{"id":807864,"date":"2020-05-28T07:58:32","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T13:58:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=1005811"},"modified":"2020-05-28T07:58:32","modified_gmt":"2020-05-28T13:58:32","slug":"gang-of-four-preview-new-ep-with-forever-starts-now-co-written-by-late-guitarist-andy-gill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/gang-of-four-preview-new-ep-with-forever-starts-now-co-written-by-late-guitarist-andy-gill\/","title":{"rendered":"Gang of Four Preview New EP With \u2018Forever Starts Now\u2019 Co-Written by Late Guitarist Andy Gill"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The surviving members of Gang of Four<\/a> have shared a punchy new song, \u201cForever Starts Now,\u201d that was co-written by Andy Gill before the guitarist\u2019s death<\/a> earlier this year. The track will appear on a new EP, Anti Hero,<\/em> which will arrive July 17th and feature a portrait of Gill on the cover designed by Shepard Fairey.<\/p>\n

Gang of Four singer John Sterry tells Rolling Stone<\/em> in an e-mail that he and Gill co-wrote \u201cForever Starts Now\u201d while they were wrapping up their 2019 album, Happy Now<\/em>. \u201cWe\u2019d always seen something great in the track, been excited by it, and would bring up the fact we needed to finish it after a glass of wine or midway through a game of pool on tour,\u201d Sterry recalls. \u201cLife kept intervening like that and then, of course, the opposite of life, so we never did get to the final mix.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sterry says \u201cForever Starts Now\u201d was rooted in an idea he and Gill were kicking around about how admiration is \u201cused to exert control in relationships.\u201d The lyrics, he continues, ended up \u201cfocusing on a character who sees himself as the hero of his own life and manipulates his partner into supporting this fantasy. The line, \u2018She sings along with his song\/She thinks it\u2019s like having the radio on\u2026\u2019 always brings a wry smile.\u201d<\/p>\n

This central theme of \u201cForever Starts Now\u201d inspired the title of Gang of Four\u2019s upcoming EP, Anti Hero<\/em>, with Sterry adding, \u201cAndy always was skeptical about hero narratives.\u201d Sterry completed the EP with bassist Thomas McNeice and drummer Tobias Humble, as well as Gill\u2019s widow, Catherine Mayer. Anti Hero<\/em> follows another Gang of Four EP, This Heaven Gives Me Migraine<\/em><\/a>, which was released earlier this year and features three tracks Gill had signed-off on from his hospital bed just before his death.<\/p>\n

Mayer says Gill was particularly prolific during his later years, even after he fell ill. \u201cIn hospital, in January, for as long as he was able, he continued to work from his critical care bed, asking me to bring him hard drives with different songs on them and to help him to send emails to musicians about ongoing work and to answer agents to confirm future tour dates,\u201d she says. \u201cHe was signing off on mixes and making creative decisions and he was just so enthused about his latest projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two of the other songs on Anti Hero<\/em> are new versions of old Gang of Four tracks \u201cChange the Locks\u201d and \u201cGlass,\u201d which were completed at the time of Gill\u2019s death. The next single, however, \u201cDay Turns to Night\u201d (set to arrive June 26th) was written by Sterry days after Gill\u2019s death and will mark his first solo single under the moniker JJ Sterry.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Shepard Fairey spoke about Gang of Four\u2019s influence on him and being asked to craft the cover for Anti Hero<\/em>. \u201cGang of Four has been a profound inspiration for me because the band demonstrates that great art can powerfully merge pleasure and intellectual provocation,\u201d he said. \u201cI was devastated to hear of Andy Gill\u2019s passing, but honored to make a portrait of him in the hope of creating an iconic image of one of my heroes \u2014 with apologies to Andy, to me he was a hero \u2014 to serve as a reminder that though life may be fleeting, Andy\u2019s potent art and ideas will endure.\u201d<\/p>\n

All net receipts from sales and streams of Anti Hero<\/em> and its singles will be donated to Guy\u2019s and St. Thomas\u2019 Charity, which benefits the London hospital that tried to save Gill\u2019s life earlier this year. \u201cI\u2019m pleased that we\u2019ve been able to bring [the EP] out now, in the midst of a global public health crisis that is felt so keenly by St Thomas\u2019s hospital and the wonderful staff there who worked so hard to try to save Andy,\u201d Mayer says. \u201cEveryone involved provided their services for free and we are donating what we raise to the hospital\u2019s charitable trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Popular on Rolling Stone<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The surviving members of Gang of Four have shared a punchy new song, \u201cForever Starts Now,\u201d that was co-written by Andy Gill before the guitarist\u2019s death earlier this year. The track will appear on a new EP, Anti Hero, which will arrive July 17th and feature a portrait of Gill on the cover designed by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-807864","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-10 02:37:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}