Shotgun Politics

HK Magazine: How did Shotgun Politics come into existence?
Timmy Gunn: It was two-and-a-half years ago when me and my friend Niall, both living in Discovery Bay at the time, started writing songs together. We both played guitar and sang, so we wrote a lot of guitar stuff, until we realized that it was time for a bassist and a drummer if we were going to form a band. So we put out a bunch of ads online looking for two more members, and that’s how we found our drummer Freddy and bass player Jimmy.

HK: Did you have a clear vision at that time of what kind of music the band was going to play?
TG: Yeah, I guess. All of us came from heavy music-listening background—Naill listens to 80s and 90s grunge rock and Freddy’s into Swedish death-metal bands. But interestingly, we all have a soft spot for poppy melodies. So our main goal was to write and play pop songs, but still make them have the energy and balls of rock, so to speak. At the beginning our music was a bit more bluesy because I was big into Jack White and wanted to make White Stripes-sounding music. Since then, as two years have gone on, we have more of a blend of everyone’s interests and influences, which I’d like to think as our own sound.

HK: The lineup has changed, though, since Niall left the band, right?
TG: Niall decided that he’s gonna fly airplanes, and that’s what he did. Since I became the lead singer, we went through a series of different guitarists. We ran with Bee from the Sleeves for about four months until he moved to Brazil. Then we auditioned a few guitar players and found Kevin, but he passed away last year. We just have the worst history with guitarists… Anyway, then we decided to look into the pool of people that we knew, and finally got Kid—one of the guitarists from In Love and Pain—to join us last October. We saw a lot of In Love’s gigs and Kid seemed to have great energy, so we thought that would fit our band quite well. Now the band has two gweilos and two locals, which is nice. Hopefully that will help us connect with the audience when we play at places that are more accepting of local bands.

HK: When you first became a lead singer, were you uncomfortable with the new arrangement?
TG: Absolutely. I still am! I mean, I just wanted to play guitar when I started this band. I’ve come to like it more and more with each show, but I don’t know, there’s so much more focus on you when you’re the “lead singer.” In general, I don’t quite like the concept. You know sometimes you have posters of a band where you see the singer upfront and the rest of the guys just stand behind him or her. I hate that. I’d like people to see our band as a whole.

HK: Are you the main songwriter in the band?
TG: The songwriting process is usually a big collaboration. Normally, one of us, a lot of times me, will bring an idea and the other three will jump in to reconstruct it and add their own flavors. I think it’s Keith Richards who said to never, ever fall in love with a song that you write, because your band will tear it apart. You learn to compromise.

HK: After releasing two EPs, is the band planning on putting out an album?
TG: I actually prefer the format of a six-track EP over an LP. For one, it’s less work [laughs]; second, you can charge less—Hong Kong’s indie music fans are supportive, but sometime asking them to pay 100 bucks for a CD is hard. We sold our last EP, “Glow,” for $60 each, which I think is okay. It’s the price of a pint of beer. We’re starting to write new songs now, but [we're] not sure if there will be a new EP in near future. We’ll see.