Prior to the bands most recent sold out headliner in Audio – I caught up with Barry from Glasgow’s Gallus to have a little chat on what’s come in 2022, their upcoming trip to Texas and everything in between including an insight to how the band coped with lockdown.
SXSW – a huge achievement to be asked to play, what’s been the feeling since being announced to play in Texas and what’s it like to join the bill along with friends Walt Disco and big names like The Lathums and Jamie Webster?
SXSW is something that you hope for for a long time as a band, so it’s great to have that become a reality. It’s gone from months of hoping to months of excitement. We can’t wait. It’s great to join a festival with such a strong line-up too and the Scottish contingent will do everyone proud as always.
Following the big success of recent singles, is there any future plans for an E.P or even an album?
We’ve got something in the pipeline that we’re working hard on. I don’t think now is the time to announce it but you’ll see what it is in the very near future!
Covid has challenged people worldwide, and more so had a damaging effect on music – how hard was it to cope through lockdown not knowing if there was light at the end of the tunnel for the industry?
It was obviously very draining at times. It felt like you had any sort of hope quickly extinguished for a solid 18 months, so to be honest you learnt to just never get your hopes up, which is an incredibly bleak place to be. Ultimately though, there were bigger things at stake, like peoples’ lives and well being. We’re glad we seem to be coming through the other end of it though. Feel like I’ve aged a decade in that 18 months though!
Keeping with lockdown, a Gallus crowd is always a known level above experience, did playing in empty rooms for livestreams have any effects on how you performed?
Yes and no to be honest. Even when we’re practicing the set in our studio we like to be quite animated, so we would be jumping around to empty rooms regardless of the covid situation! It was strange aspect of performance for a while though. What I found particularly weird was the lack of crowd response after a song. Usually cheering punctuates your set and allows you gauge your performance but when you’re doing a livestream you’re met with total silence. I’m glad that’s a thing of the past though and we can get back to receiving gratification off a room full of strangers! Only joking, we’re glad crowds are back, it’s never the same without them.
TRNSMT Festival – with T In the Park disbanding and the Scottish festival scene being limited, TRNSMT is the place out with Stag & Dagger and Tenement Trail for grassroot bands to show their talents on the big scene in Scotland – where does playing the Riverside Side stage in 2021 rank in your time in music?
TRNSMT has got to be right up there with our most memorable achievements so far. It was such an amazing day and we were surrounded by all our friends from morning until night. Our families were there too and they seemed really chuffed. We really hope to play TRNSMT again in the near future.
Gigs in Audio and big night in Saint Luke’s, on the horizon, what does the rest of 2022 hold for Gallus?
Touring and writing! Lots of touring and writing. We’re lucky to have an amazing label and booking agent at Marshall so we’re going to be very busy creating new music and playing it to new crowds. I can’t reveal what exactly we’ll be doing just yet, but we’ll be taking our music to places we’ve never been before. None of us want real jobs, all we want to do is this, so hopefully with all the gigging and writing we’ll be doing this year we’ll lay the basis to spend as much of our lives as possible being full time musicians. 2022 is going to be an extremely exciting year.