Oh Mercy’s Alexander Gow on his reactionary new record

Alex Gow has been on a journey. The Oh Mercy auteur became an indie hit with his first two records, changed gears for the polarising but generally warmly-received Deep Heat, and then shot off for the New Old World. He documented his American adventure and littered it with puns on his websiteand it’s a helluva read. Now he’s back with When We Talk About Love, not so much a return to his roots as the culmination of all he’s learned. Closer in vein to his “earnest white guy singing songs about his emotions with an acoustic guitar” earlier records but with a quieter form of the ambition shown on Deep Heat, When We Talk About Love seems likely to galvanise fans and rebut skeptics. So we talked about leather jackets.

So here’s the story I heard from a friend: Alex Gow, hot shit around town, goes to the US, gets kicked around by indifferent people, gets bummed out, writes an album about it. How accurate is that?

The second half is accurate. I did go to the States and found myself down and out several times and writing music about it. I was down and out and writing music about it here, as well. Probably more so at one point.

Why’d you go to the US in the first place?

I’d just finished touring Deep Heat with the band. I was kind of exhausted and had some time to dedicate to writing, which is a unique privilege, to be able to concentrate on writing songs and nothing else. I wanted to remove myself from Melbourne to do that. Lots of distractions. I keep on trying to explain to different people why I did it and there’s several reasons but none of them particularly accurate. I can’t really figure it out. I just felt like I had to get out and I felt like that was the right time. I had some friends in Portland, Oregon, and thought I’d head up over there. Originally to play some shows supporting the release of Deep Heat, which didn’t end up happening in the way I anticipated. I used the time I had over there to write music.

I read your tour diary thing and it only hints at some of the adversity you experienced. Like you write you were feeling sorry for yourself around the new year but don’t elaborate. What got you down, Al?

I mean, the reason I didn’t elaborate online is I think there’s a point where I don’t need to share what was going on in my life with the public, so I don’t do that now. Just numerous, really important and unusual things happened around that time and set the stage for me to stop promoting Deep Heat and to concentrate on writing the new album. Sold the touring van, bought a Mercedes wagon to get around on my own. That came with the new year and all these other things I had to deal with at the time. In the end it made for a positive move.

Around the time of Deep Heat, you got a bit of a distance from the autobiographical stuff. I think I remember you saying something like the earnest singer-songwriter thing was getting too painful for you at that point.

Yeah, I felt pigeonholed. Probably more by myself than peers, fans and the media or whatever. But I did feel like I was getting locked into the category of that tradition. The earnest white guy singing songs about his emotions with an acoustic guitar. I’m fairly uncomfortable with that idea because I didn’t think that was all me, I didn’t think that was the sum of what I was interested in. So I made Deep Heat musically bombastic and borderline rude and wrote fictionally, wrote in third person. I found that really liberating, to use a whole different vocabulary. I definitely felt like it was the right time to do that and a reactionary move from the last record.

And then, funnily enough, by the time I got to finishing Deep Heat and it was time to write some new music, I ended up kind of back where I started, writing fairly autobiographical music with an acoustic guitar. The difference betweenGreat Barrier Grief and my new album, When We Talk About Love, is that perhaps Great Barrier Grief was an exercise in restraint. It’s very subtle. Whereas this one, I employed a big beautiful sound to make these songs work and to make them sing.

Have you considered writing short fiction?

I’ve considered it and then never followed through because I don’t think I’m talented enough at doing that writing, I wouldn’t put anyone through that. I would like to do that in the future if I feel like I’ve reached a point that I’m proud enough with the way that I write to do something like that. I love reading fiction, I always have, I love reading the short stories of Raymond Carver – obviously I named my album after the second half of the title of one of his books – and took that book everywhere I went in America. It meant a great deal to me at that time. Perhaps one day when I think it’s worthy of assaulting people’s eyes I’ll give it a shot.

I saw you at Record Paradise a couple weeks ago on Record Store Day. Did you get around to much of the Record Store Day stuff?

Yeah I saw Fraser Gorman play, who I really like, he’s a really lovely guy. Record Paradise were generous enough to let me pick any record to take home with me that day. I picked up that American compilation of Nick Drake music.

Outta curiosity, when you were in America, what’d the yanks think of Tony Abbott?

Most of the time, people were emailing me or texting me about him because he did pop up in the American media every now and then and always in an incredibly embarrassing light. I think people were shocked that he was the leader of any country, let alone civilised Australia. He was a source of constant embarrassment to me while I was over there. And while I’m back as well.

The last time I was in America the most embarrassing thing was Jet, and that nobody knew Tame Impala was Australian. 

Yeah man, Tame Impala were everywhere when I was over there and I’m a big fan so I was pretty happy about that. The last Australian act I remember being big over there was when Gotye put that single out. I went into Austin for SXSW, going to get some lunch, and one of the first things I saw was this double decker bus, this open top bus, and everyone – I suppose you’d call it grinding – dancing to this terrible dance version of that song, with the short denim shorts, the pockets coming out, some really bad fake tans and peroxide blonde hair and cheap beer. Blaring out of this double decker bus. I thought, ‘Wow, Wally’s really made it.’ That’s how you know.

Have you ever observed anyone doing that to an Oh Mercy song?

I never have, but I’d be more than happy to.

How old is your leather jacket?

I’ve got quite a few. I’ve got quite a few that look exactly the same. The motorcycle jacket that I have, I have like three that look exactly the same, and then a denim version of that as well.

I got a fondness for the black and studs myself but I’ve been obsessed lately with the idea that one day it will crumble, like all garments, and its ragged memories will end up in a skip. What do you think about that?

Perhaps I’m taking steps to avoid that by having multiples of basically the same jacket and swapping them around to lengthen out the life of these jackets and their memories. It’s like putting a leather jacket on life support.

Jake Cleland (@sawngswjakec)