Bournemouth Wire

By Laura Nineham

With Fatpoppadaddy's now in a new venue, The Wire caught up with old favourites Good Shoes to find out how life was treating them...

SINCE playing the Old Firestation for the first time last year as a supporting act to We Are Scientists, Goodshoes have been making their mark around the country and have just been announced as headliners at this year’s Boring by the Sea Festival to be held at Weymouth at the end of June.

I caught up with them again on a recent return to Bournemouth but this time playing at the Dusk til Dawn club, the new venue for Fat Poppadaddys who can happily DJ downstairs in the UV-lit dance floor while leaving the upstairs room free for visitors. Brothers Rhys and Tom Jones of Goodshoes were into their

DJ set when I arrived and enjoying it so much they played far longer than expected, spinning songs into the early hours of the morning.

I dragged the front man Rhys away from the decks so we could talk about all things music related and his experience ofBournemouthlast time the band were down. Rhys well remembers appearing at the Old Firestation: “We were playing a really good set but they keep you to time there and we had to come to a stop with a couple of songs left to play. “There were people at the front of the crowd still singing along. They just didn’t want us to finish.”

Goodshoes tried a novel marketing operation when they played at Brighton’s Pressure Point 18 months ago. Tickets for their show could only be obtained by buying their single from specific outlets in the city.

But the gig wasn’t one of their favourites: “Someone stole my scarf that my ex-girlfriend got me for Christmas. She stayed with my family when I was on tour. I took my scarf off on stage and someone stole it. I know who it was but they never gave it back to me!” The band, who often get mixed up with Good Books by “people that don’t like good music”, have been together since school. Rhys explained: “Tom (drummer and co-DJ) is my little brother, I was in middle school with Steve (guitar) at like eight years old and then Joel (bass) and I were in the same English class when we were about 14. We started the band when we were 18 but we’ve been friends for years.

“The way the music industry has gone is that people go to gigs nowadays. We make a living out of playing gigs,” said Rhys. “It doesn’t mean we have to gig more than musicians would have had to a few years ago. It just means that unknown bands get to play bigger venues, like Foals playing the Astoria. The Maccabees did that too. “I don’t think we’re as well known as those bands but we got to play the Astoriaas well.” Rhys added that music downloads have helped the band reach far more people than their CD sales have allowed. He confessed to being a music downloader himself, although he said he buys music if he’s a fan of the artist. “CD sales were at a peak in the 90s. They were declining anyway but declined further because of downloads. “We played Reading and Leeds. We’ve sold like 25,000 albums. AtReadingand Leeds you play to 20,000 people in two days so the amount of people that are watching you and know your music can’t be the 80 per cent of people that have bought your CDs at that festival.”

With no major British festival slots lined up, it looks like Boring by the Sea will be the one chance to catch the band live this summer. “We’re doing a tour in Italy in June,’ said Rhys, “but we won’t be asked to anywhere like Benicassim. They never ask us.”