Review Fix Exclusive: Gambling Hearts’ Simon Rowe Talks Origin, Creative Process And More

Review Fix chats with the Gambling Hearts’ Simon Rowe, who discusses the band’s origin, goals and more.

Review Fix: How did you get involved in music?

Simon Rowe: I always loved listening to music, from a very young age. I’d sit in my room and listen to music, which was probably a bit unusual for a kid of 7 or 8. I used to rock in time to the music, I mean physically rock, like a catatonic child, I think that’s the term? Then, when I was around 12, I got into the Beatles in a big way. I’d listen to nothing else. I’d not thought about playing a guitar before, but when I got into the Beatles and saw John Lennon playing acoustic guitar, I just thought he was so cool. It quickly became an obsession. To the detriment of everything else.

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Rowe: No process at all. I just stumble across them when I’m least expecting it. In a rare moment when I have a couple of minutes to spare, I pick up a guitar and just fluke a run of chords and a melody. Then I spend the next few days, weeks sometimes, on the lyrics. The chords and melody come easy, the words not so much.

Review Fix: What inspires you?

Rowe: Often I hear a song by a band I like and I like the way the song sounds or the way it makes me feel and I think ‘I’d like a song like that’. I don’t mean to rip off another artist, I just try and write something that I think will make me feel the same way. It almost never works out though and I end up with something completely different.

Review Fix: What does music mean to you?

Rowe: It means a great deal. I think music is the closest thing we’ll have to time travel. Listening to a particular song can transport you to another time in your life. It’ll often unlock memories that, were it not for listening to that song at that precise moment in time, I’d probably never remember. Music can take you back to a time in your life that you’d probably never give thought to again. Playing music again, after a break of nearly 10 years, is a real tonic. Not only is it an excuse to spend time with my best mates, but you get to lose yourself when you’re playing. You can be someone else for 3 and half minutes. It’s the only thing I feel I’m any good at. I feel fulfilled when we play. The rest of the time I just feel inadequate, inept.

Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?

Rowe: I don’t know. It’s too subjective. I know how we sound in my head, but it’s hard to describe without sounding pretentious or cliché. In a place of no judgement I’d say we sound a little like early R.E.M. or Oasis, but someone else may think we sound lame or middle of the road. We’re a 3 piece guitar band, heavily influenced by the Beatles, Neil Young, Oasis, and Nirvana.

Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work?

Rowe: Live, we’re really loud and very raw. Really ragged. The records are much tidier. Too tidy probably. I like lots of noise to hide behind, screaming guitars and thumping rhythms, distorted bass, that kind of thing. Playing live is incredible. I like it when it’s loud and on the edge of being out of control.

Review Fix: What inspired your latest single?

Rowe: It’s a song about hope and love. About those rare moments when you realise that nothing else matters. About not being overwhelmed by things that don’t really matter.

Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of 2020?

Rowe: We’ll put another single out, in the autumn I think. I’ve written a bunch of new songs, so we’ll see which of those work and which ones don’t. We’ll just try and hang out, while we can, and see what happens.

Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add? 

Rowe: When we got back together, it was genuinely just an excuse to hang out and play guitar. We weren’t going to gig or record or anything. Then we decided, for old time’s sake, to play a gig in our old haunt. So we put this show on at The Dublin Castle in Camden Town, where we used to play a lot, thinking that it’d be just like the old days. But of course, it was nothing like the old days. It was terrible. We ended up playing to 10 people and thought it a bit of a disaster. But then the Animal Farm got in touch and said that one of their guys saw us and that they wanted to make a record with us. It’s been so great playing and recording again, so great. I love what we do, I really love it. I’m not sure what it was that pulled us back together, but I’m thankful for it, whatever it was.