aaamusic | On 31, May 2011

AAAMusic: Hello there, first of all congratulations on sounding so accomplished this early in your career. Tell us, what’s the secret?

Gunning for Tamar: Thanks, I think neglecting our studies at university helped. Joe and I were also in a band at college which was terrible so we got a lot of that out the way early I guess.

AAAMusic: Listening to Deaf Cow Motel, I couldn’t quite put my finger on your sound. What would you say are your biggest influences?

GfT: Bands that don’t sound too much like anyone else really, I’d like to think if we put enough of ourselves into our music it’ll be unique in some way. The bands that made me want to make music originally were people like Mogwai, Radiohead, Brand New and At The Drive In.

AAAMusic: Following on from that, how did Gunning For Tamar form?

GfT: As I mentioned, Joe and myself made the most of our time at uni playing guitar and writing bits and pieces that started to take a bit more shape when we moved to Oxford with our original bassist. We then found D’arcy drumming at a local gig where we joked about stealing him away from his band. Then we did. Ben, our current bassist joined towards the end of last year, at which point the Megazord was complete.

AAAMusic: Oxford seems to have a bit of a rise in alternative rock type bands, both in the metal sense and in your more experimental sense. What would you say the local music scene is like?

GfT: It’s amazing at the moment, we’re really lucky to have bands to play with that genuinely excite me. The city is pretty dense with decent venues for a small place too. People like Ronan Munroe and Stewart Garden who produce the Nightshift and Oxfordshire Music Scene magazines also do a great job of documenting everything and giving the place a bit of a buzz and an identity. As does the local BBC Introducing show which is pretty heavily involved in everything going on. It’s a good place to be, I’ve even noticed bands claiming they’re from Oxford recently when they have little or no connection to the city.

AAAMusic: What’re your views on the music business in general? Is it as shit/exciting/corrupt/wonderful etc as it’s cracked up to be?

GfT: It can be all of those things, if you find the right people it can be massively exciting and wonderful, but you have to approach everything with an element of cynicism. A lot of people prey upon young and keen bands to make money and have little or no interest in music, you just have to find the diamond in the rough.

AAAMusic: Are there any particular bands, artists or “scenes” you would recommend our readers to keep on their radars?

GfT: I’m obviously pretty biased towards the Oxford scene so check out Ute, Spring Offensive, Phantom Theory, Coloureds and The Winchell Riots for a start. Outside of Oxford Hold Your Horse Is, Tellison, Adebisi Shank and Maybeshewill are a few of my favourite UK bands at the moment.

AAAMusic: And where are you planning to go from here? Do you have a master plan or are you just playing it by ear, if you’ll excuse the pun?

GfT: I love puns. The only plan is to keep challenging ourselves to be a better band, there are a lot of exciting things on the horizon at the moment so as long as we can keep that up and are enjoying ourselves that’s pretty much living the dream.