Gaz Coombes - Personal Life

Personal Life

Gaz Coombes is the son of Eileen and John Coombes. His father was a food scientist, who enjoyed playing Jazz piano, and his mother an English teacher. Although he was born in England, he lived with his family in San Francisco from around the age of five up until the age of nine, at which point in 1985 they returned to his birth place in Oxford.

Coombes played Classical piano at this age, but gradually moved on to an interest in playing guitar. He began to attend Wheatley Comprehensive, but found himself being picked on for being 'girly'. Gaz's elder brother Rob was friends with Nic Goffey at the time, and one day on the school's playing fields a thirteen year old Gaz met and befriended Nic's younger brother, fifteen year old Danny Goffey. Danny was two years older than Gaz and helped to "protect him" from being teased. Goffey recounts what happened; "I mean, you couldn't fucking miss him. He was gorgeous. He grew sideburns and they gave him loads of shit, but I was really into him. I think I fancied him a bit, y'know? He's really beautiful. He wasn't very mature at that age. He was like a kid. I just went up to him and asked him to form a band. I could. I was a drummer. The tallest drummer in the school."

Coombes originally lived in a Regency townhouse in Brighton, which he first purchased in 1999, with his partner Jools Poore and their daughter, Raya May (b. 2003). Due to the death of his mother, Eileen, in 2005, he felt compelled to move back into her house in Oxford during 2006, where he had grown up. Coombes and his partner now have a second daughter, named Tiger (b. 2008). Gaz Coombes and his brothers Rob Coombes, Charly Coombes and Eddie Coombes also jointly own a converted barn in Northern France, which is where the Supergrass album Road to Rouen was recorded.

He has three other siblings who are all involved in music: the eldest is the keyboardist and fellow Supergrass member Rob, former 22-20s keyboardist Charly and Paris-based Ed (who also plays piano).