Love, Peace and Gross Magic

12 August, 2011
by: Johny Chhetri

Don't you just miss the '90s?

Gross Magic is the musical project of former Hocus Tocus man Sam McGarrigle. The swoony melodies of his track ‘Sweetest Touch’ got him much love from the blogosphere and the video could potentially get him laid 100 times over, with comments such as “mm the things i'd do to that boy! ..after i'd given his hair? a trim..” and “be my boyfriend??” littering the track’s video comments.

Anyway, he recently played at The Shacklewell Arms, and I went down and had a chat about the ‘90s and other things, I think.

I read in an interview that the riff for 'Sweetest Touch' was an accident?

I heard this Blur song 'Chemical World' and the drum beat was like “dun-dun-tis-de-dun-de-dun-tis” and “de-dun-de-dun” – that sort of thing. So I was like, “That's a cool drumbeat,” so I made a drumbeat on a really crappy drum machine on my computer, then I just played bass over it. I had that looping for while, and I was then like, “Hmm, I don't really know what to do with this...”

I just plugged my guitar into my laptop and put loads of distortion onto the guitar – this was at 5am, I had been trying to write a song I liked for 10 hours. I started playing this lead over it and then did that riff, then changed it slightly. When I finally played it, I was like, “Yeah, that's it.” It was quite simple after that.

Best accident ever?

Yeah, I pretty much finished the song at 7am, fell asleep and woke up the next day and kind of forgot that I made it. I listened and thought, “Oh wow, I like this.”
Any other accidents that haven't ended so well?

While we were filming the 'Sweetest Touch' video, we found this crazy mountain bike course with wood slats and everything. My friends ran off down the course, I ran down to catch up, but then I had to run back through these shrubs to get my bag.

After that, I had this insane feeling in my foot. I looked at the floor, my shoe had come off and there was this wooden block with a nail through it. I was like, “What the fuck?!” My toe was throbbing, I took my sock off – there was just blood pouring down my foot and there was this rusty nail that went through half of my big toe. I had to go to the hospital.

So you were born in the '90s?

Yeah, 1990. I wrote 'Teen Jamz' just before I turned 20 at the end of last year. I was going to record some covers of “teen songs” before I turned into an adult, but I couldn't think of any that I wanted to cover that weren't shit or cheesy.

Speaking of being cheesy. What were your favourite “teen jamz”?

I listened to CKY a bit as a teenager, I've listened to them quite a lot recently. I really liked this Blood Brothers song when I was 17, it's called 'Cecilia and the Silhouette Saloon' – it's a banger. I listened to Wavves a lot too, which has a very teeny sound.

So what part of the '90s mainly influenced you?

I haven't said this to anyone in an interview before, but you know how Britpop was a reaction to grunge? Well, I liked both and at times I tried to make peace between the two. I like Blur a lot, I hate Oasis. I listened to the Blur stuff when I was young, and I really liked Gorillaz when I was like 10 or 11.

So I'm not that big on grunge even though everyone has termed me as a grunge-revivalist or whatever, which is something I'm really not that interested in.

What would you term yourself as?

I guess I'm trying to make pop music. I'm not trying to make anything new. One thing I don't like is the really delayed guitar sound, like Foals. I'm trying to make pop music that's similar to the stuff I like, I don't really know what to call it. Me and Will (guitar) like calling it glunge – glam grunge.

OK, time for the '90s-themed quick-fire round!

CITV or CBBC?

CBBC.

Blink or Weezer?

Weezer.

Sonic or Mario?

These are hard! I think I played more Mario when I was a kid.

Biggie or 2Pac?

2Pac.

Saved By The Bell or Saved By The Bell: The College Years or Saved By The Bell: The New Class?

I'm gonna go with the original Saved By The Bell.

OK lastly, have you got a message for the youth of today?

Try and be nice to everyone and try not write stuff off too quickly. Give things a try. People are too set in what they do and don't like. The main thing is to try and be nice to each other. This is why I'm wearing this (points to CND medallion).