Gustaffson: “Our songs are their own movies”

Andrew Gower is one of those people where you have to ask: how does he do it? He’s known for shows like Outlander and Carnival Row and Black Mirror and the recent Ellis, but he also has a band called Gustaffson who will be releasing their debut album on March 21st.

Now actors have had bands before, from Keanu Reeves in Dogstar to Russell Crowe’s 30 Odd Foot of Grunts (or indeed, back in the good old days, Lee Marvin and Robert Mitchum crooning out solo records, no support required), but Gustaffson are actually a proper band rather than just a star-gawping turn. Andrew has a big voice and frontman charisma, and the songwriting feels complete and ambitious in way that gives some depth to the music. The songs soar and dive and wrap around you, with mysterious music that seems to belong in both dive bars and grand theatres.

“It’s Gustaffson, after Louisa Gustaffson, my Swedish great grandmother who came to Liverpool and married a Scouser,” Andrew tells us, accent fully intact, “There’s a story within a story, which is kind of the ethos of the band.”

This ethos has been particularly hammered home by a series of stand-out singles over the last few months, which have a cinematic scope in imagery and sound, but have also been accompanied by videos which are short films within themselves. Accomplished ones at that.

On Broadway is an ode to New York, all glamour and grit, something which is accentuated and delivered with a startling video starring Daniel Ings as a homeless guy sleeping in a derelict theatre who awakes to watch then join Gustaffson on stage; the final fantasy of a victim of fame, or the search for transcendence in the ruins of a city? Both, more.

Flowers meanwhile has a video starring Jamie Harris – son of Richard and brother of Jared, who was also in Carnival Row – pitching him as a lonely soul in a pub who sees flowers fall from the ceiling: love, hope, loss are all there in an evocation of the song about romanticism beating the ordinary, which climaxes with an orchestral arrangement by Emmy-winning composer Bear McCready.

The recent Underground, is a soaring journey into the lives of strangers, the video to which follows four characters on a ride down on the Tube and is directed by Metin Huseyin.

“On Black & White Movie, each track is its own movie,” Andrew explains, “In this country, I get asked, what are you? Are you an actor or a musician? But so far they’re complimenting each other. I met Elbow, Ben McCreary, Sir Ben Kingsley, all of those people on sets, and they all feature on the album.”

Not a bad set of collaborators to bring in. And note Elbow, who were instrumental in helping Andrew take the formative project he created with friend James Webster in 2020, into the studio for their breakthrough EP, The Jacaranda (2022). Now with Black & White ready to go, this represents the band hitting a new level, but doing so in this uniquely rich way, bringing audio and visual together.

Andrew says, “In this day and age, we’re quite used to swiping and onto the next thing and things being 30 seconds long for TikTok or under two minutes for radio. But we really wanted people to not just hear the track, but listen to the track. I think films can really allow for that.

And it’s just an exciting thing to collaborate with filmmakers, with my music, my lyrics, and see what kind of ideas come out. The videos are about the extraordinary in the ordinary.”

Andrew tells us about growing up as the youngest of three boys in a household that was very music heavy.

His eldest brother is ten years older than him, and Andrew remembers sneaking into his room to steal the lyric book to the Stereophonics’ A Thousand Trees, and his granddad being into Sinatra and his mum into George Michael. Ah, but then of course, The Beatles came calling, as they must.

“The biggest moment, the revelation moment was discovering The White Album in my house,” he says, “The Beatles became mine. I felt like it was my discovery because my brother didn’t naturally give it me, I discovered the record around the house, in my mum and dad’s collection. I remember just going into school and having it on my Walkman. It was that one that became my pride and joy.”

We talk about the Beatles ’64 documentary and how it showed the affinity between New York and Liverpool, which came out in On Broadway: “The fact the city, like any port, had access to the music coming over from the Atlantic, and New York being the same, you just get a natural thing of music communication.”

And that’s the thing, Andrew’s path has been a natural pull towards music that he followed without feeling the need to separate it from acting. It’s kind of the way he’s always done things. Though he was initially trying seriously to be a footballer, he was in bands as a teenager too, playing at the Cavern, doing pretty well in the area. But then he discovered the buzz of acting after being cast as Fagin in a school production, and soon found himself at drama school. He won the Spotlight Prize at the school which resulted in him being cast opposite James Nesbitt in Monroe, and he was off, the roles kept on coming.

What he missed though was being part of a gang, like in the football days, as the world of acting became an increasingly remote experience, literally.

“In my opinion, there’s less face to face. I’m in it for collaboration. I might not book a job out of an audition, but the biggest thing is if I’m in the room with that person, I have the opportunity to connect. Unfortunately, post-COVID there’s less of that. We self tape a lot at home. Self tapes didn’t exist when I graduated in 2010.

The reason why we all do this, whether we like to say it or not, is to be in a room with people, whether that’s on set or in a theatre space. And that’s been taken away. That’s the biggest shame, I think, with our industry. And part of the reason why in 2020 I came back to music, because I missed collaborating.”

The release of songs leading up to Black & White Movie seem to have a warmth that comes from such collaboration, a sense of musicians, actors, directors, composers, all coming together to support a project that comes from Andrew’s heart. The hidden truth about rock n roll is that it is not about individual genius, as many would have you believe, but collaboration; Lennon needed the Beatles, Bowie’s true gift was in recruiting successions of wingmen. This is why there’s a warmth to it, even at its sharpest punk edges.

“We don’t often listen to albums as a long form anymore, we maybe pick out a single that we enjoy,” says Andrew of the way Gustaffson have extended their inclusive philosophy to the record itself, “I like to think that with Black & White Movie, people can choose their favourite track, but also if they were to listen to it as a collective, they’ll go on a nice journey.

We’re making movie posters for each movie in it, and it’s an exciting vision that we’ve put out there. So hopefully people respond to it. We’re really proud of it.”

Black & White Movie by Gustaffson is out March 21st