Gang of Youths are back. This is not a drill.
The chart-topping, multiple ARIA Award winners have emerged from hibernation with “Things Take Time” (via Mosy Recordings / Sony Music Australia / RCA U.K. and Arista U.S.), the alternative rock act’s first new music in four years.
Written by bandmates David Le’aupepe, Tom Hobden, Donnie Borzestowski and Jung Kim, “Things Take Time,” with its orchestral flourishes, is a mature, more mellow version of a band that cut its teeth in Sydney’s pub scene, and, by 2017, had moved into position as one of Australia’s preeminent rock bands.
“Things Take Time” is a meditation on patience, and the swings and roundabouts that are the playground of life. Of growth, decay, and regrowth. “It’s in it’s namesake, but it took a f—ing long time to make a three-minute song,” Kim tells Billboard with a laugh. “It took three years to make a three-minute song.” Then, “lightning struck” and the thunder followed as Le’aupepe reached into his bag of tricks, chords came, and the song flowed.
GoY’s third and most recent studio album, 2022’s Angel in Realtime, gave the band a second consecutive leader on the ARIA Albums Chart. The collection, which went on to win triple j’s coveted J Award for Australian album of the year, was loaded with textures and ideas on “Indigenous heritage and identity, family, god, life, death, grief, sport, forgiveness, and the Angel Islington,” Le’aupepe said at the time.
This next project is coming from a different place. “The lyrical content is quite a departure,” says Hobden. “Records of old have obviously been centered around some very, very personal topics for him. And then suddenly he’s facing an album where he doesn’t really know what the lyrical thread is. It’s a whole different approach to songwriting.”
As music took shape for this new era, Le’aupepe spent time in Hobden’s London garden studio, observing the good life flourish outside with the warmer seasons. “He was in there for many hours, many weeks, just chiseling away ideas,” Hobden explains.
Like Angel in Realtime, the next phase of GoY draws its DNA from multiple places and creative hearts. GoY produced the new single, recorded at Decoy Studios in Suffolk, east England, and engineered by Robert Sellens and Jung Kim (who also contributes guitar and keyboards).
“There’s always been an ambition to make something quite grandiose, with very grandiose ideas,” Kim explains, “and it’s reflected in very long arrangements and quite dense instrumentation. But this time around, it’s very much stripping a lot of that away for the sake of just making music that actually makes this maybe feel at ease. And at comfort.”
Those muscular recordings are “not about impressing,” Hobden assures. “It’s not about trying to be, in any way, part of the zeitgeist. In fact, that’s almost a deterrent for us. Anything that sounds vaguely of the moment is automatically a big no.”
The fresh cut features Le’aupepe on vocals and piano, Hobden on violin, Borzestowski on drums and Kim on guitar and keyboards, with additional contributions from Andrew Burgess (bass guitar), Nick Etwell (trumpet), Dave Williamson (trombone) and Klara Schumann (cello).
GoY moved to London towards the end of 2017, and continues to call the capital a second home — a move that many Aussie artists have made before them, from The Saints and Go-Betweens, to INXS, Kylie Minogue, Nick Cave and others.
For GoY, that relocation coincided with the band’s rise to the very top of Australia’s rock culture, confirmation of which came when their sophomore album, Go Farther in Lightness, went to No. 1 on the national ARIA Chart, and they cleaned up at the ARIA Awards, collecting a stash that included best group and album of the year.
In London, the band could enjoy a fresh start, Le’aupepe could fly under the radar with the world on their doorstep. There are no regrets.
GoY are under new management as part of the roster of Red Light Management, where they’re handled out of the U.K. by James Sandom and Al Mills. “The breath of energy that the new management bring is really exciting,” enthuses Hobden. “They’ve got loads of great ideas.”
That energy has spilled out onto the stage for a brief run of Australian shows in August, including two dates at the iconic Sydney Opera House Concert Hall. There’s more to come. That next, fourth album, well things take time. “We’re just working away at it to be honest,” Hobden admits. “We can’t have a definitive answer or anything. The intent is very much there. Let’s put it like that.”
