TWO weeks on from the release of ‘We Don’t Like The People We’ve Become’, Gallus are still bathing in the undiluted hype and acclaim that has surrounded their triumphant debut album release.
An instantly addictive record, it has already respectfully charted at no. 26 in the official Scottish album charts and gained acclaim from here, there and everywhere. And we’re not surprised. ‘We Don’t Like The People We’ve Become’ bursts out the traps with a fireball of energy and never quite lets up throughout – its coming of age tales about navigating life as a young adult in Glasgow are laced with self-deprecating humour, brilliantly crafted lyrics, signature indie-punk hooks, and plenty of crunching riffs. And just like the debut single ‘Nice’ that we premiered all those years ago in 2018, there’s still that underlying nervy chaos and exhilarating live energy that Gallus have so expertly channeled through every release to date. It’s an undisputed triumph.
So, with records flying off the shelves, we caught up with the band who gave us a track-by-track run-through of the album, its inspirations and more. Check it out below.
Moderation
The music to Moderation was written during Eamon’s second of two consecutive covid isolations in 2021. We had a lot of fun writing this one as it felt like one of those stream-of-consciousness songs; once we found the jumping off point musically and thematically it just all fell into place in a matter of a couple of hours with only minor tweaks before we recorded. The lyrics were inspired by Barry’s frivolous spending on small football bets (“all I see is a winner”) which gave the song its ultimate meaning of constant small-scale hedonism leading to mundanity. We felt like it made a good opener for the album because of its high energy and relatively short length. We didn’t want anyone waiting around for a hook to come in, we wanted an album that came flying out the traps!
Fruitflies
Fruitflies was written some time in late 2020 and is about someone being in a state of total denial about their circumstances, particularly someone who’s just received some bad news. The song is about one friend telling another that despite your circumstances, things will get better and everything follows a cycle of renewal (“Thoughts and prayers for rotten pairs[pears]/ but fruit flies live and die today”) but the other friend complete refuses to listen to the advice due to their heartache. This song is one of the only mid-tempo songs in the album, and perhaps unsurprisingly the two mid-tempo songs are the two most melodic with one right at the start and one at the end (Sickness and Health) in order to give a little pacing to the album.
Eye To Eye
People might remember this song being released for the first time a couple of years ago, so now might be a good time to explain why we re-recorded it. We were probably a bit too quick to record the song; we had never really gigged it by the time we recorded so we didn’t really have a feel for the tempo that felt right or vocal delivery. About two weeks after we released the first version, we released a more refined live session version and we all instantly felt like we hadn’t done the song justice. About a year later the song was offline and we set to work re-recording it several bpm faster, with more interesting guitar parts, better lyrics and with an overall better idea of how the song should be played after playing it in front of people. The song is about shit pay for shit jobs and a lack of satisfaction in the workplace but we’re all pretty happy with the work we’ve put into this song now.
Basic Instinct
Another song that has previous incarnations that are unlikely to ever see the light of day again. The original version of Basic Instinct was recorded two years ago, but sat without any release for it lined up for it for a while. When we knew we were going to doing an album, we revisited it and did some studio surgery. We faced a problem however of not really being able to jump back into the session and just re-record parts, apart from the vocals. Thankfully this song, like most, was improved by cutting bits out and making it shorter. We’re a band that definitely believes less is more, don’t bore us, get to the chorus etc etc. Thankfully with the help of Johnny and Chris we simplified the song and appeared to have made a fan favourite. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback on this song and it really means a lot.
Missiles
Missiles is by far the most pessimistic and outward-looking song on the album. It looks more explicitly at the state of the world than one’s own circumstances. The song takes a look at the world and wonders if maybe a nuclear apocalypse is no less than we deserve. The song was written in February 2022 just as it felt like covid might actually be behind us, but then Russia invades Ukraine and then came weeks of nuclear brinkmanship. Even after a global health emergency, when you would think people learn to co-operate and appreciate how delicate life is, mankind immediately starts pointing missiles at each other threatening to end life on our planet. If that’s what we want to do then we deserve to die a fiery death, which is no bad thing, after all “the sun never sets on a world on fire.” Thankfully though we didn’t all die and this song was released. Close one!
What Do I Know
The first part of this song to be written was the guitar line in verse two. I remember after writing it, sending it round people asking if this is an original riff or if I’ve ripped someone off, such was my excitement. Thankfully as far as I know it’s original! Or at least original enough not to be called a rip off… Previous demos of this song were all quite dark and brooding sounding, definitely a few bpm, and while the finished version isn’t cheery sounding, it’s definitely a bit brighter and punchy. The song is, broadly speaking, about not enjoying a night out and feeling you have to remove yourself from a situation sharpish. As one review of the album wrote, this song couldn’t be written by anyone not in their mid 20s, which hopefully reflects a youthfulness and vitality to it, rather than our usual misanthropy.
Marmalade
This song started life as a jam that we mucked about with for a few months, which is unlike most, if not all, of our songs. You can hear that in its structure. It kind of meanders in and out of different parts and every part comes back a little different each time. This is one song that despite being played live for three years now has never once felt boring to play, it’s always a highlight so naturally it had to go on the album. Like the rest of the song, the lyrics started life with a kind of spontaneous ad lib that eventually gave way to a song about starting therapy. You can hear this in how abstract the lyrics are, again not typical for us, but for this song it just worked perfectly.
Going Numb
When writing this song we used a technique that we’ve found is a sure way to fix writer’s block: don’t write about anything at first, and see where you end up. To put it pretentiously, let the song’s meaning find you. In this case we started with the first line of the chorus “Every time I lose sensation”. Barry and I then amused ourselves with the idea of writing a song about your legs going numb taking a shit. Thinking that was a bit low-brow, even for us, we decided to make the entire song a double entendre, but that’s where the explanation will stop. We don’t want to take any of the listening fun away from you.
Are You Finished
This is a song we wrote with the intention of it sounding one way, but it comes out completely different, which is no bad thing by the way. Something to be embraced in songwriting. Again, there exists an old version that will not see the light of day, and as per usual with these songs, the song changed as we played it live so we decided to change the recorded version to reflect that. We also added some harmonies in verses in the chorus just to give it a little extra depth and reinforce the song’s main melody. Like a lot of the album, this song centres around feelings of inadequacy and self-consciousness.
Mr Nothing
This song was written shortly after we got back from SXSW with our good chum Ryan Hunter, who really saved our bacon by agreeing to come over to the States with us at the very last minute. He messaged us some time in April saying he had this riff but it wouldn’t really be any use to him in The Big Day but maybe it’ll suit us. We absolutely loved it, so Barry and I sat down and wrote song about annoying an annoying bastard that won’t stop bothering you in a bar with their banalities. We met plenty of these people at SXSW so perhaps we had something to get off our chests. A friend pointed recently though that by writing a song about these people called “Mr Nothing ” are we in fact actualising these annoying gits and giving them the credibility we say they don’t deserve. A fair point. Food for thought.
Penicillin
This song has similar themes to Moderation in that both are about overindulgence, but where they differ is that Penicillin has a stronger sense that you’re in fact slowly killing yourself. People use all manner of things to help themselves cope with life, but like Penicillin, what might help some people will kill others. The song wrestles with the need for these things against the realisation that you are dying. The voices you hear in the breakdown are taken from public domain infomercials from the 1950s on the dangers of substance abuse. A lot of them are available on Youtube and are hilarious viewing. Hopefully this song ages better than them.
Sickness and Health
We naturally thought we’d end on this song as it finishes with the album title as the last line. It also felt right to end the song on a slower note after a fairly frenetic 11 songs. And guess what? There’s also an old studio version of this song that we’ll never, ever release! It’s about 40bpm faster and doesn’t resemble the finished article at all. The song plays on a wedding vow analogy; you’re wedded to the person you become whether you like it or not. No matter how much you might hate yourself, you are you forever, until death, so best learn not to hate yourself. Like most of our songs, it’s pretty miserable thematically but we try to give some levity with lines about being smelling of piss.