Profile: Gomez, England's Latest Rock Export

Place yourself in the shoes of any member of Gomez. You're in your early 20s. You start playing music in a garage as a goof. You pass around a few demo tapes. Next thing you know, you're the It Boys of British music.

Your debut album ''Bring it On'' wins England's coveted Mercury Music Prize for 1998 Album of the Year, beating out the likes of the Verve and Massive Attack. You also win Q Magazine's Best New Band award and two New Music Express awards (including Best Newcomer). Furthermore, John Lee Hooker tells the world at the Q Awards that he ''can't find no defect'' in your debut album. What's a young band to do?

Record an amazing second album and tour the world, that's what.

Trying to define Gomez's music is like trying to force a cat into a pet carrier. Is Gomez a blues act? Space rock? Prog rock? Latin-tinged alt-country? Yes. Has the band found that being more innovative and experimental has hurt them in any way, in that people can never be quite sure what to expect?

''Not really,'' said drummer Olly Peacock. ''I think it's been more beneficial. I think it kind of set us aside from a lot of British bands. Especially since we haven't been absolutely categorized--we can do what we want and nobody's got any real expectations. If they have, they're usually very different from what they'll get musically....If we wanted to release some sort of dance-type album with drum 'n' bass tracks on it, we could do that if that's what we were into at the time. [A Gomez album is] an indication of what we're doing at the moment; it's just a snapshot of what we're like at any time of year.''

Influenced by everyone from Tom Waits to Pearl Jam to Beck, the band started making its particular brand of unclassifiable music while its members were at university. Gomez recorded most of its first album, ''Bring it On,'' in guitarist Ian Ball's garage. ''We didn't have any perceptions of ever doing it professionally or seriously; it was more of a bit of a joke for us, really,'' said Peacock. The album might not have found its way to Virgin Records were it not for a particularly lucky twist of fate in which a well-connected friend passed a demo tape into the hands of an important executive. The band's blend of sample-heavy alt-rock, jaunty electric folk and Southern blues-tinged jams caught the ears of critics worldwide, making ''Bring it On'' the surprise hit of 1998.

What followed was ''Liquid Skin,'' which the band began recording three weeks after the completion of ''Bring it On,'' creating a connection between the two that was a bit of an accident. Peacock demurred, ''It wasn't a conscious thing, we just sort of carried on in the same vein ...'Let's just record some good music again.'''

In no big hurry to finish the follow-up, the band fiddled around in the studio with toilet paper rolls, fire extinguishers and underwater microphones, all of which added to the continued eclectic vibe for which Gomez has become famous. Commenting on how the band finds its sounds, Peacock said, ''If it's lying around the studio and it sounds good, [we] just use it. We'll hit or use anything or sing down anything. It's usually through accident that we find our sounds. We just slap down anything to tape to see if it works and take it off if it doesn't.''

''Liquid Skin'' continues to carry Gomez's amalgam-happy torch, boasting tracks like ''Bring It On,'' a complex triple helix of a song that intertwines the vocals of Ben Ottewell (the baby-faced slide guitarist with the gruff whiskey-and-cigarettes voice of someone three times his age), guitarist Ball and guitarist/keyboardist Tom Gray. Songs like this one are probably best enjoyed in the smoky, intimate confines of a smallish club.

Considering Gomez has garnered some comparison to the Grateful Dead, how much jamming can one expect from a live show? ''The majority of the stuff from 'Bring It On,''' Peacock said, ''has been rearranged and there are only three or four songs that are standard from what the album is. The same with 'Liquid Skin' as well; we've got extensions of parts and new bits thrown in. 'Here Comes the Breeze' and '78 Stone Wobble' are probably the most improvised songs.''

The fact that Gomez started making music for fun, simply for the sheer joy of making music, begs the question, ''Will they just go at it until it's not fun anymore?'' Anyone who knows anything about the music business knows that the water is as thickly populated with sharks and other untrustworthy creatures, which dictates that being a major international band might not hold the same old charm as blowing jays and jamming in the garage. What does the future hold for the youngsters that comprise Gomez?

Peacock is optimistic. ''We're still in our early stages now. We've only in the last year gotten good at gigs; the first ones we did were probably pretty terrible. We went in and did 'Liquid Skin,' and we were better musicians. We're getting better at producing ourselves, we really know the business quite well now, so we're still kind of immature in terms of a band, but we're getting there. We've got a lot of stuff to do yet.''

Well, then. Bring it on.

Melanie Haupt is the music editor of houston.citysearch.com