13 Questions with Geese

Whilst most bands have stuttered during the great pandemic of the 2020’s (as it’s bound to be called in years to come), then Brooklyn’s Geese have been very much swimming against that particular tide.

The band formed a fair few years ago (back in 2016) and for ones so young (they are all now 19 and are just out of high school), they have come up with a debut album so good that they have recently been signed to the vogue label Partisan, (already home to such acts as IDLES and Fontaines DC), on the strength of it.

And it’s the first cut from it, the recently released debut single Disco, that has piqued our attention buds.

Weighing in at seven minutes-ish, it’s not the most obvious choice for a opening shot, and there’s very little actual disco within it’s glorious chugging rhythms, where the guitars sear through the different levels as the track builds and builds.

“I’m glad this is the first song that is coming out because it’s a pretty good representation of the album,” says Cameron Winter (Geese vocalist). “It’s also the very first song we recorded live.”

“It was our first big step forward as a band, a very urgent and restless song, which was indicative of all our headspaces at the time. Disco has a lot of organised chaos at its core; the music, the lyrics, and even the way we recorded it all speak to a sort of manic energy we were all working through. It’s a song that sounds like it’s perpetually on the verge of collapse–and yet it always manages to keep itself together. There’s a bit of chaos in all of our songs, or a sense that they could explode at any moment. Disco represents that the most for us: the little bit of chaos each of us carry and bring to our music.”

We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.

A lazy music hack would point out the obvious comparisons to The Strokes early guitar chugging, but there’s so much more wrapped up in this, and bodes very well for the rest of the album (which is coming later in the year).

The band are currently dipping their toes in the live arena with some US shows and some big festival slots in the summer.

So, before they get as massive as they are inevitably going to be, they were kind enough to take time out to answer our very important 13 Questions:

13 Questions with Guardian Singles

1.  Where are you and what are you doing? How is that working out?

Geese: “We’re in New York City working on some songs. It’s working out alright so far.”

2. Can you give us a bit of history on Geese, how did it all begin?

G: “Gus, Max and I (Cameron) have been playing together since the 7th grade, and we started a proper band at the beginning of 9th grade with the goal of making our own basement recording studio. The five of us came together via high school and music extracurriculars, and now we’ve been playing together as Geese on and off since we were around 16.”

3. What was your favourite band growing up and the first gig you went to?

G: “In middle school it was a lot of heady classic rock like Pink Floyd and Yes. Throughout high school I remember us being pretty inspired by garage-y acts like Thee Oh Sees, King Gizzard, Ty Segall etc. By now our tastes have split off from each other’s a decent amount, but we all share a love for certain bands like Radiohead, Swans, Deerhoof, Led Zeppelin.

“The first gig I went to was They Might Be Giants in Prospect Park. They played Particle Man and all the other three year-olds went nuts.”

Sun 13’s Albums Quarterly #2

4. What record changed the course of your life?

G: “There have been a few. The best answer is probably In Rainbows.”

5. Apart from yourself, who is the next big thing?

G: “I just listened to Remi Wolf’s EP, she can sing. And the songs are so catchy. She’s probably gonna make a great record and get a billion dollars soon.”

6. Have you got any hobbies outside of music?

G: “Foster writes poetry, Dominic plays Smash, Max designs tattoos, Gus tends bar and I run a high stakes cock-fighting ring.”

7. When did you last get into an argument?

G: “Like yesterday. Pretty much every time we’re in a room together for two plus hours.”

8. When did you last shout at the TV?

G: “When the Nets lost.”

9. What’s your favourite cartoon character?

G: “Mr. Krabs”

13 Questions with God On My Right

10. Tell us a secret?

G: “I’m currently in a ‘Yesterday’ scenario wherein I’ve been transported to a world where the legendary band Geese never existed, so I’m profiting off of their hit songs.”

11. What’s next?

G: “Better music.”

12. Who’s the nicest ‘celebrity’ you’ve ever met?

G: “Butch Vig is very nice over email.”

13. Thanks for answering our questions, do you have anything else to say?

G: “Listen to Geese!”