The week prior, guitarist Evan James Purdey and vocalist Adam Curley sit at a Fitzroy bar. It wasn’t too long ago – around a year and a half – that they put together the initial idea that became Gold Class, with a clear focus resulting in a full-length album, soon after their first release: last year’s single ‘Michael’. “It was one of our first songs,” Evan states. “That was after three rehearsals. There was one rehearsal where it was long, dirge-y ten-minute jams, then after that we pieced together song ideas. After a few rehearsals, that was one of two or three songs we had. In terms of deciding to release it, we just thought it had a chorus.” “That was October last year,” Adam says. “We started playing in January, with our first show in April. We were sitting around, and Evan said he had some guitar ideas he’d been playing around with. I think I wrote some vocal stuff to those parts, then that was all scrapped by the time the four of us got together. We just started from scratch.” “That’s been the modus operandi: to put something together then deconstruct it completely, until there’s a song,” Evan adds. “It’s laborious, but it’s good. You think ‘Thank fuck!’ when you get to the end and you have a song.”
There’s a sense that Gold Class arrived fully formed in the live setting, a notion compounded by the release of the full-length It’s You, resolute in its vision and dynamic. “I don’t think any of us are particularly interested in releasing three EPs then a record, what’s the point of that? The record should just be the songs you have, the songs you’re playing live on an album,” Adam states. “It made it harder to separate the songs. We couldn’t have done an EP or two EPs, this is a body of work and we put it out as one whole package,” Evan adds. “There aren’t any loose ideas that go through, we’re all pretty dedicated.” “There’s no messing around.” Evan laughs.
The live force of Gold Class’s performances is undeniable, a frenzy of elements anchored by Adam’s stoic and soaring vocal prowess. “I don’t think the show itself has changed, I think we’re better at it. Less nervous. We’re starting to play again on Monday, so I’m getting those first show jitters all over again,” Evan says. “It’s nice in that sense, having not really played, having talked about the record then jamming again, realising that’s just what we are,” Adam says. “We don’t have to think about it too much.” “As soon as we sped up the songs it felt natural,” Evan says, “And that’s what carries us through a gig, rather than trying to nail anything or be militantly tight.”
On record and in the live setting, Gold Class is comprised of each band member’s distinct element – puzzle pieces that can stand in isolation, but click together so wonderfully. “Mark [Hewitt, drums] is a mind reader,” Evan laughs. “He can play everything. We’re jealous, so we make him play drums. A huge part of getting him to play in this band and a reason we’re thankful he was available is that he is so easy to communicate with him as a musician. You can say something pretty abstract and he’ll go ‘oh yeah,’ and know what you’re talking about. You can get all Captain Beefheart, ‘play like a yellow tree’ sort of thing.” “That’s probably the case with all of us,” Adam says. “There aren’t many musical terms that get thrown about, they’re all pretty abstract ideas. Everyone seems to be on the same page generally, understanding what each other are talking about. We do talk about keeping things pretty minimal. If anything gets too elaborate, or too grandiose, it gets cut down pretty quickly.” “Space is important, making sure everything has its little room to play in,” Evan says. “When it gets too big that’s when we start to strip it back, that’s when the deconstruction happens.”
Gold Class exude strains of post-punk greats, still with distinctly Australian elements of tone. “I think in the past few decades there have been a million Australian bands we have been influenced by.” Adam states. “I don’t think it’s a post-punk thing. It might be Melbourne thing, or a Brisbane thing,” Evan says, touching on Adam’s Queensland roots. “For whatever reason it’s been interpreted as post- punk, by us and people listening to it. There’s not much getting around the fact that it has that feel to it. It’s just a product of watching Bird Blobs, or Dirty Three or The Drones. You listen to that when you’re younger and then turn that into something else when you work with different people.”
It’s You is out now via Spunk Records.
