 Electro power ballad pop duo
GAZE were formed in Sidcup, early (in the morning) in 1993. Oliver and Neil took and
instant liking to each other. They had things in common. A desire to tackle global issues
through music. Music was their passion and they had both read smash hits at university.
They also both had a friend whose cousin was called Pam. It was uncanny and a bond
stronger than James Bond formed.
After their 1994 ‘sell out’ tour of
Orpington (Orpington - (don’t) sell out and sell your soul ’94) during the
January sales, they decided to move on from shopping centres into the Pub circuit. And it
was from there that the band realised that they really could change the world through
their music. Neil recalls, ‘I remember one evening in Bromley. We were singing our
final number and I noticed a man in the audience coughing. I stopped the song mid way
through the second chorus and ran down to perform the Heimlich Maneuver on him. It turned
out he’d been coughing because he had a drunk some beer the wrong way. Anyway he had
to go to hospital because I’d fractured some of his ribs while performing the
maneuver and while there he caught MRSA. He died a week later and I thought, gosh, our
actions really can have an incredible effect on people. If each one of us pulled together
and did something today, we could do things we’d never have thought possible. It was
an amazing moment. A real epiphany.’
GAZE embarked on an intense ten year period
touring pubs around Kent and eventually Greater London. Oliver recalls, ‘It was
funny, the closer we got to Greater London the ‘greater’ things got for us.
People who I’d definitely seen before at other gigs would occasionally come again. It
was incredible realising you had a fan base. It was around that time that we came up with
DOTWAD.’
Once a year since 2004 for a period of two
weeks GAZE hold ‘Death Of The World Awareness Day’ to raise awareness of the
sickly planet we call Earth. Neil explains, ‘It’s amazing how surprised people
are when you tell them that the Earth is sick. They often have no idea. Just because the
Earth can’t sneeze doesn’t mean it can’t be feeling hideously unwell.
Anyway, they’re stupid because what happens when you get ill? You get a temperature.
What’s happening to the Earth now? It’s getting hotter baby. Hotter. Get me?
Yeah right you do you f***.’
GAZE feel passionately about changing the world
today so that we still have a world tomorrow. They believe that together we can change our
habits to eradicate war, eradicate fat people and most importantly reduce our carbon shoe
size so that our Earth can recover for future generations. In the words of Bono –
that would be ‘The Sweetest Thing’. In the words of Bob Geldof, ‘Tell me
why I don’t like Mondays’.
www.wearegaze.com |
