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Jon Gooch, the mastermind behind Feed Me, Spor and label Sotto Voce, hates being interviewed. He’s timid, softly spoken, polite and a gentleman, however his DJ sets are anything but. Along with his devious green goblin, Feed Me's infamous shows are LOUD, intense, dirty and head-bangingly entertaining. Known for his ridiculous interviews, it was great to grill the man behind the monster Teeth over a few pre-set drinks, and get his take on the EDM scene, years of intense touring, insane brushes with death (which he doesn’t like to revisit), and Freddie Mercury as his collab dream date. Set to embark on his 'Psychedelic Journey'– entirely designed by Gooch, the bus tour starts rolling August 2nd in New York through till September, in all its magnified TEETH glory.
Can you tell me the best part about touring and the worst part? Well the worst is interviews, by far [laughs].
Oh really? Promise to be kind. I’ll make it easy for you! You can drink during the interview, instead of nursing that warm beer of yours. But I want to use my hands. I don’t know why. I start to move them around when I talk, you see. If not I feel restricted like I can only say half the things I want if one hand is busy. OK, I’ll keep them out here. So yes, the best part about touring... well touring is an activity in itself. I would say touring in general is fantastic. I love it!
Why do you find touring fantastic? Well as we were chin-wagging pre-interview, I mentioned I just get to fly in, bring my friends with me. I really enjoy the people I work with and being surrounded by a great team, which helps. Also, I can stand on the side of the stage and watch artists I really admire like Natasha Khan (Bat For Lashes), she’s fantastic! All the drinks are free, no complaints and you get to meet some good people on the journey. It’s the combination of a lot of years of hard work and it’s very rewarding. I feel privileged everyday I get to do this.
I don’t know if there’s a bad part. Sometimes however it’s quite a physical toll. A while ago in just under two weeks I had travelled to Ibiza, Portugal, South Korea, Tokyo, Spain, Germany, back to Spain and then I was home for twelve hours and then I started the festival circuit...phew.
What a whirlwind, in amongst such a hectic schedule... You get used to it. I started touring at a young age as well. I’ve been doing this for about eight years now. Jet lag hasn’t been an issue for a long time. I can sleep in most locations and directions. I don’t see any negatives. I enjoy it! The strangest thing is if you pause for a bit and your body isn’t used to being still and in one place. So it’s quite a surreal feeling. If I’m at home for a full weekend I feel odd. How’s that! It has an effect on you for sure. A permanent one, but I don’t regret a thing!
You can take your friends on the journey – an added bonus. …And constantly feed them.
How did you get involved in the electronic dance music scene, and what was your calling? I suppose, I grew up listening to eclectic, older music really. My parents owned a lot of vinyl. They wouldn’t let me listen to the radio, or watch Top of the Pops, or anything like that.
So what was in your parent's vinyl collection? Classic rock. I grew up listening to every Queen album on repeat. I got into electronic music later on in the piece. It sounded like nothing I had heard before andit was inspiring for me at the time. But I was mainly into art and design and I studied that at school. It’s what I’m trained in. Apart from instrumentation lessons, I didn’t have any formal music training.
So you got involved with music after your schooling? Well I actually quit university just before the end to work on my music. I finally got offered a tour and took up the opportunity. I didn’t tell anyone, I grabbed my bags and off I went. I got in quite a lot of trouble with my family because of that.
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I can imagine, you would have been blacklisted for a while. Yes, pretty much [laughs]. I had to spin quite a few stories. Well at times it helps to be creative, by deferring my parents for a year with fake letters and things. I suppose first off it was all drum and bass – I did that for years before Feed Me. I was at college and a guy called Damage called me and wanted to sign two tracks of mine – it was vinyl back then. I actually got paid for it, which was a revelation.
How long was that period and was it a natural progression from drum and bass moniker Spor to Feed Me? It was about three to four years. Everything I had earned, I spent back on equipment, a reinvestment really. It’s been exponential pretty much most of my life, I suppose because drum and bass went up to a point. It has a glass ceiling. It’s a niche genre. I was always into a wider range of music then just drum and bass. I felt a bit out of place and restricted. So doing this for me was a natural progression, just being able to have more control over it and freedom of what I was doing. It’s always just grown and hopefully it carries on.
What would you do otherwise, if you weren’t DJing and producing? Design. I studied fine art at school.
Could you tell us about your background in design, creative vision and how that translates into your impressive stage shows? Sure, I design all the stage production for the shows/gigs, conceptualise the videos and some of the visuals. I also worked on product design, special effects for films, even a bit of architectural modelling. I was very visually trained, I suppose. Starting to get signed by music was the only thing that stopped me from moving to London and go to art school. I often wonder how different my life would be if I chose that route instead. I paint quite a lot still and draw. I would like to do some sort of media exhibition, something away from the club scene, just to see how it works. You can do that sort of thing in London, especially if you give away free wine. People will come!
Really...Shitty wine, even? Hopefully yeah.
Have you been collaborating with anyone else on the graphic-side of your shows and has someone else taken the reigns, so you concentrate on just the music? To be honest, I have not found anyone else to assist with the graphic component. Management give me a lot of freedom visually. We tried to get third party people in, but to date no ones really managed to do what I want. Part of the downside of being (so into) and heavily involved with the artistic side of things, is that you tend to want to do it all yourself. You see someone else’s interpretation and it’s not quite right. When working on a photo-shoot, I'm usually heavily involved in the artistic direction. When we had my character created in real-life, it took a long time. There was a lot of back and forth to make sure it looked exactly how I wanted. So it slows down some process.
You visually have the control... Yes all of it [laughs]. No one is artistically getting their hands dirty or doing anything. I’m just sitting on my little artistic throne, pointing to people. Brilliant, really!
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When you produce a track, is the dance-floor at the back of your mind or do you just let it flow organically? Well my music production has a lot to do with, I guess, the mood I’m in at the time. I try not to pre-plan too much. Music under the Feed Me guise, is a dynamic release. So the energy comes from the fact I feel agitated and I want to express it. Engineering is more applicable to dance-floor stuff. I’m pretty sure you can make any style of track effective on the dance-floor if you mix it down the right way and prioritise the right limits. But in terms of energy, I’ve always enjoyed that. I dig like dramatic music. I grew up listening to Queen, it’s like a stage play and there’s a story to it, it has huge dramatic moments. Now that’s become the norm - to have that drop, a huge dynamic change, to build tension, then release – a question then an answer.
That technique to me applies, as you don’t have to do it necessarily in such a visceral way. I feel a little bit writes itself, I don’t have to think too much. I like to sit around and play with chords and harmonics, which I think are the most effective things, just progression and timing. I would rather play three tracks in a space of time and get one reaction that was something people remember - then play fifteen tracks in that space of time and get a succession of fifteen small reactions you know.
Do you think social media has played a large part on your career so far? Yes, I believe it has. A while ago we were quite on top of it to begin when I ran my drum and bass label. We realised quite early on it would be replacing what we were doing before. When I first got signed to a drum and bass label – there was office with phones, paper, printed press...fax machines.
Ah yes the trusty old fax machines... When was the last time you sent a fax? And who did you fax?
I sent a fax recently at the post-office, for something mundane and official. You sent a fax 'recently' and you’re laughing at me? Moving on…
So how long ago did you send a fax? I’ve never sent a fax.
Well why did you have fax machines in the office? I didn’t run the office. I couldn’t stand it in there - it smelled of fax.
Did you send emails then? Oh hang on a minute, let me get my hearing aid.
We spoke earlier about your parents having an influence on your sound. Are your friends supportive of your musical journey, production and DJ career?Like this lovely chap to my right. I don’t know him. Who is that? He looks Mexican.
Yeah, my friends are hugely supportive. Actually, Dan in particular [chap on right] has been great and very supportive. A lot of how I got good at production and particularly good at engineering, was constant cross- referencing with people in different places with different sound systems who could listen and tell me if it sounded good or not. Having an effective feed back audience is the way to fast track your production standard, I think. And it’s what a lot of people lack because their working in their bedrooms or remotely and they don’t have a way of getting people to engage with their music... where as I had willing friends who would always stop what they were doing - listen to what I just sent them and tell me exactly why it was better than version #15. Some of my old tracks I would have 30 versions of it, cause I was consistently trying to improve and that was a massive help. I still do that with my friends, I still have a community of helpful online people who are willing to listen to whatever I’m churning out. Which isn’t always very good [laughs].
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That’s the beauty about the web isn’t it? Uploading your WIP tracks – you’ve got the online community and fan base waiting in anticipation and happy to provide feed back and feel part of the process. I find that when I send tracks to friends however, they know me personally and they normally have a grasp of what I’m trying to say with the track already.Feedback with an impersonal audience is different – I don’t want to do that. I want to tell people what I think they should be listening to. I think music needs leaders. All the people I respect in the music industry are leaders. They didn’t ask their audience –what would you like me to write next? That would be boring.
There are artists like Deadmau5 who sends out his music for review. His ethic has always been open forum. I don’t think that it strictly affects too much of what he does. He’s not really a listener.
So does social media in your music production play a large part at all? It’s a social experiment isn’t it. But you always get feedback, even when the tracks finished. People will tell you what they think of it and it’s not always positive. That’s what you want. I would rather make a track that instigates a response instead of a blanket response of ‘that’s just lovely.' It’s not challenging anyone.
Do you see yourself making music for as long as you live? Um, I almost died a few times, with my close brush with death. So music would have been something I did as long as I lived – if I died.
Can you talk us through these near death experiences? Oh I would rather not.
Does it involve partying? No….not really. Nothing too grim. I would like to think I would remain creative as long as I’m around. Because I’m not good for much else [laughs].
Well by the sounds of things creativity runs through your veins. If I wasn’t being creative, I don’t think I would be particularly useful. So…
Don’t be so hard on yourself. Why not? Everyone should be hard on themselves. That’s how you move forward.
One more totally random question before I hit you with some quick fire sentences that you must finish. First thing that comes into your head kinda stuff? Are you going to say them quickly? And what if I don’t like these sentences?
Well you don’t have to answer them. My random question is, who are you hot for right now musically speaking? Bat For Lashes.
Now finish these sentences. Every time before I go on stage I… Get dressed. I haven’t done a naked show yet.
Right now my favourite guilty pleasure song is... Ah, I do have one from time to time, but I haven’t had one for a while...and I haven't really finished the sentence. Actually, I don’t feel guilty about any of the music I listen to. I listen to cheesy 80s pop as much as cheesy modern pop.
That was a long-winded response, so we’ll keep rolling. My collab dream date would be... Freddie Mercury.
My post gig ritual is… Trying to calm down after this interview.
Feed Me show photography by Carine Buncsi & Jordi Girones
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