Q & A with Gypsy & The Cat’s Lionel Towers

Aussie expats Gypsy & The Cat have been enjoying some time back home supporting Foals and The Strokes and playing Splendour in the Grass. Today I caught up with one half of the duo, Lionel Towers, to talk about these shows, the band’s forthcoming debut album, and the challenges of being a support act.

You’ve been living in London for some time now. What’s it like to be back on home soil?
It’s wicked. It’s actually pretty funny because it’s hot in London at the moment and cold over here.

Have you been able to catch up with family and friends?
Yeah. It was kind of difficult last night because we played our gig at The Toff. All our family and friends were down there, so it was a little bit hard afterwards catching up with everyone. So I just kind of bailed. I’ll catch everyone on Facebook or something.

You’ve got such an interesting retro sound. Where does that come from?
We listen to a lot of music from the 70s and the 80s, so most of our influence is drawn from those periods I guess. It comes from everyone from The Bee Gees to Tears for Fears to Michael Jackson.

You’ve supported some amazing acts in Foals and The Strokes during your time back in Oz. What have they been like to work with?
They’ve been amazing. Both bands have really nice guys in them, so it’s been really good. It’s been a bit weird though because their music’s a little bit more left of centre, a little bit more targeted towards an indie audience as opposed to ours. So it’s kind of been a little bit weird sort of playing to an uber-cool crowd.

So how do you approach that when the crowd isn’t necessarily there to see you and your music is so different?
We just carry on and do our thing. And it’s cool though, because we have picked up some of their following which is weird, but yeah. The Melbourne gig was quite difficult at The Hi-Fi bar, the second night which apparently sold out first, for the Foals gig. That was probably the toughest audience that we’ve played to so far. They were just kind of standing there and not getting into it, but having said that they were listening.

Last weekend you played Splendour in the Grass? How did you enjoy the festival?
That was amazing, and we were really kind of pissed off that we had to leave that same day, because we wanted to stay on.

Oh no! I was actually going to ask you since you had an early morning slot, whether you got to spend the rest of the day catching some other bands!
Oh yeah, it was really annoying because I wanted to see so many bands. I was only able to catch a bit of Two Door Cinema Club and a little bit of Delphic’s set, and apart from that I wasn’t able to see anyone.

Oh what a shame to go all that way!
I know! We had to wake up at 4:15 in the morning, and then we had to leave at like five in the afternoon.

You’ll play Parklife later this year too. What do you love about the festival experience?
Well we’ve only ever played one festival. Splendour’s like the only festival we’ve done, so it’s a very new thing. But having said that, I really enjoy, I think Xavier [Bacash] does as well, we both really enjoy doing the festival thing, probably a lot more than doing the concert thing, definitely a lot more than doing the support thing.

You headlined your own show in front of a hometown audience in Melbourne last night. How did that go?
That was really good. That was awesome. Apparently they had to turn away like 200 people at the door. It was sold out, which was weird. We didn’t think that that would happen but it did. But that was really good, and because people were there to kind of see us I guess, the vibe from the audience was a lot more enthusiastic than say doing the Foals support. It was good; I enjoyed it

You’re preparing to release your debut album later this year. What can you tell me about it?
Expect lots of high harmonies and big hooks and some electronics and acoustics. You’ll listen to it and you’ll be taken on a journey I guess. We hope.

How have the Aussie crowds responded to the new songs you’ve played while you’re here?
Really good actually, because no one’s really heard of the songs besides “Jona [Vark]” and “Time to Wander.” But there’s been some great responses to other potential singles on the album. We’ve got a song “Running Romeo” that everyone’s been really getting into. Even some of the songs that we’d never have thought would be anything besides an album track have been doing really well. Last night we played probably most of the album, and there was a couple of album tracks that we played that really went down well. So maybe we could have some singles that we’d never thought we’d have.

What’s on the agenda once this tour wraps up?
We’ll just go back to the UK, and we’ve got to do a video for “Jona,” and we’re doing some shows over there. I think we’re supporting a few people but I’m not sure if I can mention who.

Gypsy & The Cat play Oxford Art Factory in Sydney tonight.

Image used with permission from Sony Music Australia