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Alter The Press! Presents: Goodluck Jonathan

Brighton five-piece Goodluck Jonathan produce an intriguing yet favourable sound, as their brand of atmospheric indie rock which has gained them exposure nationwide via NME and with a sound that mixes well-known bands such as Bloc Party and Radiohead, as well as their originality, Goodluck Jonathan are somewhat unique.

With plenty of material set to be released in the near future; the first of two EPs 'This Is Our Way Out- EP1' was released last month and a second EP is set to be released before the end of the year, it's expected we'll be hearing more about Goodluck Jonathan.

For Fans Of: Radiohead, Foals, Bloc Party, Gang of Four and The Clash.

Alter The Press: Why should Alter The Press! readers check you out?
Goodluck Jonathan: We've spent a lot of time crafting these recordings, were proud of them. It’s a very honest record and would be a shame if it was lost. When we went into this we had no idea of what direction we would take, what came out is merely a product of us 5 in the same room with our instruments. With hindsight this first EP is very much a document of where we were at the time of recording, it’s the darkest of the upcoming releases, maybe we were angrier or maybe more insecure but there's definitely something to be obtained from it.

ATP: What's the story behind the band?
GJ: 3 of us (Nick, Max, Hank) went to school together but we met the other two (Sam, Jim) when we all moved into a house together in Brighton, just so happened we had all the components for a band in one house so we did the logical thing. Brighton is a tough place to be based in as a band, you really have to work for an audience down here, because there are so many gigs happening all the time. However we wouldn’t have the confidence we do live if we hadn't gigged this town relentlessly, after a year of pushing ourselves to get better and better we all felt ready. So we began to write some new tunes. Like a week or so after that we were rehearsing in Brighton one time and a guy knocked on the door, introduced himself as a producer, said he had been listening intently through the wall and said something like 'the bands in here are normally shit'. Liking his vibe, we went in and recorded a few tracks with him (Junk Scientist) a couple of weeks later, liking what came out we decided we wanted to write a whole album. We spent a couple of months just writing and nothing else, no gigs no rehearsing old material and focused on finding our own sound. We were back in the studio for ten days and came out with 13 tracks, which are the tracks we will be releasing over the next year.

ATP: Single highlight as a band so far?
GJ: Gigs are always exciting there's something special about the five of us all being in one space performing our material for an audience. However being in the studio there are no constraints like there is in a live set up. We came a long way during the recording process, so that's something we'll never forget.

ATP: What are your plans for the 12 months?
GJ: Well we've got a gig in a couple of weeks at Camden Lock... We're releasing two EP's this year with album coming early 2011, we thought the album makes more sense as a staggered release as we want people to notice the development of themes and ideas throughout. Fuck knows what we'll be doing...hopefully putting out some more music.

'This Is Our Way Out- EP1' by Goodluck Jonathan is available now on Something Nothing Records.

Goodluck Jonathan on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger

Sean Reid


Alter The Press!