Gunship – We feel a responsibility to our music, to our live shows

“There were a lot of nerves there,” Gunship’s Alex Westaway admitted while discussing the release of the band’s first single in years, Monster In Paradise. “Because there’s a bit of a different sound in this new record, an evolution.”

Any band would be nervous about releasing new music – but Gunship are a special case. The techno/rock/ambient/cinematic trio, comprised of Alex Westaway, Alex Gingell and Dan Haigh, are one of the most aloof bands in the industry. And that’s by design.

Although they’ve been around since 2014 (and are passionately adored by their fans) nobody really knows them; the artists. They’ve never toured. The identities of its three members are not a mystery, but they rarely (if ever) do interviews. And yet, their legacy is astounding (and growing).

So far, Gunship have released two albums (2015’s self-titled and 2018’s Dark All Day), and amassed a staggering fanbase who are both devoted and completely seduced by the synthwave-esque band, giving them a staggering 518,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Again: they’ve never been on tour, never played live, and don’t do interviews. Their power has come through word-of-mouth promotion alone, and to achieve what they have in such a short amount of time is nothing short of astonishing.

Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk over Zoom, Haigh, Westaway and Gingell explained how their fans’ desire for new music had become “palpable”. As a result, it was difficult for them to come out of the shadows, light a candle in the darkness and (finally) release the project they have been working on for over four years.

READ MORE Gunship announce two albums and tease tour future

Unicorn, the band’s third album, is a powerful, feature-rich adventure that not only packs a punch at every turn, but also contains a lot of heart, delicacy, and an absolutely unbelievable amount of depth. Despite how incredible Unicorn is (and it really is incredible) their third record has a lot of pressure atop it. A lot of that obviously comes, lovingly, from the fandom, but also the expectations of their might within the genre.

“Personally,” Westaway confessed. “I don’t feel very comfortable being perceived in a genre. When someone tells you you are something or you’re supposed to do something it makes you not want to do that. But it’s about trying to figure out and respect what we’ve become and where we sit.”

Buy Unicorn right now from Amazon.

Unicorn certainly bucks the Gunship trend a little. Sure, it still has the brooding, effervescent staples found in every Gunship song, but it’s a fuller experience. Each track could be its own genre (if we’re still talking about that), and many of the album’s 14 entries are enhanced with featured artists. Not only is Busted’s Charlie Simpson back, but so, too, are John Carpenter, Lights, Gavin Rossdale, Health, Power Glove, and more. Gunship are a band that thinks about everything they do with discipline and dedication, so this feature list was not constructed lightly.

“If it doesn’t blow your hair back, don’t bother,” Haigh said of their internal motto. “It’s the same with collaborators: If [a feature] can genuinely enhance the art – by meeting someone and interacting with people who can bring a dimension you couldn’t – then, ultimately, you’re going to love that thing more as a result. And that’s the reason to do it.”

Haigh, who was previously in Fightstar alongside Westaway, called it their “zero compromise attitude”. But, really, it just feels like pure, unfiltered passion. Have you ever introduced someone to Gunship and watched their face contort into ecstasy as they realise this is truly a band like no other? It’s quite an experience.

When Gunship finally decided to bring Unicorn together as their third album, they started with this passion and evocative feeling, while also drawing from their own lives.

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“We were knocking around a lot of different ideas,” Haigh recalled. “But ultimately I think we were looking for something that encapsulated what we were trying to do in a singular word. And it’s fairly established that the unicorn is an icon of fantasy, and the record is about the power of imagination.”

Buy Unicorn right now from Amazon.

Through this lens of the fantasy genre, heavy metal, and – of course – Blade Runner, Haigh recalled an old quote he heard once: “It’s better to light a candle than to curse the dark.” With a smirk, he added: “In this record, we do both. We curse the dark – p***ed off about everything, lockdown, COVID, all of that disruption – dealing with some difficult stuff in our personal lives maybe. And then also through the darkness trying to light some candles, it’s both light and dark.”

Westaway agreed: “We have been working on this for four years, and we put a lot into what we do, emotionally. It has been a crazy four years, and I think there is a depth to the work that’s probably benefitted from that time… It’s a bit of a time capsule for us in these last pretty f****ng crazy years.”

Gunship have spent years thinking meticulously about their music, their new album, and what that looks like to them. But the question that has been seared into every fan’s brain is: Are they ever going to play music live?

“That’s the plan,” Westaway sighed, drenched in expectation. “Nothing is locked in yet but it will be a real shame if we didn’t sort something out really soon.”

When I pushed the band on even a ballpark date or year, they were resolute in their defence. “Like everything we do,” Haigh roared in. “We’re not going to half-a*s it, so we need to figure out the most compelling way of doing it. We’re interested in doing something original with what’s happening on stage.”

Westaway laughed: “It’s a theatrical thing for me to hide.” He went on to add: “It’s felt like [live shows have] needed to be that from the beginning of the band. I think that’s why we’ve probably not gone down that avenue – yet.” Westaway stressed that the band know their music is so well-loved, but they need the live shows to match the energy and excitement or they would be doing themselves a disservice.

The ever-stoic and thoughtful Gingell broke his tempered silence: “We feel a responsibility. We saw [the Monster In Paradise music video] as almost putting our toe in the water. Let’s imagine what that could look like in the future. A kind of representation of what that could look like.”

Westaway agreed: “Maybe we’re getting close now.”

Beyond that, is there more music? Well, kind of. There’s certainly more mystery, at least. Haigh teased a “missing link” between Dark All Day and Unicorn. He bared his teeth: “You may get to find out what that link is.”

Westaway cautiously added: “It won’t be another five years time [until fans get more music]. There’ll be a rhythm to it, to the releases.”

Honestly, at this point, a week is too long – but we’ll have to be patient. Especially when the end products are just so good.

Unicorn is out right now. Buy it here.

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