Speaking with Rob Nassif, the Perth quartet’s drummer, he explained just how exciting it is to come back refreshed from quite possibly the longest break that the band’s ever had. “Honestly, this is the longest I haven’t played drums since I started playing drums at like the age of 15, so it’s great because it gives you a real appreciation for what you do – not that we didn’t appreciate it, but sometimes it’s easy to forget how lucky we are to play music to people that really enjoy it. And to have a live show where the crowd gets to get into it and sings along, I miss it! At the end of [my time off], I almost forgot that I was a musician. If I’m not playing shows or writing songs, I was just like ‘Woah!’ I forget that I’m a musician and I’m excited to get back into it!”
The biggest thing for the Gyro boys was putting the power into the hands of their most loyal. Not only making the creation of the setlist less of a daunting task for them, but they were adamant that, this time around, their tour had to be something special. And in order to be something special, they decided to do something special.
“There was an idea of an acoustic tour – playing all of the softer songs and, yeah, there were a few different ideas floating around. But when we were in primary school, they had those Choose Your Own Adventure books – that’s where the whole idea came from. I think one of the boys in the band just suggested it, and we thought that was kind of cool. It gets people excited, and it was the right time to do something like that because we’re not supporting a single or an album as such, it’s just about reconnecting with the fans, and playing some shows and having some fun.”
“The way it works is that there’s just a whole bunch of songs – we’ve put it on our Facebook page ’cause we have 30-something-thousand fans there, and we’re just getting people to pick the songs they want. We’re playing a 16-song setlist, so pick the 16 songs that you want to hear the most and we’ll play them! Whether it’s top 16 songs that we’ve never played live before, or whether it’s acoustic or weird and obscure b-sides, if it gets enough votes to be in the top 16, we’ll play it.”
“It’s cool, because it gives long-time Gyro fans – the people that might’ve been following the band for a long time, or they might have some strange connection to a song that might not have been a single or whatever, to get in there, vote, tell their friends to vote and we’ll play it.”
The drummer laughs, “Everything’s on there! Like even songs that we wrote in 1998 when we were a lot younger. Let’s hope they don’t get picked up!” And yep, he even admitted to having sneakily voted for songs himself. “I voted for my songs and every vote counts! But I’ll be happy with whatever. No band arguments or hassles and, y’know, we get so fired up when we put a setlist together but there won’t be any of that [this time around] because the end of that conversation will just be us saying ‘The fans voted. You gotta do what the fans have voted for!’ There’s no going back. This is what they want, and that’s why we’re doing it.”
“It’s totally more calm and collected this time around. It’s a total pain in the arse trying to put a setlist together for Gyroscope… Everyone’s got their five cents worth, which is fine – and myself included – I’m not trying to sound like I’m a saint here. But this is just beautiful because it’s as simple as the fans vote and that’s what we do, end of story. Done.”
If you haven’t already checked the setlist and you don’t want to know, look away now. Otherwise, ladies and gents, the official setlist for Gyroscope’s Choose Your Own Adventure Tour is: 1981, 22 of 3, Baby, I’m Getting Better, Beware Wolf, Confidence in Confidentiality, Doctor Doctor, Don’t Look Now But I Think I’m Sweating Blood, Dream vs Scream, Driving for the Storm, Fast Girl / Beds are Burning, I Still Take Blood, Safe Forever, Sexxxy, Snakeskin, Take This For Granted and What Do I Know About Pain? See something on there you like? We sure hope so!
