8 | Do The Work with Gavin Bowles

Alexis sits down with the ever-charismatic Gavin Bowles – frontman of Sydney’s power-pop band Gavin Bowles and The Distractions. Gavin opens up about the rollercoaster ride of creating his latest album Phoning It In, navigating lockdowns, lineup changes, and personal challenges to craft a record that feels raw, real, and wholly his.

With cheeky lyrics, punchy hooks, and a catalogue rich in visual storytelling, Gavin’s music is a celebration of fun, freedom, and feeling everything in between. In this episode, he shares how vulnerability, humour, and creative persistence have shaped his work – and how he’s stayed true to his voice through it all. 

If you’d like to see more, you can follow Gavin on instagram; @ gavinbowlesmusic

 

This episode was recorded on 15th March 2025 on the lands of the Woiworung Peoples. We hope that this episode inspires you as a creative person and as a human being.

Thanks for listening, catch you on the next episode.

Psst! We are always on the lookout for creative people to share their story and inspire others. Have you got someone in mind who would love to have a chat? Get in contact with us via Instagram @throughthecreativedoor

 

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CREDITS

Created and Hosted by Alexis Naylor

Music by Alexis Naylor & Ruby Miguel

Edited and Produced by Ruby Miguel

 

00:09 - Alexis (Host)

Hello, my name is Alexis Naylor and I am your host here at Through the Creative Door. On behalf of myself and my guests, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians on which this podcast is recorded and produced. Owners and custodians on which this podcast is recorded and produced. May we pay our respects to all First Nations people and acknowledge Elders, past and present. On this podcast, I'll be chatting to an array of creative guests, getting a glimpse into their worlds and having some honest and inspiring conversations along the way. I'm delighted to welcome you to Through the Creative Door. 

Gavin Bowles is in the house. 

 

00:51 - Gavin (Guest)

Hello, thank you for having me. 

 

00:54 - Alexis (Host)

Welcome to Through the Creative Door. I am super chuffed to have you here. 

 

00:59 - Gavin (Guest)

I'm chuffed to be here. 

 

01:00 - Alexis (Host)

You're actually, we're not at your abode or studio or creative space. You've come into my abode and it's. 

 

01:09 - Gavin (Guest)

And it's lovely. I would. I would also love to invite you to my space, but it's, it's not in it's not in melbourne where we currently are. Yes, that's right, it's in sydney, so maybe another time, but this is lovely. Thank you for having me. 

 

01:21 - Alexis (Host)

Oh, it's so lovely to have you here. Oh, my goodness, your tracks, your music, because you're a singer-songwriter, you're a musician. You've been doing this for a very long time. You have played in lots of ensembles, but what you're doing at the moment is under your name and you have a band yeah, so it's Gavin Bowles and the distractions, and I was just about to say yes, yes, yes amazing um can I just say your music is very catchy oh, it's like super fun and I would assume that it's in that. 

 

01:56

What do you call like power, pop, power is like the best way to describe it that's fun yeah fun. The content is cheeky. 

 

02:03 - Gavin (Guest)

Yes. 

 

02:03 - Alexis (Host)

And I'll be honest the thing that I find super striking is like I vibe a music video, so like your catalogue of music videos. What a vibe. Yeah, they are amazing. They're so cool. 

 

02:18 - Gavin (Guest)

They're good fun. 

 

02:20 - Alexis (Host)

So much fun who have you directed all these music videos? 

 

02:24 - Gavin (Guest)

I'd say that I co-directed them all, so I've been lucky enough, or we've been lucky enough, to have a relationship with the director, Tom Roberts. Shout out to Tom. Yeah, I met Tom a little over a decade ago when he worked with my previous band, Picture Perfect, did a few videos for that band and then a few for myself solo, uh, and now, gosh, I think maybe we've done five as gavin bowles and the distractions with tom, uh, and he just has such. I give him these really crazy, sometimes bizarre, stupid ideas. 

 

03:05 - Alexis (Host)

No, they're fantastic. 

 

03:06 - Gavin (Guest)

For these videos and he always finds a way to bring it out, bring out a story or these visual cues, ideas, into a really fully thought out, engaging you know thing. 

 

03:19 - Alexis (Host)

See, I love this so cool. All right, are you ready to launch into these questions? 

 

03:25 - Gavin (Guest)

Yeah, please, please. 

 

03:28 - Alexis (Host)

Well, normally I'm at my guest's creative space, so normally I have a little bit of insight because I'm in it. 

 

03:35 - Gavin (Guest)

Yes. 

 

03:35 - Alexis (Host)

But what does a creative space mean to you, and why? 

 

03:41 - Gavin (Guest)

Yeah, I've had a few different creative spaces over the, I guess, like the past decade, where I've moved house, a lot. Moving house, yeah, yeah, as I'm sure a lot of creative people would understand the struggle of you've set up your creative space and then you know you, you need to move, you need to leave that place for some reason. Um, yeah, I think for me it's just about it's not necessarily about things being um in a specific place, like obviously functional, but I think it's just more about creating a relaxed environment in which you can sort of zone out everything else. And I have lived in some places where I've had a big half a house or I've had half of a spare bedroom. 

 

04:53

So it doesn't always require heaps of physical space, you just need to be able to have a designated space, a designated space and just you know, quite often it's just a little, it's the little things, maybe just a couple of kind of you know sort of knickknacks or picture frames or posters or something to just kind of remind me that I'm in my work space. 

 

05:22 - Alexis (Host)

Okay, what's in these picture frames that I'm in? 

 

05:25 - Gavin (Guest)

The main one that has been in pretty much all of my creative spaces is I did mention them before. So Green Day is my favourite band. Always has been. The first time I saw Green Day was on the American Idiot Tour, so that was, that was 2005. I saw them at one of the Sydney Superdome, which I think now has some silly name, that's. That's a computer company or something like they most of them do now and at the time there was a record store in Western Sydney, in Penrith, near where I lived I grew up in the Blue Mountains, so it was about 20 minutes away from home and at that point actually having a record store that sold vinyl records in 2005 was a pretty niche, especially for a place like Penrith where there wasn't really, you know, it was, I'm sure, like in, you know, in in Melbourne during that time there was probably a few, a few record stores, but it was pretty niche at the time. But I noticed one time when I walked in there that there was a lot of photos, photos on the wall and that they had the guy who ran the store. He had a mate who was a photographer and he went around and took photos at concerts, would make prints of them and they'd sell them at the shop. And I walked in maybe the week after I'd been to that green day show and there was a bunch of photos that his mate, his mate had taken. So I've got a few little sort of taken. 

 

07:07

So I've got a few little sort of smaller prints. But there's actually a really large front-on print of um, of billy joe performing with the big like american idiot logo behind him in like just bathed in blue light. It's just, it's a really, really magic photo. Um, yeah, and it's just, it's. It's been with. Funnily enough, it was always just like blue tacked on the wall. It's, you know, it's a glossy, you know, print of a photo. Until a few years ago my partner was like I think you should frame this and she framed it for me and I was like Bless her cotton socks. 

 

07:36

Yeah, and I just went, never thought of it. 

 

07:40

So helps to have a feminine touch sometimes, or just helps to have a feminine touch sometimes, or just somebody who thinks about maybe actually preserving the thing, so that one, that one always kind of is sort of there there with me. 

 

07:53

I feel like it just kind of whether it gives me inspiration, uh, directly or not, it's probably irrelevant, it's just always grounding. Yeah, yeah, and it kind of it reminds me of, you know, just like a, I think, a simpler time for me, maybe for everyone, just when I went to that show and I was just so enamored by seeing, like you know, one of my of my idols perform and buying the photo in the shop and that was also kind of like we were talking a lot about community off mic. That was another thing too that I'd bought the photo from a local photographer at a local store that I frequented, and, yeah, I think that's also maybe a part of it too. So, yeah, I think my creative space just has just things like that that just remind me who I am and where I come from. Maybe is probably the main dot point. 

 

09:03 - Alexis (Host)

Beautiful. Yeah, love that. Now, you have been doing this for a long time, being a creative bear. So this question it could be something from your back catalogue, it could be something that's more newish, but what's something that you're most proud of creating? 

 

09:25 - Gavin (Guest)

I actually would say, though, that it's probably the first, the last full record that I did, which is the first album under the name Gavin Bowles and the Distractions, because the first album that I fully self-produced was just under my name, which was five years ago. 

 

09:47

It came out in the middle of COVID, which is a feat in itself but then, self-producing this record with the band it's called Phoning It In, because the album sort of almost didn't happen so many times, because when I was writing it, we went into the uh, we went into I think there were two, two lockdowns involved in it, um, and then I also had a lot of like personal afflictions happen within that time frame too. 

 

10:17

Um, and then we also had a band member leave just before we were gearing up to start the album, and then we had to get a new band member and sort of like reconfigure the band, which ended up being the best thing for the band in general, but for those songs and that record. And then it just so happened that when we actually got our act together to start recording it, and then it just so happened that, when we actually got our act together to start recording it, that I didn't actually have a creative space that was big enough to record things like drums on that guitar amp, because I was in a small apartment with a housemate with no soundproofing, all of those things Good old challenges. 

 

10:59

Yes. So what we did was I packed up my brother, who's the the drummer, simon um, he, he obviously being a drummer, one of the things about every time that he moves house same deal, moving all of his creative things is he always needs a space where he can set up his drum kit and make some noise. So at the time he was living in a house where he was able to do so. So what I did for every, every band's parts for that record was recorded by myself where I packed up my computer, microphones, interface, everything brought it to their house, set up. So I had to set like the amount of times that I packed up, you know, my all of my stuff, uh, brought it to their houses and then and the kind of thing that also ended up bringing that album home was that it was finished, a couple of little things recorded but sort of mixed and edited and properly finished, sent off to be mastered and everything. At my current place where I've been for a little over two years. That's where I was also to finalize because I basically, after everything was recorded, then I moved into this place where I had the space and it kind of felt like a the perfect way to finish up the album, because I was suddenly in this space where I could, you know, like have all my things set up and stretch my legs and uh and uh, it just kind of felt like the perfect place to finish up. And now it's the place where we're starting to record our new record. 

 

12:33

So the couple of songs we talked about before they, they're the first tracks to be recorded in my new space, my new house, my new home studio. So that record just had so many roadblocks but I just kind of never. I never wanted to not make it. I knew that it was a record that I always, once the songs were written, I kind of went I think this is actually the album that I've always wanted to write. So the album formed itself through a lot of hardship and then, like within the writing of it and then actually of the recording of it, so, um, I'm really proud of it because it's just, uh, it's such a, it's such a moment in such a moment in time and it all just kind of came together almost despite itself. Um, and we're super proud of it. We love playing those songs live. It's really connected with people, which is something that you, just you, you, you can never orchestrate those things like just you never know you never know, there's babies that we create yeah once they go out into the world, you just never know how they're gonna ricochet yeah 

 

13:36

affect people and you always and you always hope that they, that they land with people and people enjoy it. But some of of these songs just have really touched people and that's just been amazing and to see people singing them back at us and everything it's just been. 

 

13:50 - Alexis (Host)

On the flip side of things that we're proud of, that you're proud of, what is something that's happened in your life or, like circumstance whatever. What's something that has challenged your creativity? 

 

14:04 - Gavin (Guest)

It’s probably actually a lack of challenge I think, I think I think when the stars are aligned and when I'm doing really, really well, uh sort of mentally, emotionally, things are good with, you know, with All the other pillars of your life. Yeah, it's hard to sometimes get in a creative space to make something that's that truly represents me. 

 

14:45 - Alexis (Host)

Okay. 

 

14:47 - Gavin (Guest)

I think that's just because, as I've become like as I've gotten older, I want what I'm writing about to be really honest. That doesn't mean it has to be heartbreaking or it has to be about mental health struggles or something like that. It just means that it has to be really, really honest. Yeah, and when you're in a really good space, when, like I've, you know, I've been like, um, I'm going like family, things are well, me and my partner are really great, me and the band are really great, works great, you know. You know, I mean I've actually been going for a few runs or whatever it is. You know the stars are aligning. Sometimes it's hard to admit the things that are, because obviously we have hardships every day, but I normally find that I'm at my most honest when I'm having to face, when you have to ask yourself hard questions. That's when I'm at my most sort of honest and vulnerable and I kind of I'm not going to say force myself, but I sort of get myself in those spaces and times to create. 

 

15:59 - Alexis (Host)

Now we sort of covered a little bit about objects when we were talking about your creative space. But I'm curious do you have a particular object or thing that you can't live without when you're creating? 

 

16:15 - Gavin (Guest)

I'm not really. I'm not really sure otherwise I mean not that I can sort of think at this point you don't have to. 

 

16:21 - Alexis (Host)

I was just curious if you do yeah, I mean I do. 

 

16:28 - Gavin (Guest)

Uh, I was actually writing something. This morning I actually went out of my way to go and buy a pad of paper and a pen because I came up with an idea for something. Because I do make a lot of phone memos but it's kind of like when it gets serious when I said I go to those phone memos and turn into a fully like. When it gets serious when I said I go to those phone memos and turn into a fully fleshed song. I always do it with pen and paper because for some reason it's the physicality of writing something down yeah I can empathize with that one so that might be it, that could that. 

 

16:56

That could be it in terms of writing songs and doing doing certain, even like organizing things like a track list on a record or kind of things like that. It you can talk to anybody who's lived with me or near me that I'm a list person. Oh, you're my kind of guy, then you'll find there's lists on my phone, but there's written lists around if you head into my office, you'll see a multitude of lists on both sides of my yeah. So maybe it's lists, maybe the answer is lists. 

 

17:33 - Alexis (Host)

So uh, we are cut from the same cloth yes, my friend yes, if you could give one creative, one piece of advice, one nugget of gold, yeah, what would it be? 

 

17:46 - Gavin (Guest)

It’s really do the work yeah because there's so many other things that bombard us, not even necessarily just as creative people just as humans just as humans, we obviously get sucked into our phones, into social media, uh, into and this isn't a thing to do with being a creative person either. We're all self-branding constantly. Every time that you put up a picture or make a post or something like that, you're kind of doing something for your brand, whether you intend to or not. So we all get a little bit stuck in the story that we're telling about ourselves, um, but especially as um creative people who self promote. You know, we can get caught up in that kind of rat race and comparing ourselves to other people, to our contemporaries, to whoever it may be, and I struggle with this all the time. 

 

18:59

But the thing that always brings me back I've got a little sign in my studio that says do the work, because when you turn all that stuff off and you just focus on the thing that you still love and you tap into that place and that feeling that, for me, I've had since I was a kid, then all of that other stuff is gone, it just melts away. So, yeah, that's super important to me. Yeah, and there's gonna be hardships all the time. There's gonna be things to overcome. Time there's going to be. There's going to be things to overcome. There's going to be problems, um. Not everything's going to go your way, um, but you can always just rely on just doing the thing that you love. 

 

20:01 - Alexis (Host)

Well said, well bloody said. It's so true. If you could recommend any resources for someone to develop their creative process to do what you do, what would you recommend? 

 

20:18 - Gavin (Guest)

I mean, one of them is just get like a really basic recording program. There's a program called audacity, it's just a really simple, user-friendly recording program, but you can sort of learn how to multi-track and learn how to do this and do that easy way to yeah get you sink your teeth into it before you go into any crazy software yeah, because I because I just did it totally without any any previous knowledge or experience just got this program, started messing around with it, um, and I ended up, you know, using it for years and years and years and just kind of um, discovering how to, yeah, do a little. You know, like what happens if I put this guitar sound over this guitar sound, or what happens if I put this melody over this vocal bit. Because I was really just experimenting with being creative at itself, because it's one thing to sit down and write a song and write a part or write a lyric, but it's another thing to start layering. 

 

21:21 - Alexis (Host)

That's, I guess, the transition from, you know, singer-songwriter through to, like, producer, 

 

21:30 - Gavin (Guest)

Recording artist. Yeah, that's right. That's right and it's fun. It's really, really fun. You can really sink your teeth into it. So I think that because it will often just give you a little bit of like the spark of inspiration to just start messing around with things, and I mean, look, just if you've got a question, go to Reddit, and if you need a tutorial on how to use a piece of equipment, go to YouTube. And you know, if you need to learn how to clean the electronics in your guitar, there's, there's a youtube. Shout out to my mate, Dave Webb. He, he runs a youtube channel and one time I needed to figure out how to clean the um, the volume pots in my guitar because they were crackling, and the first thing that came up was perfect was dave. 

 

22:17

So you know, like there's just there's a wealth of information out there, so just. But it's also it's almost kind of the same thing, like just don't be afraid to ask for help, because you're sort of doing it yourself if you're doing it that way. But it's really no different. It's just that there's actually a community of people who have just answered your question before you asked it. But don't be afraid to ask for help. 

 

22:39 - Alexis (Host)

Well said Well yeah. Yeah, well said, well said. One last question. 

 

22:43 - Gavin (Guest)

All right. 

 

22:47 - Alexis (Host)

If you could hear another creative, come on this podcast and answer these questions, who would it be and why? 

 

22:51 - Gavin (Guest)

I've got to say Emily South, because Emily's great and I would be very interested to sort of know a little bit more about, yeah, her process and yeah, sort of her background and, yeah, just hear her answer those questions yeah, amazing, because she's great. 

 

23:12 - Alexis (Host)

Oh my goodness, Gavin, you have been an absolute delight. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. 

 

23:18 - Gavin (Guest)

Thank you for having me. This is great. I love this kind of stuff. 

 

23:26 - Alexis (Host)

Thanks for tuning in for another episode of Through the Creative Door. If you enjoy our episodes and find value in them, consider supporting us by making a donation. Just visit buymeacoffeecom/throughthecreativedoor or buy the link in our Instagram bio where you can choose an amount and even write us a little message. Every little bit helps and we truly appreciate all of your support. But if you can't donate, no worries, you can still help us out by sharing our podcast with your friends and family and leaving a review on your favorite platform. Thanks so much for being part of our community. We'll catch you on the next episode. Bye.