Guitarist and vocalist Ian Ball and drummer Olly Peacock are long-time friends, having played in a three-piece band from the ages of 14 to 18.

They entered Parr Street Studios with engineer Ken Nelson, recording new songs and improving the mixes of the demos.

After winning the Mercury Prize, the band went back to Parr Street Studios, recording as much material as they could between tours.

Giving the album a perfect score in his review for PopMatters, Matt Cibula wrote "everyone who doesn’t like this record is insane in a bad way.

The album was met with mixed critical response, with Allmusic rating it as four stars out of five and BBC Internet Music Reviews describing it as "one of the finest releases of the year so far.

The double disc CD was compiled from shows recorded at San Francisco's Fillmore Theater in January 2005.

In January 2006, the band performed on Jam Cruise before returning to the studio to put the final touches on How We Operate.

The band's 2006 spring tour included stops in Asheville, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Denver, San Francisco, and Portland.

They were also one of the bands featured on a John Lennon tribute aired on BBC Radio 2 to mark the 25th anniversary of the musician's death.

"How We Operate" is also the ending song to the 2007 remake of the horror film The Hitcher, and acts as the title music for the pilot episode of The Riches.

A wide range of styles were incorporated into Gomez's sound for their next record A New Tide, including blues, Krautrock and psychedelia.

The record saw Gomez accompanied by a number of guest musicians, including vocalist Amy Millan, bassist Josh Abrams, cellist Oliver Krauss, and multi-instrumentalist Stuart Bogie.

[5] With the band members scattered across two continents, early tracks were written and recorded individually and then merged online.

The material took on its ultimate shape when Gomez convened in studios in Chicago and Charlottesville with producer Brian Deck.

In early 2004, Ian Ball and Olly Peacock were involved in a project called Operation Aloha with 14 other musicians including members from Phantom Planet and Maroon 5.

Since 2020, Tom Gray has been lobbying the British government to regulate music streaming with the Broken Record campaign group.

[16][17][18][19] He stood as a Labour Party candidate for Brighton Pavilion in the 2024 general election, but failed to win the seat.