ANIMAL INSTINCTS
Something of a modern prog supergroup, Good Tiger knew they could make their band work, and the risk has certainly paid off. From crowdfunding to geographical restrictions, Prog discovers their journey.
In July 2015, Good Tiger launched a crowdfunding campaign for their debut album. This brand new band, formed from the ashes of The Safety Fire and featuring ex-Tesseract vocalist Elliot Coleman, had never released a note of music, nor played together in the same room. They were taking a gamble with their future, and they didn’t know how the world would respond.
“We were very much aware of the fact that if it didn’t go well, it could spell the end of the band before it had even begun,” recalls guitarist Derya ‘Dez’ Nagle. “We were blown away by the support we got from the campaign: it was somewhat of a relief that people were as excited as we were.”
Happily, their $16,000 target was smashed in just 18 hours. The impressive, progressive Head Full Of Moonlight was released in November 2015, helping the band earn a nomination in the Limelight category of the following year’s Prog Awards. With the campaign surpassing its target by $30,000, Good Tiger were suddenly able to think
long-term, and became the first band to sign with Blacklight – a subsidiary of Metal Blade, bizarrely overseen by US celebrity chef Chris Santos. Now they’ve just released follow-up record We Will Be Gone, a contemporary and assured statement of intent from what’s now a fully fledged outfit.
“I hate to use words like ‘organic’ and ‘mature’, because what does that really mean? But I guess you could apply those labels to this album compared to the last one,” considers Coleman. “It feels like a real record, that we worked on together.”
Writing for We Will Be Gone began on the road. After the smoke had cleared from their crowdfunding campaign, Good Tiger’s first order of business was to play their first ever shows, hitting Europe with Periphery and America with Dance Gavin Dance.
From March 2015, they wrote on and off for a nine-month period, heavily influenced by the way their existing material held up onstage and in front of an audience that had previously only existed in their heads.
“Prior to the album being released, we had never played in a room together, and we didn’t know what the band was destined to do,” explains Nagle. “We weren’t necessarily aware that we’d be going on tour so quickly, and once you actually start playing those songs live and seeing those reactions, it’s undoubtedly going to shape – consciously or not – what you want to do with the music. We started to feel where the band would be going.”
Becoming surer of their direction and armed with a bunch of new songs brimming with potential, Good Tiger booked time at South Devon’s Middle Farm Studios with producer Forrester Savell (Karnivool, Dead Letter Circus) and engineer/mixer Adam ‘Nolly’ Getgood, who worked on their debut. For a band usually divided by the North Atlantic ocean – Nagle lives in Washington, DC; Coleman lives in Brooklyn; drummer
Alex Rüdinger lives in Frederick, Maryland; while guitarist Joaquin Ardiles and bassist Morgan Sinclair are based in London – it was a rare opportunity to feed off each other’s creativity and spend time growing as a band. In this remote rural location, they worked intense 12-hour days throughout January, pausing only to eat and sleep. Nagle and Coleman were both buzzing to have a proper residential recording experience, following the traditional path their musical heroes trod
in decades past.
“Growing up, all I did was read in magazines about bands renting a house in LA, or New York, or Sweden, or whatever, and spending all this time together in one room,” enthuses Coleman, a man who is so mild-mannered, genial and laid-back that he might as well be doing this interview in bed. He has the air of someone who is just happy to be here.
“The Strokes have done that, Guns N’ Roses, Deftones… it’s like a summer camp. Just to focus completely on work, it made me the most creative I’ve ever felt in my life. For one month, I was doing something that I was gonna be proud of, and that people were hopefully going to enjoy.”
But Nagle had an additional motive for assembling the troops – he wanted to loosen his grip on the band’s output. Now aged 30, he speaks of being at a point in his life where his view on musicianship and making music has altered. On the first album, he recorded the vocals with Coleman, giving his opinion on “what was good and what wasn’t”. This time around, Coleman predominantly worked with Forrester in another room. For the guitarist, it was about submitting to a process that was bigger than himself.
“I wanted to have less control over the recording. I’m normally writing a lot of the music as well as recording it, and having my fingerprint over the whole thing,” says
Nagle. “It was a specific choice not to do that. I was trying to lose the ego – there’s something you want to see about holding your
“IT MADE ME THE MOST CREATIVE I’VE EVER FELT IN MY LIFE. FOR ONE MONTH, I WAS DOING SOMETHING I WAS GONNA BE PROUD OF, AND THAT PEOPLE WERE HOPEFULLY GOING TO ENJOY.”
ELLIOT COLEMAN
voice or yourself, and having to put that aside to allow the greater good of the band.”
When Nagle talks, you can almost hear the cogs turning in his brain – not surprising for a musician who grappled with odd time signatures and intricate musical diversions for almost a decade in The Safety Fire. You get the feeling he never stops. He’s currently talking to us on the phone from Canada, where he’s producing the next Protest The Hero record, while Coleman is at home in the States. He doesn’t know exactly when he changed as a person and arrived at the decision to step back, he’s just aware that it happened. He grew up.
“There was definitely a point in my life where, specifically in the band I was in before, my writing style was very much geared towards wanting to write something I thought was new and exciting and hadn’t been done before,” Nagle admits. “I wasn’t necessarily focused on writing the best song, but just something that would potentially catch people off guard. Or I would be getting some kind of gratification from having people say, ‘This sounds weird.’ Now I’m more concerned about writing songs that speak to whoever for whatever reason, rather than writing the most outlandish riff or crazy structure. And as a collective of people, all of us moved in that kind of direction together. I didn’t really have a point to prove any more, whereas I did when I was younger.”
The album title, We Will All Be Gone, also reflects where Nagle’s head is at. Over the last few years, he’s been through some tough life experiences and grappled with his mental health. His mum is a counsellor and his brother studied psychology at university, inspiring Dez to explore his own psyche. His current outlook has been shaped by reading existential works by the likes of Franz Kafka and Patrick Süskind, and Irvin Yalom’s book on psychotherapy, Love’s Executioner.
“I’m trying to have fun and enjoy life for what it’s worth,” he says. “I think the album title encapsulates that ideology of not forgetting that what you’re doing at any moment could be over – whether that be your life as a grander thing, or your job, or your relationship. I’m focused on making myself and the people that are around me happy.”
The result is a record that swoops and soars, pitched somewhere between radiofriendly alt-rock and the vibe of a live show in a dark, underground venue, Coleman’s voice remaining the rich instrument at the centre. While the faintest residue of tech metal remains, the rough edges of The Safety Fire have been smoothed over. After touring with the likes of Periphery and Dance Gavin Dance, they’re not sure where they fit – and with an even broader appeal, there’s the potential to play to a more diverse audience than ever.
“I don’t just wanna play to the same crowd,” says Coleman. “I would never wanna do that. I would hope even somebody who knows absolutely nothing about music would be a fan. Maybe the one guy that only listens to jazz music could get into this band. Or only listens to country and doesn’t like anything with heavy guitars. I would hope anybody would find any of these songs enjoyable.”
Both speak of the desire to tour as much as possible, especially following a couple of setbacks at the end of last year. In October, they cancelled some UK shows for personal reasons. The following month, their van broke down during a US tour supporting I The Mighty and Hail The Sun, prompting Nagle to heroically perform the shows solo. Now determined to push forwards, they’ve got their feet planted firmly on the ground while keeping expectations high.
“I hope that if you liked the album before, you’ll like this one. And if you’ve never heard of us, you’ll become a fan,” says Coleman. “My ambition would be that hopefully by the next two or three albums, we are doing big things.”
We Will All be Gone is out now via Blacklight. See www.goodtiger.co for more information.
“I’M MORE CONCERNED ABOUT WRITING SONGS THAT SPEAK TO WHOEVER FOR WHATEVER REASON, RATHER THAN WRITING THE MOST OUTLANDISH RIFF OR CRAZY STRUCTURE.”
Derya ‘dez’ Nagle