Fresh from receiving the Rock Legend award at Hard Rock Hell and the Hard Rock Café Legends award at the Scottish Music Awards, GUN embark on The Calton Songs UK Tour, and MetalTalk have five pairs of tickets for the O2 Academy Islington show.
The Calton Songs album is a lockdown-inspired acoustic look back at some of their biggest hits, originally written in Dante and Giuliano’s Calton bedroom in their mum’s house. While writing for a new all-out rock album has been completed, the Gizzi brothers say they still prefer to write this way.
“There’s just something about that wee room at our mum’s,” bass player turned frontman Dante says. “It’s where we wrote those songs back in the day and where Jools and I still feel at our most comfortable writing.
“It just takes us back and captures that spirit and excitement we had as young guys starting out Taking On The World, as the album title said. That’s the spirit of Gun, and we still feel that way.
To win a pair of tickets for the O2 Academy Islington show on 1 December 2022, email comp@MetalTalk.net and tell us the name of the gang that ran the mean streets of the Glasgow area the Gizzi brothers grew up in. Winners will be notified lunchtime on Tuesday 29 November.
GUN play their now traditional Christmas gig at the Barrlowlands in Glasgow, set for 10 December this year and the penultimate show on this current tour.
“Calton and Glasgow will always be home for us personally and as a band, Dante says. “The area is where we belong and where our band belongs. That’s why the Christmas Barras show is a must for us – it’s a homecoming to celebrate another year of doing what we love so much.”
The band were excited to receive the two recent awards. “It honestly means the world to us to be honoured in this way,” Giuliano Gizzi said. “We have had incredible support from our fans for years, but for industry giants like these outside of our fan group to recognise what we do and what we work so hard on is beautiful, really fulfilling.
“It’s hard at times for bands these days, and awards like these are a real boost, a lift to us all and just vindication, really. Nordoff-Robbins are a charity we have loved and supported for as long as I can remember, so receiving the Hard Rock Café Legend award from them is fantastic. And the Hard Rock Hell award was an amazing surprise, too, that national recognition from an iconic brand means the world.
“Thank you all, and thanks most of all to the fans who buy tickets, buy our records and support us all day, every day. We started the band because of you, and we are still here so many years on because of you.”
GUN’s latest album, The Calton Songs, has received a string of high chart appearances across various genres. The Calton District in Glasgow’s East End has always been home to Jools and Dante. Just a stone’s throw from Glasgow’s famous Barrowland Ballroom, the boys fashioned their songwriting skills alongside former GUN lead singer Mark Rankin.
Apart from Word Up, the other fifteen songs were inspired by the sights and sounds of The Calton. This new take on GUN’s classic hits and favourites are semi-acoustic versions of what appeared through the years as full-on rock tracks. The songs feature all the current band’s lineup plus some amazing backing singing from Beverley Skeete and The Sisterhood, giving a gospel slant and an original spin to these rock classics.
Recorded initially by Dante in the spare bedroom, the songs were completed after the lockdown situation ended in January 2022 in Glasgow’s Morsecode studios.
“We hope you all enjoy this departure from our guitar amps being up at full blast,” the band said. “We wanted to do something different for our fans. We’ll be touring this with the full band and doing some acoustic shows, so we hope we’ll see you out on the road somewhere along the line.”
For tickets, visit https://www.gunofficial.co.uk/tour.
