“There is no rock band from the last ten years that I have been interested in signing,” says the legendary Alan McGeefounder of the Creation label and discoverer of Oasis, who only makes an exception with his new right eye The Gulpsfor him a potential ‘next big thing’ of the genre.
The roots of the group are not in any British city with a rock tradition but in Calahorra, where the singer Javier Sola and the Basque punk fan guitarist Juan Carlos Ruiz pursued their teenage obsessions of fortune and glory without success, until they decided to wrap their heads around it and move to London. At the Institute of Contemporary Music (ICMP), they met bassist Simon Mouchard, Lebanese drummer Raoul Khayat and Italian guitarist Francesco Buffone, and together they formed The Gulps, a name with a cool and unmistakably rock translation into Spanish (Los Tragos).
“The nature of the band only had a place in London,” explains Sola. “All of us, from our respective corners of the world, were obsessed with the different British scenes from the sixties until now. Francesco comes from a very small town in Calabria, Pizzo. He always says that when he was fourteen years old, Paul McCartney went to play in Rome and tried at all costs to get his father to take him to see him. He did not go to the concert but at least they bought him his first electric guitar, which he had been asking for for a long time. Anecdotes like these we have all the members of the band. From a very young age we felt that attraction to go to London and do the same thing our heroes were doing.”
After a few months of activity, The Gulps caught the attention of famous producer Youth at a gig at The Monarch venue in Camden and got the Killing Joke founder to record his debut ‘single’ ‘The King’s House’, “a Hives-meets-Stones confessional” released in March 2019.” Working with Youth was a mystical, cosmic experience”, says Juan Sola. “We learned a lot from all of that. We went from making demos in a room to getting into a real studio with a living legend and all his great team. Youth was one of the first people to believe in the project when we had barely been playing for months, and without him the beautiful things that happen to us now would probably not be happening to us.
A dream come true
The Gulps were living a dream come true, but their initiatory story still had another surprise in store for them that would keep them rubbing their eyes. One fine day in 2020, Francesco saw the Creation Records legend, Alan McGee, in a cafe in Borough Market and insisted that the perfect manager of The Gulps was not going to slip out of his hands. He hounded the impresario with the results of a two week bonus session at Youth’s studio in the mountains of Granada in 2019, Alan loved a song called ‘Stuck In The City’ and bam! Suddenly, The Gulps belonged to the new label of the discoverer of many of their idols, It’s Creation Baby.
Alan McGee con Liam Gallagher
“I always tell that when I lived in Calahorra I said that McGee was going to be the manager of the band that I was going to set up in London,” jokes Sola. «It was not an easy task, first he came to one of these concerts with social distance that were held in the covid era, and he left after the third song. But for that to happen is something very ours, very Gulps. Just like it’s very Gulps not to take no for an answer. We continued on our crusade until finally a few weeks later he came to the rehearsal room and we burst it».
“The first thing I felt when listening to them was that Javier is a star, he was like a real character from the seventies,” intervenes McGee himself. «He is a ‘frontman’ charismatic and powerful, something fundamental in rock, now more than ever. That’s the kind of stars I’m drawn to.” This wise industry veteran is fully aware that “the public now prefers solo artists to groups”, but is convinced that The Gulps have a bright future ahead of them because “it’s just a band that wants to do great records.
The Gulps’ first concert was at the Alleycat on Denmark Street for 150 people, and the last one they gave, two weeks ago at the Forum in Kentish Town, was attended by more than 2,000. A fantastic growth in a short time given that we are talking about rock. But now that they are starting to become famous and the expectation is rising, the moment of truth is approaching for The Gulps. “We are trying find something unique that has not been heard until now”, concludes Sola. «Punk-disco without ever losing that dirty touch of rock and roll. I think you can clearly see it on ‘King of the Disco’ and even more so on our next ‘single’, ‘Candy’, which comes out on November 11th. I have never had the slightest doubt that rock is coming back. And the less ‘trendy’ it is at a given moment, the harder the blast will be for that next band that breaks up.”
“I hope that happens before I die,” says McGee…
Gira The Gulps
Wednesday 19/10 La Coruña – Porto Nights
Thursday 10/20 Valladolid – Red Desert Room
Friday 10/21 Granada – Bora-Bora Anniversary Ground Floor Room
Saturday 10/22 Seville – Room X
Domingo 23/10 Madrid – Sala Fun House
Wednesday 10/26 Bilbao – BIME Festival
Friday 10/28 Logroño – La Foundry Hall
Saturday 29/10 Pamplona – Sala Tchintxarri