Mercurial musicians

Ian Ball, Ben Ottewell and Paul Blackburn slouch side by side in a cramped dressing room at Montrose television studios and profess themselves "pretty much shagged" after the previous night's triumphant gig at Dublin's Olympia Theatre. It's not drugs or alcohol, however, which has these young lads worn out - it's the Mercury. As in Mercury Music Prize. Ever since Gomez won this prestigious rock award in September, they've been in big demand from a music media keen to catch up on these musical mavericks.

Thus it is that Gomez have been corralled into a tiny changing space deep in the bowels of RTE, and are waiting to be herded on to The Late Late Show for a musical guest slot. Tired and weary they may be, but these young guns from Southport, England can't keep their natural exuberance down, and it's not long before Ian and Ben are bantering like old buddies in a saloon.

The video for Gomez's single, Get Myself Arrested, features an earnest-looking crew of scientific types who meticulously measure the band's every rock'n'roll pose, from the length of the guitar neck to the height of the drum cymbal. Try as they might, our boffins can't crack the elusive rock'n'roll formula, and if you ask Gomez what draws their fans - and the Mercury Music Prize people - to their ramshackle, alternative sound, you'll get an inconclusive answer.

"No idea - absolutely no idea," says Ben. "We just put this together as friends in the garage, we put it out, and people dig it, which is great. I think it's as simple as that; people just like the music. It's simple and honest, whereas the last album by Oasis was massively over-produced."

"It was like listening to Godzilla barking at you," adds Ian. "Britpop has gotten like Bon Jovi, only Bon Jovi were better!"

In contrast to the inflated, self-important sounds of Oasis, Verve et al, Gomez's debut album, Bring It On, is a refreshingly unpretentious collection of country-flavoured rock tunes, spiced up with a psychedelic tinge which can turn a seemingly ordinary ditty like Tijuana Lady into an hallucinogenic trip through a Tex-Mex fantasy world.

The sound of Bring It On is redolent of beardy old hombres playing to a bunch of rednecks in Amarillo, but the reality is that Gomez got together as teenagers while studying in Southport, near Liverpool. Drawn together at first by friendship and a mutual taste for beer, they were held together by a shared passion for the music of Tim Buckley, Tom Waits, Woody Guthrie and Jimi Hendrix. The band began rehearsing in drummer Olly Peacock's dad's garage, and much of the Mercury Music Prize-winning material was actually recorded in this unlikely sound space. It wasn't quite Muscle Shoals studios, but the tapes which Gomez handed round to their friends showed a group in thrall to the classic West Coast sounds of the 1960s.

"There's so much music out there," reflects Ben, "that it's hard not to sound like somebody else, but if you go out of your way not to sound like somebody else it would be a bit contrived."

There's little hint of a musical master-plan in the Gomez scheme of things. According to Ben, it started with socialising, then progressed naturally into picking up guitars and jamming; when a sufficient vibe began to take shape, the band's circle of friends drifted into the perimeter, some of them even joining in on the regular jam sessions. It didn't even matter if some of their mates couldn't play - Ian would simply tune a guitar to an open E and let the tape roll. In Gomez's world, anybody could play guitar and end up on one of the band's records, and most of them did.

On tour, however, logistics dictate that Gomez must assume a tangible shape and a definite line-up of Ian on guitar and vocals, Ben on slide guitar and vocals, Paul on bass, Tom Gray on keyboards, and Olly Peacock on drums. Ben was a late addition to the Gomez line-up, recruited in Sheffield while Ian was studying there. Ben's impressive, gravelly voice gives Gomez that extra Southern flavour, exuding the aged authority of a Willie Nelson, while still sporting the wrinkle-free facial texture of a baby's bottom.

Search for the true hero behind the music of Gomez, and you'll find someone whose gritty, soul-deep voice might have been blended in God's own cement mixer. "I'd like to know what Tom Waits thinks of it," says Ian, lowering his voice slightly in muted reverence. "Because most of our production ideas have been inspired by him. I'd love to meet him, but I don't think you should meet your heroes. They'll always let you down."

Ian and Ben won't get the chance to meet many of their heroes anyway, since most of them went off to The Great Gig In The Sky even before Gomez were at the rock'n'roll kid stage. But don't lump them in with such backward-looking bands as Ocean Colour Scene: Bring It On has a fresh, adventurous attitude which surpasses mere retro, and their songs are more than museum exhibits lined with stuffed trophies from the past.

When they started passing tapes of their songs around, one of them found its way to manager Steve Fellows, who got Gomez a deal with Hut Records, leaving 19 other labels disappointed. The deal allowed Gomez to go into a 24-track studio to record some of the songs for Bring It On, but many of the songs which were put down on four-track in Olly's garage were so impressive, they went straight on to the CD.

The judging panel at the Mercury Music Awards were also pretty impressed, passing over heavyweight albums by Pulp, The Verve and Robbie Williams to give Gomez the £25,000 prize.

"I think the cool thing about getting the award was that we just did the album on our own," says Ian. "It's kind of one in the eye for the way you're actually supposed to make records, like a machine churning out albums, so that track one sounds exactly the same as every other one, the singles are the best tracks and all the other tunes are just pale imitations of the single, and all that crap. I think the fact that we just did it ourselves and did whatever the f**k we liked made it more interesting to listen to."

Not that the fans needed the Mercury stamp of approval - Gomez have a fast-growing and fiercely loyal following, attracted by the group's loose camaraderie, lo-fi production values and undeniably good tunes. Their summer gig in Dublin's Temple Bar Music Centre sold out and had the Irish fans queuing around the block in fevered anticipation. Their recent Olympia gig was even more hotly anticipated, and the fans weren't let down.

In between tours and promotional dates, Gomez have been working on their second album, and though they are no longer using the Ollys's garage, they're not about to do a big Oasis production job. Ian: "We've already recorded and finished nine tracks for the next album in the same studio we did the debut album, so there won't be any big studio production. We're very happy with the new tracks, they're really rocking. But the approach is basically the same as before."

Among the new songs to look forward to are Rhythm And Blues Alibi, which adds more soul to the Gomez sound, the trippy Away With The Fairies and the head-spinning sound-clash of Hangover. There's no expectation of Oasis-style mega-stardom, either; Ian and Ben just want to continue recording good tunes, keep jamming with their mates, and make sure there's enough beer in the cooler to last till the tape runs out.