Gaz Coombes

Gaz Coombes fronted the wildly inventive Brit-pop outfit Supergrass with an exuberance that once cast him as an ageless adolescent forever locked in perpetual motion. Yet as the years advanced, the band gradually broadened its sonic palette during its second decade, and when he stepped out alone with the 2012 solo debut Here Come the Bombs—issued two years after Supergrass dissolved—Coombes had settled into the measured stance of a Brit-pop veteran, a songwriter still devoted to melody while venturing into fresh terrain. He sustained that equilibrium across the following ten years on Matador in 2015 and 2018’s World’s Strongest Man, before rejoining his former bandmates for a Supergrass reunion in the early 2020s; once the tour wrapped in 2022, he picked up his solo thread again with the January 2023 arrival of Turn the Car Around.

A gift for melody had already defined Coombes when, at sixteen, he fronted the Jennifers. He and Wheatley Park School classmate Danny Goffey started the group as teenagers, and the Oxford quartet secured a deal with Nude, the same label that had signed Suede. After issuing the single “Just Got Back Today” in 1993, the Jennifers disbanded, prompting Coombes and drummer Goffey to form Supergrass later that year alongside bassist Mick Quinn. Momentum built swiftly: the debut single “Caught by the Fuzz” sold out its initial pressing in 1994 and drew acclaim from John Peel, NME, and Melody Maker. Their first album, I Should Coco, landed in summer 1995 amid the height of Brit-pop fervor and became one of the year’s standout releases, buoyed by the buoyant hit “Alright.” The 1997 follow-up In It for the Money carried their profile beyond Britain, yet like many compatriots they never broke through in the United States, even with endorsements from American admirers such as Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam.

Supergrass issued a self-titled record in 1999 and Life on Other Planets in 2002—the year Gaz’s brother Rob Coombes formally joined on keyboards—though sales gradually softened. The reflective Road to Rouen appeared in 2005, followed by the flashy Diamond Hoo Ha in 2008; afterward the group splintered while attempting to finish a seventh album, then provisionally titled Released the Drones, before scrapping those 2009 sessions.

In the wake of the breakup, Coombes and Goffey recorded cover versions as the one-off Hotrats in 2010, after which Coombes concentrated on solo work, tracking Here Come the Bombs at home. The album surfaced in early summer 2012 to largely favorable notices. His second self-produced effort, Matador, arrived in January 2015; Coombes handled most instruments himself, with occasional help from his brother Charly and Ride drummer Loz Colbert. The record entered the U.K. charts at number 18 and earned a Mercury Prize nomination. He followed with World’s Strongest Man in May 2018.

A decade after their dissolution, Supergrass reconvened for a September 2019 performance at the annual Glastonbury Pilton Party. That December, Coombes released the Sheldonian Live EP containing four tracks captured earlier at a charity concert inside Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre. Shortly thereafter the career-spanning box set The Strange Ones: 1994-2008 appeared in January 2020. An ambitious 2020 tour fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic, yet the band resumed the road in 2021 and continued into 2022. Coombes then returned to solo activity with the January 2023 release of Turn the Car Around.