Gotts Street Park Is What You’ve Been Missing
Gotts Street Park/Instagram
Gotts Street Park is a band straight out of Leeds—but they don't sound like it. The West Yorkshire, England-based is comprised of friends Josh Crocker, Tom Henry, and Joe Harris. Many chance encounters around the city's local venues and institutions led to the guys forming the band as we know it today.
Shortly after, the boys dropped off Volume One in 2017—a ten-track odyssey showing glimpses of soul, jazz, quiet storm, and echoes of Hip-Hop and R&B. 2020 would find the crew inking a contract with Blue Flowers Records, dropping off Volume Two, and then 2023's On The Inside.
The latter finds the band truly exercising their hand at fusion, blending their musical and cultural influences into one pot. The result is a finely tuned band operating on one accord across multiple instruments. On The Inside takes their previous Volumes and approaches them with an evident air of growth. The best examples can be found in album cuts "Fuego," "Mountains" featuring rising artist ENNY, "Got To Be Good" with songstress Pip Millett, and the beautiful "Portofino" featuring Parthenope.
But what has the band been up to since? In Search Of Magazine chopped it up with Joe to discuss their latest LP, the band's early years, inspirations, and what's next for them.
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In Search Of Magazine: So how did you guys become a band?
Joe: It was kind of organic. Me and Tom met at the music college in Leeds and were just playing together in general and just going out and hanging out and just becoming friends. And we met Josh through a slightly larger friendship group of musicians and he wasn't at college, but we had a lot of the same connections and making music with the same people. And so three of us really are the core of the band.
And yeah, we first got together in this project as a result of Josh in his bedroom at the time. He'd always been doing production and engineering and mixing and that side of things. He just was just trying out these setups and was just interested in getting as close to the '60s Motown sound as he could originally.
So we'd just going around and playing and we'd record and he'd hit playback and we'd listen to it back and it just sounded really old and cool, almost cooler than it sounded in the room. So that was really the spark from there and that's how it came together initially.
ISO: And so how did we get to On The Inside? Talk to me about the journey from your previous album, I think it was Volume Two, until now.
J: So we were always just catching little bits and ideas and demos and stuff. And then Volume One came as a result of we were doing our own thing, but also we'd get, vocalists had come in for a day or two days and we'd write with them. And some stuff we'd want to keep for our little projects, some stuff would go to them. But yeah, released Volume One, released Volume Two, which are really a mix of instrumentals and collaborations that we...
The gap between Volume Two and On The Inside there's Diego, which was a digital EP, during lockdown I think it got released, so we didn't really gig that one.
But in terms of what's gone on really, On The Inside was started in lockdown with all the COVID stuff going on. And just when we got together, we were just making tunes and we just kept the bits that we thought were suitable for this album, and other things have gone to other artists that we do and this and that. Does that kind of answer your question?
ISO: Yeah, yeah. It does. It does. And so it only, I guess, gave me more questions. So from, like you mentioned you had Volume One, you had Volume Two. Was there a reason it was titled On The Inside? I know you mentioned COVID and so I'm guessing it was the pandemic mindset that you guys were going into the studio with this, if there was a studio at all? Or, was there something else?
J: I mean, the title came last to the point where it's like, "Oh, we think this album needs a title." And then we're searching around track, I think of something that just doesn't sound rubbish [inaudible 00:05:14] almost. But On The Inside, I think it just came out. And yeah, it was one of those that it had a few meanings and all of them seemed apt of, yeah, there was obviously various points of the lockdown thing and people being very much inside. And then the obvious On The Inside, being it's a window into what we do.
And I think, in fact more than anything, what really sticks for me is I feel like our music, because it's unpolished and raw and we try and catch it pretty quick from when we write it. But we write it, get it sorted and then, "Let's record it while it's still fresh." So On the Inside is hopefully, it's a window into our world or a snapshot. It's not too polished, it's not too photoshopped. It's just, this is how it feels On The Inside. It feels like this in the studio and I hope we don't polish it up too much and lose that initial spark. That's the idea.
ISO: I see. So this is like an intimate night with Gotts Street Park, is what you're telling me?
J: It could be. Yeah, yeah. We did a live stuff, but we start it in the studio and as a unit creatively, we like getting in the studio and being in a room as well. We do little bits of remote collaboration with artists, but a lot of what we love the most is that thing of all getting in a room together and just seeing what happens. No starting point and just letting the music happen. Sometimes it's worth sharing, sometimes it doesn't feel worth sharing, but yeah.
ISO: So were there any difficulties for you to let your guard down and be like, 'All right, we always been this raw band, we're going to keep it on the raw tip no matter what happens?'
J: Yeah, it feels quite natural I think, to me and to us. I mean it's not that we don't, we do do overdubs on stuff and polish it up and pick the right take. So I don't want to give a false impression like, "This is the first time we record it, and here it is." It's a full on live take always, that we have different processes for different tunes.
But that being said, yeah, it feels, I personally don't care about that stuff. I don't have an attachment to my music or what people think like that. It just really comes down to, we want to make stuff we enjoy and obviously when you're recording it's yeah, it's for yourself to listen back, but really there's always an eye to sharing it.
And some stuff doesn't make the cut, and we think, "I'm not enjoying this enough to want to share it with anyone else." But once it's hit that point, it's hit that point of enjoyment where it's like, "I enjoy this for what it is and I feel like there's someone out there who might enjoy it," and we share it. Yeah, it doesn't need polishing up to reach as many people as possible or to tick this radio box and that box. It's like, "It is what it is. Let's put it out there." And personally, I think I speak for all three of us, but don't pay it too much attention after it's out there.
It's beautiful when it comes back to you, when someone says, 'I really enjoyed that.' Yeah, it means a lot, but it's just once it's out there it's nothing to do with me really at that point. It's on to the next thing, I guess.
ISO: On the album, you guys have a few features on here. You got Rosie Lowe, you got Pip Millett, which she did is featured on two of my favorite songs on the whole project. And then Parthenope on Portofino. Love that track—Absolutely fire. I was just like, "Wow." How did you guys go about picking the features for On The Inside? Was there some sort of blueprint or was there, you guys wrote something out, like this is the type of sound we're going for vocally and we want these artists to be on it? Or was it just, as you mentioned before, a sort of natural progression of working on your music?
J: Yeah, the latter. Yeah, definitely. It was very much... Initially, it's just, we'll get in a room with someone if it's like, oh, this could be interesting, or I like the sound of what they do, or, yeah, there's got to be a kind of interest and a respect there. If that's there, it's just we'll get in a room and see what happens. There's not really much, usually much more of an aim than that. And I think just letting it come. So you end up with a batch of material and you pick what seems to work for the album, and even in some cases, what seems to work for the ordering, ordering the tracks and wanting it to move in the right way. So most of it's like that.
I mean, the one I can think of really that was the tune Fuego, it felt like the album needed something like that, and it felt the live set needed a tune like that. So that was kind of developed in mind, like we want something with this vibe. But that's probably the only tune. The rest of them are just what came at the time, and over a period of whatever it was, 18 months, some stuff might be older than that, just compiling what we thought worked as a coherent album. Yeah.
ISO: So would you say there is maybe a loose thematic element to this album?
J: Yeah, I wouldn't want to give it any sort of concept anyway. There's no strong concepts. It's not very cognitive. If there's a theme, this is the music we've naturally made, I guess is all I could give it. And yeah, I think On The Inside speaks to a slight theme of just the overall vibe is this feels like a genuine expression of us, and we've tried not to filter it too heavily and polish it too heavily, I guess.
ISO: And now, what would you say would be some of the band's major inspirations going into this album and in general?
J: Yeah. We all bring our things to it, but I mean, definitely it started with everyone being into the Motown sound for sure. And then past that as an aesthetic really into, I love a lot of recordings from '69 to say '74.
And different genres. So there's a whole aesthetic that's really just about how they captured live music, how they captured real instruments then. That's definitely an inspiration just sonically without even going into genre. And yeah, then, I mean obviously, soul music is a big one for all of us. Specifically, I mean, I have to speak for myself really, I can't speak for everyone else. But I love Marvin Gaye, Donny Hathaway, that kind of era, that kind of vibe. And then also I think growing up, even though in the north of England, me, Tom and Josh all grew up loving East coast, mid-nineties hip hop, that was a real one how we were connected of talking about Wu-Tang and DJ Premiere, and [Nas].
I don't know about Josh, I can't speak for Josh fully. I think it's up there for him. And definitely one of me and Tom's top albums ever. I mean, I listened to nothing but hip hop for at least a good couple of years in my teenage, and it was through all my... still here now, but it was there through a lot of years. But there was a couple of years where it's just intense. I was just addicted and just loved it. That is also an introduction to a lot of the soul and Motown and Blues and all the stuff just through the samples they were using. So that's been a massive influence.
ISO: So after all that is said and done with the mindset you have now, where do you think you guys will go after On The Inside?
J: We're making new music and that's just an ongoing process. So we've been writing and making new stuff because obviously On The Inside's coming out for the world in October, but it's long in the past for us creatively. The masters got sent in months and months ago and it was all done and dusted. So yeah, there's the live show and all that, but then just getting to it and again, we're making a lot of instrumental music and that might be its own package. We're really always looking to collaborate with we know already on new people and there's definitely an eye on longterm, making more like project length releases with one artist.
So even if it's an EP, but say it's like five tracks with a vocalist where we've just been in the studio for a week and we just captured it and even if it sounds a little bit demo-ey or whatever, and just get back to that where there's so many solo artists around, but it's like a meeting of two people like when you see, I don't know, Nas meets Hit-Boy or whatever in the production world now, but do it just this more, let's see what we come out with as a project rather than just one-off tunes with people. And to get there, it's just a matter of practicalities, it's a matter of being able to afford to do it, having the budget to do it, and I guess in some ways, having the kudos or the pull where artists want to come and spend a week in Leeds or two weeks in Leeds and maybe we'd fly out places as well, but that's definitely... We're open to that without planning for it because. I think you can't bank on stuff like that. If it comes, it comes. And if you're open to it and make moves for it to happen, it's more likely to. So that could be one route. But if not, just keep making music and when it feels like we've got a release, we'll put it out there, and obviously take good advice from our label and do it all the right way, and maximize the exposure and all those things. It's not that we don't care about those things, but we're not driven by those things.
ISO: Yeah, no, that answers everything. I appreciate you, man. Congratulations on the work that y'all are currently doing. I can't wait to hear the new stuff.
J: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, yeah. Appreciate your time. Yeah, definitely. We'll stay in touch.
