Say It With Garage Flowers

When Say It With Garage Flowers last spoke to singer-songwriter Pete Gow, it was in a North West London pub in early 2019, ahead of the release of his first solo album, the brilliant Here There’s No Sirens.

The record was a surprising departure for Gow, who, at the time, was the frontman of UK Americana / alt-country band Case Hardin. As we wrote last year, it was deeply personal and confessional and, musically, it saw Gow exploring new territory. Gone were the big electric guitars, old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll, Springsteen-like anthems and raw, kicked-around country songs of Case Hardin. Instead, it was an album of stripped-down acoustic tunes, with stirring string arrangements, fleshed out by piano, brass, organ and drums.

Talking about his solo side project, Gow assured us that everything was hunky dory in the Case Hardin camp and that the band were due to start work on their next album – the follow-up to 2015’s Colours Simple. However, things didn’t go as planned – the group split up last year.

Since then, Gow has established himself as a solo artist and followed up Here There’s No Sirens with a mini-album, The Fragile Line – another fine collection of orchestrally-aided songs, which, like its predecessor, saw him collaborate with producer and multi-instrumentalist Joe Bennett (Dreaming Spires, Co-Pilgrim, Raving Beauties and Paul McClure).

This month sees the release of Gow’s brand new single – a double A-side, Cheap and Shapeless Dress / Happy Hour At The Lobby Bar.

Coming out on Clubhouse Records as a limited edition, 7in heavyweight vinyl single – sorry, there’s no digital or CD version, folks – it sees Gow reuniting with Bennett, who plays bass and keyboards and arranges the strings and horns.

The two songs act as a teaser for Gow’s third album, which is due out sometime in early 2021. They contrast each other nicely – the former, which is described as ‘a ramshackle celebration of the bacchanalia of youth’, is a rollicking, full-band country-rock track, with Mariachi horns on it, while the latter, which documents the meeting of two estranged friends after decades apart – “we moved the rug back to hide the drugs and found the dust we’d swept inside” – is another of Gow’s downbeat and reflective, drinking-themed songs.

In an exclusive interview, we talk to Gow about his new single and get the lowdown on his next album, but first we have to ask him to set the record straight about the demise of Case Hardin. During our last chat, it really didn’t seem like things were well and truly over for the band – they had a new album in the pipeline… So what happened?

“Well, when we last chatted I also didn’t feel it was over for Case Hardin,” he says. “It wasn’t over, like you say – we had firm plans for a new album, but it just didn’t work out the way I hoped those next few months would.

“For the longest time, I was equal parts saddened and angered at the unsatisfying manner in which we closed the book, but now I can look back on our four albums with an immense pride and am occasionally reminded how much love there was for the band, our records and our live sets.”

So is there a lost Case Hardin album in the vaults? What happened to the songs you’d written for it?

“Oh – there’s no lost album, sadly. Most of the songs have been reworked, or reimagined for the subsequent Pete Gow albums. I’m just not prolific enough to let an album’s worth of songs go to waste!”

Q&A

How are you? What’s lockdown and the past few months been like for you?

Pete Gow: Well… personally, I’ve been okay. I’ve been able to keep my day job and I’ve been able to largely do it from home. I’ve managed to keep my health etc., so, given the experience of so many others during these past few months, I feel largely unscathed.

How has the crisis affected your musical plans? Have you adapted and performed online? What challenges have you faced?

PG: To be honest, as a performer, I haven’t really embraced the online shows, but, as a fan, I’ve seen some great ones! In the early days, I couldn’t figure out my way past the limitations of a live broadcast on a platform like Facebook. I had neither the hardware, nor the knowhow, to establish a robust, sustainable signal, so I made the decision to try other ways to communicate musically.

We had a ‘watch party’ for our 2019 concert film, One Live One-Night Stand, very early on in lockdown, then a month or so later I pre-recorded an acoustic set that we played out as an event – Almost Live in Acton – but, other than that, I have done one guest appearance on a friend’s Instagram Live – the fantastic Hannah Scott – and my first proper live online show will be this Friday (October 23) – the same day as the single comes out. I’ll be doing a ‘Virtual Green Note’ set in the company of Sam Coe and fellow Clubhouse dweller, Luke Tuchscherer.

The new single is a double A-side and it’s only available on vinyl – there’s no digital version. What prompted it?

PG: It was pretty organic. Since March, there have been several discussions with Clubhouse Records, brainstorming what can be done to keep our music out there, but trying to do something a little different every time and a little different from everyone else. It came from those discussions – over Zoom, naturally.

Let’s talk about the new songs: Cheap and Shapeless Dress and Happy Hour At The Lobby Bar. What can you tell us about them? They’re both observational songs…

PG: I think the best way to frame the new songs is through the new album. Until we decided to take these particular tracks away and call them a single, they were part of the larger story of the new record.

I wouldn’t say age is a preoccupation on the next album, but it does colour some of the songs. I turned 50 this year. That’s hardly old age, but I have allowed it to be marked, both in my thinking and in my songwriting, in ways that surprised me. I am increasingly aware that I don’t have an infinite window in which to right some of the wrongs I have chalked up in my life. I have one eye on the clock and the clocks of those around me.

I think the narrator in Cheap and Shapeless Dress is how the fantasy me takes life in his stride, but I probably handle conflict closer to the two old friends awkwardly meeting up after decades, in Happy Hour At The Lobby Bar, than I’d care to admit.

‘I wouldn’t say age is a preoccupation on the next album, but it does colour some of the songs. I turned 50 this year’

They’re very contrasting songs musically, and, interestingly, both tracks feature hotels in the lyrics. Is that a coincidence? It’s a double A-side with a double room…

PG: Hah! Well, I never noticed the hotel connection until now – an oversight made moderately worse by the fact we originally had a different track to pair with Happy Hour At The Lobby Bar, but at the eleventh hour, Joe spotted that song also had a bar in the title. Clearly we didn’t look closely enough at the replacement….

The song choice was very much motivated by the point you raise in your question. It’s a single – a stand-alone project – but it also has a job to do, previewing the next record. We had seven or eight tracks to choose from, so the pairing for the single was a legitimate consideration.

The new songs see you reunited with Joe Bennett, whom you worked with on your last two records – your solo debut, Here There’s No Sirens and the mini-album, The Fragile Line. He’s provided bass and keys, and arranged the strings and horns. Prior to lockdown, you and drummer, Fin Kenny, went to Farm Music Studios, in Oxford, with Joe, to record drums, guitar and guide vocals for your next album. How was that? How much did you get done?

PG: Well, if this was a regular cycle for recording a new record, we’d say we didn’t achieve much – album-ready drum tracks, guide vocals and guitars. Then all the rules changed… Suddenly what we left Joe with was all he really needed to start building an album when no one else was able to record and to give him a project when most other studios were shuttered. In late February, it really wasn’t much at all, but by early March, it was everything.

‘I am increasingly aware that I don’t have an infinite window in which to right some of the wrongs I have chalked up in my life’

So what can you tell us about the next album and when will it be coming out?

PG: It’s in a reasonably advanced state, for all the reasons we just discussed, and we were even able to pull the two tracks for the single from our stockpile and still get back in to Farm Music Studios last week and replenish it.

As to when it will come out, it’s too early to tell. There’s certainly no reason from my end that it couldn’t come out in early 2021, but there are a few stars that will need to align before we can fix a date… not to mention figuring out what releasing an album even looks like for someone who has historically relied on merchandise sales at live shows.

Are the songs on the single representative of the new album?

PG: I think the single does point the way…

Are you still sticking with the orchestral backing you debuted on Here There’s No Sirens and also used on The Fragile Line?

PG: There is a move from the emphasis on strings to favouring horns. In the main it’s also a ‘livelier’ collection of songs as regards tempos, arrangements etc., but let’s not get carried away, or try to fool the people – it’s never going to go down as my party album…

The lyrics of Happy Hour At The Lobby Bar reference the traditional end of year sing-along Auld Lang Syne. On that note, what are your plans for the rest of 2020, and your hopes and fears for 2021? How will you remember 2020?

PG: I’m genuinely not sure how safe it might be yet to start making plans, certainly not musical ones. I’m still trying to take the wider view on that. I want to get back to being a working musician, but I want it to be right – not to mention safe – for everyone. It’s good that people are start to figure out how all this might look going forward. The folks at the Ramblin’ Roots Revue festival – Tristan Tipping and Noel Cornford – are putting their heads above the parapet, with some live shows later this year, as are others.

But listen; honestly, 2020 in review will actually be quite conflicted for me. Outside of all the crazy stuff, a number of significant, positive things have happened to me this year – things that rightly refuse to allow them to be wholly overshadowed by the bigger picture. There’s a line in Auld Lang Syne that translates as: “There’s seas between us broad have roared.” That’s been my 2020.

Any current musical recommendations – old and new? What’s been your 2020 soundtrack?

PG: Thank you for asking. In no particular order, the new Michael Kiwanuka album is as good a record as I have heard this year. Danger Mouse produced it and it’s so, so good – brilliantly put together. Courtney Marie Andrews’s Old Flowers is a break-up album to rank alongside the very best. Looking backwards, I discovered two albums by Eugene McDaniels from the early ‘70s: Outlaw and Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse. The musical range of both those records is amazing – it’s like Gil Scott-Heron by Lloyd Webber in places, but in a good way!

Finally, it’s happy hour at the lobby bar and Say It With Garage Flowers is buying. What are you having?

PG: I actually miss being in pubs less than I thought, or presumed I would, but the thought of never again seeing a well-poured pint of Guinness settle before me, then marvel at the perfect cream circles as I savour it, depresses me immensely. So mine’s a stout. Slainte.

Pete Gow’s new, limited edition double A-side single, Cheap and Shapeless Dress / Happy Hour At The Lobby Bar, is out on October 23 (Clubhouse Records). 

To order one, click here. 

On the same day, he will be performing a virtual gig for The Green Note, with Clubhouse labelmate Luke Tuchscherer, and Sam Coe. The show will be live streamed from 8pm. For more information, click here. 

You can also see Gow play two, special, socially-distanced shows for the Ramblin’ Roots Revue with Joe Bennett, plus Danny Wilson and Robin Bennett (Bennett Wilson Poole) on Dec 11-12, at Bucks Student Union, High Wycombe. Info here.