“Benefit fraud,” someone jokes when I ask what it takes to sustain a music career in 2023. I am huddled in a flat overlooking south-east London’s Surrey Quays docks with a small cross-section of Gob Nation – the collective name for a universe of bands based mostly in these parts. If it weren’t for the fact that they’re made up of rotating combinations of the same dozen or so musicians, the 10 acts within Gob Nation would seem totally disparate. The omnivorous jangle palette of the Tubs’ recently acclaimed album Dead Meat is a far cry from Sniffany & the Nits’s maniacal punk debut The Unscratchable Itch, which is the tonal inverse of Garden Centre’s guileless art-pop on Searching for a Stream. What they do share is a leftfield sensibility, lacerating wit and snotty attitude. Ask any of them to identify the force that holds it all together and the answer is unanimous: “banter”.
“On a social level, it’s hard to be in bands with people you don’t get on with,” says Owen Williams, who fronts the Tubs and plays various instruments in at least five other bands. “Even though we probably find each other quite annoying sometimes, because we’re such a close group of friends we always end up picking each other.”
