Part of the reason for his anticipation is the nature of Road To Rouen: stripped down, focusing on acoustic sounds and the inclusion of unconventional instrumentation such as the zither and ukulele. Rouen pays homage to the likes of Led Zeppelin and Sly and the Family Stone more so than Supergrass’ usual leanings: TRex and the Kinks. Prior to this album, Supergrass could be counted on for fun, hooky tunes bouncing with cheerily effervescent melodies. Gear-wise, those earlier works relied heavily on Hammond organ and Nord Lead contributions. On the road, that meant two Akai Z4s — one running piano samples, the other generating all the sounds the group couldn’t squeeze out of their instruments live — in addition to a Wurlitzer, the Nord, and a Hammond XB2.
For Supergrass’ current tour, the Wurlitzer and some samples (Mellotron and piano) remain, but other changes were necessary to match the new album’s more acoustic flavor. “A lot of the ways I’d use my setup before — using samplers to recreate any sound I wanted — I can’t do that now,” Coombes says. “It makes you rethink and try to make the songs interesting with the basics. That’s given the songs a new lease on life.”
One such basic Coombes acquired was a Sequential Circuits Prophet 5. Another essential he insisted upon for this tour was an acoustic piano. Taking into consideration all the drawbacks of that — weight, transportation, and amplification, among others — a compromise was reached that has ended up working better than expected. Finding a Doepfer PK88 in Germany, without pitchbenders or modulation wheels, Coombes built the keyboard into an old, red lacquered, eBay-purchased barroom piano from which the frame and strings had been removed. “It looks like an old, really knackered up piano and it plays my piano sample,” says Coombes, who has been able to reconcile his acoustic ambitions with this tour’s sampled reality. “If you have an idea, often you can do it. It can be quite original and inspiring.”