Gossamer
NewWaveOldSchoolDarkGothicSwirlCoreDeathPop
0
plays
For the past several years, gossamer has brought its unique blend of musical styles to a world jaded by the ordinary, intrigued with the mysterious, and fascinated with the unknown. Although their work is tinged with darkwave, industrial, trip-hop, and ethereal rock, gossamer has created an enigma of light and dark, both melodic and discordant. Their music contains an honesty, depth, and romanticism that is often downbeat yet quite dancable.Band/artist history
Well, that's a rather mixed question that lacks a simple or brief answer. Gossamer, like most other bands has always been a 'work in progress' of sorts. It began in 1995 when I met and began collaborating as a 2-piece with ex-guitarist Gary Thrasher through a music store
advertisement. After a season of collaboration under the name "Stone White Clown", we decided we needed more participants to become an effective live act. Through an ad I created on my online Bulletin Board System "Fascination Street" we eventually met Aran Grooms (the only founding member remaining besides myself), who brought a knowledge of MIDI and keyboards, and Gossamer was born.... The fact that he could play other instruments was a definite plus, and he eventually settled into playing bass. We often switced instruments on various songs, particularly on our first release "The Zero Decade". We've had a TON of lineup
changes since, with a noticable shift in sound each time. Gary has since left to pursue other interests, Ex-keyboardist Timothy Flowers (an excellent songwriter who had an *incredible* impact on our sound and musical attitude) moved out of state in 1998 as well. We've also had several other members come and go in this time as well. We've currently expanded the lineup to 5 members, with John McCluskey (from Valmont) on keys/backing vox, Michael Manard on Guitar and Jason Gruzleski on drums. I'd like to start focusing my energies on my vocals and interaction when doing live shows for now.Have you performed in front of an audience?CHRIS: I have to admit that being somewhat of a perfectionist, I prefer the studio. I can concentrate, meditate, and perfect. The chaos of live shows are a gamble, but a worthwhile effort as well. There's definitely a lot of energy to exchange with an audience... I have to admit to being somewhat jaded to live shows, as I spent most of my life in travelling choirs and whatnot.
Aran: I like playing live a lot better, mostly because that's when I can feel the energy of the audience as well as my own. We kind of feed off each other in that way, I give what I have, and they return it for me to use. That and I like to make people wonder my gender.
Your musical influences
Aran: As far as songwriting, I'm heavily influenced by bands such as the Mission and Human Drama, as well as more traditional forms of music, such as blues artists like Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker, and Irish folk music. I've always been fascinated with modernising some of the old traditional songs, especially the more melancholy ones. And the ones about drinking a lot. I'm a really big fan of the Pogues, especially the Shane MacGowan days. He was such a pessimistic bastard.
CHRIS: ...and Robert Smith. All of us are heavily into dark, ethereal, jazzy, and psychedelic "shoegazer" acts such as the Cure, Depeche Mode, Joy Division/New Order, Morrissey, the Smiths, Cocteau Twins, Lush, and other 4AD type acts.What equipment do you use?
Chris: Jerry Jones Baritone Guitar (with custom strings), Yamaha 12 String acoustic guitar with a Dean Markley dropin pickup, Boss pedal tray with Super Chorus, Phaser, Flanger, OD/Distortion, and digital Reverb/Delay, a Peavey Basic 60 bass amplifier, and a Shure SM58 mike.
Aran: Epiphone Bass with some flat strings, Peavey Predator with too thin strings, Clayton picks, some cheap-ass acoustic thing guitar with a Dean Markley dropin pickup, Peavey 150 watt guitar Amp, Digitech GSP-5, Digitech DSP-128, ibanex soundtank chorus pedal,
and an ibanez soundtank tubescreamer. He had a MXR phaser for a while, but Jarrod took it back. If you have one, and want to sell, email me. In the meantime, I cannot phase. it sucks.
John: Ensoniq EPS-16 plus, Korg M-1, Juno 106, and an Alesis DM-5 Drum Module.
Mike: A cheap Gibson SG copy 6 string electric, Alvarez 6 string electric/acoustic, Alesis Quadra Verb+, Boss Distortion, Brat Distortion, AMD 300Mhz Computer with a crappy generic 16bit sound card and a bunch of audio apps - too many to list.
Jason: Yamaha DTX 2.0 drum brain with yamaha padsAnything else?
The scene is the scene, and that's good, but there's a lot of pretention in the scene that we're just not into. The musicians themselves are a great lot, but some of the scenesters can get a little much to handle. As far as goth being a hindrance, I think it can be. A lot of people think that if you are in a goth band, you sound a particular way, and act a particular way. I myself am familiar with a lot of different types of people who enjoy our music, and a lot of them aren't remotely goth. We maintain somewhat of the image, I mean we don't carry big banners saying 'we're not goth' or slander others for being as such, but at the same time, I do realize there's
more to music, and life in general, than being goth.Contact
Sorry, this artist currently doesn't accept email messages.
Comments (43)
what happend here?someone spamin the crap out of your mesage board.. I really want to hear what yor music sounds like
Great work...Real nice work... keep it up... If you get a chance, I just added an entire CD with 13 songs for Free Download.
Great work...Real nice work... keep it up... If you get a chance, I just added an entire CD with 13 songs for Free Download.
Great work...Real nice work... keep it up... If you get a chance, I just added an entire CD with 13 songs for Free Download.
Great work...Real nice work... keep it up... If you get a chance, I just added an entire CD with 13 songs for Free Download.
