Vancouver pop punk group Gob is back after a long two years. The quartet were at the forefront of the early ’90s pop-punk explosion, gaining a lot of fans with songs like “I Hear You Calling,” from “the World According to Gob” and “Give Up The Grudge” from their 2003 CD “Foot In Mouth Disease.”
They last released a CD in 2007 and have been working on a few different projects ever since. 
Co-frontman Tom Thacker moved to New York to be with his fiance — a doctor — and took a gig playing lead guitar for fellow Canadian pop-punkers Sum-41, co front-man Theo Goutzinakis got to work co-producing Gob’s next album and several other projects including Vancouver alt rock band Floodlight. But they are back together and back on the road, which brings them to Lethbridge, June 28 when they play with Finger Eleven at Pulse nightclub, June 28.
“We’ve got a lot of ass shaking, middle finger raising, fun, really good music,” promised co-frontman Theo Goutzinakis adding the band has been busy rehearsing a solid set of a couple of dozen songs for this tour of Alberta and B.C.
“We’ll be playing a lot of older songs and a lot of songs we haven’t really played since 1995-2002. I think fans will really surprised,” he continued.
“ We’re just enjoying jamming on songs we haven’t played for two years,” he said.
They are producing a new Gob CD which they hope to release in the fall.
“We’re still mixing it. The first few lets us get a feel for how the album will sound” he said adding mixing the first couple songs sets the tone for the entire album — the rest of the mixing is a lot simpler.
They don’t know if they will be performing any of their new songs, though they may sneak one into their set.While their last CD ‘Muerto Vivos,’ which was released in 2007, has a more metal feel to it, he said the new one is classic Gob pop-punk.
“ We thought the last record was a really freaking solid record. But the next one will be more of a rock and roll record,” he said . Despite not a lot of promotion, it still made it into Top 20 lists including their song “Underground.”
“We love playing and we’d like to release a record more than one every four years,” he said.
They haven’t played a show with Finger 11 before, so this one time show will be a new experience for them.
“We’ve run into them at festivals,” he said.
It will be the only show on the tour they will be playing on them.
He noted the band has improved over the years.
“The band is playing better than ever,” he said.
They feel lucky to be still making a living making music since 1994.
“It’s been a long time, but we’ve been able to do what we want to do and create our own music,” he continued.
They don’t think about being part of Vancouver’s esteemed, long standing punk scene.
“When we started in the early ”90s, there wasn’t a lot of punk, but it has started to regenerate. In ’77 there was the Ramones then came the British punks. But in Vancouver we had the Pointed Sticks and DOA and the Subhumans, all of those guys,” he said, adding he grew up going to shows from the Vancouver punk veterans.
“ Back in the early days of Gob, I would write way more than Tom, then Tom really started to grow as a songwriter,” he said
“We all vote on what songs to use. And now when Tom writes about 30 for an album and I write five, his have a better chance of getting on it,” he said.
“Some of them take about 10 minutes to write, others sit around for two years before they are recorded.
Their career making 2001 hit “I Hear You Calling,” is one of the former.
“Tom brought in the intro riff on a cassette tape one day and that’s all he had. But we all loved it, and the record company said ‘you have to record that,’ so he came up with lyrics on the spot. So it came together rather quickly,” he said.
“ We got a gold record for it. And we were recognized as the best new band even though we’d been around for five or six years. We went from playing for 20-30 people a night to 1,200,” he said.
They recorded a popular video for the song feature Gob versus a soccer team of zombies.
“ We thought it represented what we were about,” he said.
Their other big hit, “Give Up the Grudge,” was a collaboration between Tom Thacker and renown producer Butch Walker and Mort Trombino who has worked with Jimmy Eat World in Los Angeles. Their record label encouraged them to work with better known producers so they were happy to do so.
“It was a very cool experience,” he said.
The show begins at 8:30 p.m. at Pulse, June 28. Tickets are $40 in advance.
