Gompa News!
After nearly thirteen years of Funkstille, the two founding members and lead singers of Gompa have reconnected. Talks of a musical collaboration, or even a possible Gompa comeback, are being held. StandYourSound is at the centre of all things Gompa nowadays, so watch this space for more on that soon!
Meanwhile, this all coincides with the 15th anniversary of Gompa’s debut album (variably called ‘Sound Is Empty’ or just ‘Gompa’)
As you can see in the video, the Bandcamp page has been given a gorgeous facelift and contains everything the band have ever recorded.
A very special 15 Year Anniversary Remaster of the original album has also been published and includes the follow-up EP ‘Meditate on This‘.
Check out the band’s page here. Special edition CDs and merch available directly from the Bandcamp page.
THE GOMPA STORY
Gompa was formed in London in 2001 by Jake Daniel and Mike Pehrsson. Jake, originally from Scarborough, came from a musical background, was a drummer as well as a singer-songwriter and had recently completed a stint in a boy band of sorts. Mike, a Swede from Switzerland, had just finished university and was looking for new band members. After a few chats and a few spliffs, the pair found a common interest in eastern mysticism, hence the name ‘Gompa’, Tibetan for meditation room or hut.
Recordings began and resulted in incredibly cheap sounding pop songs with over-quantized MIDI drums, lots of keyboard and jangly guitars. But the songs were catchy and quirky enough for Gompa to continue, bringing in the odd bass player and drummer for a gig or two in London. The songs themselves however, were special; friends, family and drug dealers all agreed: the songs, regardless of the production, were great. Much of these early recordings can be heard here.
In 2003, Mike moved to Lund, Sweden, where he met Dutch bass player Jeroen Bos. Jeroen joined Mike in furthering Gompa and the trio began recording their first real demo that year. Drums were offered by Paul White, Rupert Mann and Jake.
The demo got in to the hands of one Johan Moell, a sketchy fellow with connections in the Swedish music business. Moell had spent a lot of time with super-producer Anders Bagge (J.Lo, Celine Dion, Janet Jackson) as well as Ronan Keating and that lot. Not quite Gompa-material, but apparently there was growing interest.
The OC and Stockholm
Two songs on Gompa’s demo had apparently triggered interest in Josh Schwartz, writer and music manager of the TV show O.C. Universal and EMI Sweden were both apparently interested.
Gompa went in to the studio with Producer Christian “Svanus” Svensson in March 2005 to begin work on their debut album. Svensson achieved success in the 90s with the Norwegian disco group Hype, yet had always had his heart in the Metal/Punk world. Assisting Christian as co-producer was American musician Mason Pitts, a.k.a. ‘Cooter’ (https://about.me/masonpitts ). The sound and style quickly moved in a heavier direction, with lots of de-tuned seven-string guitars, screaming Gibsons and a shitty Squire (on one track). The drums were played on a V-Drum (much to Jake’s initial despair) and sequenced with Drumkit from Hell samples. All guitar sounds were done with plug-ins by Amp Farm, somewhat of a novelty at that time. Two songs were immediately offered up for the O.C., ‘Brotherhood’ and ‘Planet Blue’
Twelve songs were recorded in total and the guys were happy with the result. The final album was then brought to legendary hard rock master-mixer Stefan Glaumann (Rammstein, Europe, Bon Jovi, Backyard Babies, Def Leppard, Clawfinger, etc) for mixing and post production.
Meetings at Universal Studios and EMI followed but it seemed that nobody was able to categorize the music and thus sell it.
And indeed: The whole thing about Gompa as a unity of opposites: The Beach Boys meet System Of A Down, The Beatles play Korn, that sorta thing. Esoteric and meditation-infused lyrics to hard-hitting punk metal; or, as their old MySpace page stated: ‘Carole King being eaten out by Jaws while the family from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre sing Zip-a-dee-doo-da’
The band sought the help of Anna Moore from http://www.mooretobe.com/. Anna was a fun and insightful lady and was able to help get Gompa on Radio, specifically ‘P3’, which hosted a major rock channel in Sweden. ‘Jacknife’ was the single that was pushed and got significant airplay for two months. Prototype singles were pressed but never actually physically released. In addition, ‘Planet Blue’, ‘Crush’ and ‘Brotherhood’ were picked up by several student radio stations and circled there for some time.
Live & Let Go
Gompa played as many live shows as possible, as well as band-battle events, which they hated, tiny little pubs and schools. The band generally blew people away: the energy was high, the songs were catchy and the look was unique. The only obstacle was Sweden’s ridiculously low volume restrictions. But with Moell disappearing, record companies pulling out and money no longer flowing, Jeroen left the band.
The bass was taken on by bass metal nutcase Per Rinaldo, who came storming in with new energy and strange nude appearances. Serbian giant Milan Ovrlinic joined as second guitarist but was soon replaced after a dispute by Mike’s old highschool friend Daniel Håkansson from the Diablo Swing Orchestra.
Gompa played the Beeched Festival in Scarborough that year, a few gigs in åland and Finland and developed a cult following in the Faroe Islands through MySpace.
By late 2007 Per left the band, eager to pursue his comedy Black Metal band Skit Arg. He was replaced by Joakim ‘The Jock’ Wedin, a soft-spoken rocker from Umeå. A few gigs later, Jake finally left Gompa and that was that.
Meditate On This
Jock and Mike continued jamming and re-enlisted Per Rinaldo to fill in as a drummer. Daniel helped out as second guitarist and Christian suggested some new songs be recorded. So it was back to Los Studios on Odengatan.
Six tracks that had recently been written by Mike were laid down. Gompa’s final drummer, George Egg, made his recording debut on the EP, which became known as ‘Meditate on This’. The tracks were quirky, poppy, yet also weirder and heavier than before. Christian’s creative production ideas came in to play and, once again, Glaumann did the final mix.
Gompa played their last gig with their friends Of The I in the autumn of 2008 in London with Mike’s brother Tom on drums.
Repackaged & Released…. several times!
The album was shelved, as was the EP, collecting virtual dust in the cloudy world of digital music. But finally in 2012 Mike re-released the album, deleted some of the ‘softer’ songs from the original and fused it with the Meditate EP. The result was deemed to be the actual, final Gompa album, also called ‘Meditate on This’ (though it was first called Sound Is Empty). It was released on iTunes, Bandcamp and other platforms in 2012 and updated in 2013, again in 2015 and once more in 2017. Currently, the iTunes edition is the 2006 as well as the 2017 version.
But now, fifteen years after the original, the ‘real’ final version and blend of the two studio recordings with Christian Svensson has landed.
Future
Mike has been recording Gompa demos and Ideas for some time, yet nothing concrete has emerged in the last five years.
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