing. It was a special couple of shows.
Obviously, we’re here at Trees, it’s day one. Are you staying for the rest of the festival and is there anyone you’re really excited to see?
Liam : Today, Better Lovers would be amazing. Manchester Orchestra as well. I mean, it’s going to be incredible.
Is there a clash with them?
Joe: I think there is, yeah.
That’s a shame. I mean, James [Scarlett, 2000 Trees organizer] loves both of those bands. The thing with James is he books the best bands and then curates it in a way that’s like, “What can I see, where can I see it, and how can I see it without too many clashes?” But there’s always going to be clashes that happen.
Liam : Yeah, I think Death From Above on Saturday as well. Really stoked about that.
Joe : We’re here for the whole weekend, and we’re actually playing another set on Saturday, with Palm Reader as well. So yeah, we’re pulling double duty.
So you’re kind of working and enjoying it at the same time?
Liam: Especially somewhere like here, it feels like a spiritual home for us. Joe [Gosney] and I haven’t played here since 2018. We used to be in a band called Black Peaks, and we headlined The Cave the last time we were here, so it’s a really special thing to be back and starting fresh with a new band, and having people there. Like you said, it’s always a surprise.
If you could curate your own lineup, who would be your headliners?
Liam: Okay, so we’ve both got tattoos of this band [gestures to Tool tattoo]. I think they’d probably be up there. Mastodon for sure. I think Tool supporting Mastodon would be quite interesting to me—I love Tool and they’re one of my very best bands of all time, Mastodon. But I just think ending on Mastodon would be like… [Gestures]. Deftones. The Mars Volta… I think at this point, we’re just reading off bands that we like.
Joe: Oh, you know, I’d love to see Genghis Tron. If they ever do a live show over here, they are one of the best bands I’ve ever seen, and their album Dream Weapons is incredible.
Liam: Sabbath. Last show. Just for us, I think.
Private show?
Liam: Yeah, sure.
I mean, a lot of those bands—Tool, Mastodon, etc.—I would classify them, in my head at least, as more progressive bands. Do you see influences of those kinds of bands in the stuff that you write?
Liam: Literally wearing them on our sleeves. [Laughs]
Joe: But I don’t think we ever try to sound like those bands intentionally. We’re not trying to be like a Mastodon version of this band. It’s not trying to be a Deftones set. It just inevitably comes out in the music. It’s a hard one to describe, but if you’re sitting down listening to a Mastodon or a Tool record or whatever it is, you get inspired by it, but if you’re then trying to write a song that sounds like it, it won’t really be authentic to what you’re trying to do. And then it probably won’t be the best version of that.
Liam: It kind of goes back to just trying to write good songs that you like and that feel right. That’s what we’re trying to go through—write songs that make us feel good. If that then translates to other people enjoying it, awesome.
Joe: Honestly, I think we’re at a point in our lives where we just want to enjoy playing music. It’s been like that since day one, but yeah, I’ve never felt more comfortable and just happy in a band.
You’re something of a supergroup, comprised of members coming from lots of different bands. How does that writing process compare versus being in individual bands that you’ve been in before?
Liam: It’s different, but I’d say every part of this band is super vital to making it sound the way it does. It’s not just one person in the room writing songs. It’s the ingredients of all five of us that really make this what it is.
Joe: One thing I’ll say about this project, in particular, is that the writing process has been quick. One thing that underpins a lot of what we do is going with the first idea rather than ruminating on whether this is the best thing it can be, in a room for hours. That’s something we used to experience—we’d just be in a room, workshopping something over and over and over. And then you lose that initial thought of “was that a good idea or not?”
Liam: Whereas now it’s like, “That’s a cool idea, let’s run with it.” Get the guitars down, ‘bam,’ there it is. There’s the structure, I’ll put the drums down, great. And those initial moments are always way more like the vibe. So it’s really exciting to do that.
Joe: There was an amazing session a couple of months ago now, with me and Liam just up in our other guitarist, Rabea Massaad’s studio, putting pieces together for a song. But there were so many parts being thrown at it in such a short amount of time. And there was so much energy—it’s really hard to describe. One person’s like, “Oh, just try this,” and then, “Throw a little bit of that in there.” And then all of a sudden we’re like, it’s done, we just walked away.
Liam: The beauty of how we have it set up at the moment is that we’re recording the demos as we’re writing them.
Joe: And I was listening to it on the way home with the biggest smile on my face, like, “What the f*ck? Where does that come from?” We said it to each other—we feel like we just wrote our “Stairway to Heaven.”
Liam : If music makes you feel like that, I don’t know, it’s the best thing. That was a good session.
I’ve got a little bit of fluff to close it out—don’t think too hard about this. If you could change one thing in the world, both of you, big or small, what would it be?
Liam: That’s such a big question.
Joe : I don’t know, there’s a lot to think about there.
What’s the first thing that comes to your mind?
Joe : I don’t know, there’s a lot going on there because so much has happened recently.
Liam: I mean, just for everybody to be able to eat and drink food and clean water in the world.
Joe: But it’s true—I think that’s something that has to be a right, like a human right, to have clean drinking water and food for everyone.
Liam: I mean, I think that’s kind of it.
Joe: Just for people to get along, like stop hating on each other, that’s it. It’s pretty easy, right?
Guys, thanks for talking with us. Have you got many shows coming up?
Joe: Yeah, we’ve got Radar, which is in a couple of weeks in Manchester, then Arctangent, and then we have Euroblast in October. So that’s our first mainland Europe show.
Liam: We’ve actually just put on sale and announced our first headline show. It’s on the 6th of December at The Lower Third in Soho in London. Tickets are on sale now HERE. Sell that f*cker out.
