Geese Are A Band You Should Know
Portraits by Kyle Berger, Live Photos by Elena Saviano
I met Geese for an interview on the first day of spring at the Partisan office in Williamsburg and we got absolutely nothing done.
Geese - one of New York City’s most promising young bands and Bright Young Things 2023 participants consisting of Gus Green, Cameron Winter, Foster Hudson, Dominic DiGesu, and Max Bassin - has just come out with their new and much-acclaimed album 3D Country, with a lead up that included hypnotic and somewhat-misleading singles like, ‘Cowboy Nudes’, and ‘Mysterious Love’. The singles, the themes, the videos, and the artwork, all appeared to be a misdirect; some suspicious and eclectic body that on their own seemed to point in any sarcastic direction. However, when placed within the body of the album, we see these bits and pieces aren’t disjointed so much as only every other piece of a puzzle that when placed in with the remaining pieces, take on a beautiful, funny, threatening, exciting, and highly-listenable form.
To address the first sentence, when I say we got absolutely nothing done, I mean that compared to a normal interview, meeting, or editorial project, this was largely unsuccessful. Usually when I do an interview with an artist, I don’t have to cut out half of the body due to it being either a tangent, indecipherable, or inflamatory. The total length of discussion was forty minutes, but at least twenty of that was spent doing bits and making each other laugh, which is extremely unproductive and admittedly, very unprofessional on my part, but is also very refreshing and is perhaps a testament to the connection and genuine endearment that the band feels toward each other as reflected in the music.
While their dedication to the music is palpable and real, they aren’t afraid to laugh at it. Where other artists take their art so seriously that they can’t have any fun, Geese have so much fun making their art that it can be felt on the track, on the album, and live in front of you. There is an intangible, inexplicable earnestness to their interactions even in the most professional of settings. What do the kids call it? Banter? They banter, ceaselessly and with such precision and fluidity that somewhere in between Ween and Jesus Christ, I forgot we were doing an interview.
This conversation with Cameron, Max, and Foster, took place in April, just after the release of 3D Country (the single) and just a couple of months before the release of 3D Country (the album).
How long has Geese been Geese?
Cameron: Max and I have been playing together for a very long time, but our first Geese show was in 2017. So that’s…
Foster: Four plus three.. Seven years.
Max: Like six and a half years.
The last single you put out, ‘Cowboy Nudes’, sounds very easy going and a bit like 90’s Beck, but then I saw the music video, and now when I listen to that single, it sounds very sarcastic and maniacal and a bit threatening. What was your intention with that video and that single?
Cameron: Hm. Well. Thank you. I’m glad that you feel that way. I like the sarcasm in these songs. The idea behind 3D Country at first was to make it a lot longer. The first version was nine minutes long and started with this free wheeling, laid back, and then it starts to get really fucking intense. It had a lot of craziness in it, and then the label heard it and were like…
Foster: We would lose people in the weeds.
Max: We aren’t good enough of a band to do this.
Foster: Yeah, yeah, maybe on our fourth record.
Cameron: No, they were like, ‘you could do this, but we strongly advise that you not.’ which is fair. I’m glad that the sarcasm still comes through, though.
Max: Yeah, it’s like a peek into what the record does. There’s a lot of nice, pretty things, but also a lot of dark brooding stuff, and we were trying to make that contrast as goofy as possible.
Why is that the direction of this record? Why did you want to make something so high contrast?
Max: I mean, there’s one thing we could say…
Foster: Should we?
Cameron: We listen to a lot of Ween.
Max: A ton of Ween.
Ween?!
Cameron: Yeah… do you like them?
Foster: I can tell by his face that he doesn't.
Cameron: You’re in a room with three Weeners right now.
Ah man.
Max: Three Weenies.
I haven’t thought about Ween critically in probably a decade.
Cameron: Alright well you should.
Foster: Ah man.
Cameron: I think that since we became a band, we got pretty good at mimickery. Up until we started putting out these two records, we’d hear something and be like, ‘fuck, we can do that,’ and then we’d try and do it.
Foster: I’d say a 45% success rate.
Cameron: For so long I heard Ween and thought that it was a joke band, but then you listen to it with a different mindset… it’s hard to describe the appeal of Ween because it’s like explaining a joke. It’s not funny anymore, you have to feel it. It’s not comedy music but it is a giant joke. The punchline is that they’re actually a good band.
Foster: The joke is that all of those songs are really good.
Cameron: Max loves the song ‘Flies On My Dick’ actually, that was a big influence for us on this record.
Max: You’re making fun of it but I played that song for Dom at practice and they texted me later saying, ‘what was that Ween song? I need to give it another listen.’ It’s a good song.
Oh man.
Cameron: They put a lot of thought into their songs but they are relentlessly sarcastic. We aren’t comfortable being that way, but we took come cues from them.
Your music sounds sarcastic to the point that it’s a threat; to the point that maybe you’re hiding things. Now that we are talking about Ween, it reminds me of the Ocean Man theory.
Cameron: Theory?
Yeah, I vaguely remember hearing that the Ween song Ocean Man is about people getting drowned out at sea or something like that. It’s a very nice sounding song but it’s also a threat.
Max: Oh, like a Pumped Up Kicks situation.
It reminds me of the ‘Cowboy Nudes’ video. That really threw me. Yeah, like Foster The People.
Max: We are just trying to make our Pumped Up Kicks.
“I will say that there were definitely a lot of moments when we were making the record and we’d come up with an idea and be like, ‘this is hilarious this is a really dumb idea,’ and then it’d end up on the record anyway.”
What apart from Ween influenced the sounds and themes of this album?
Foster: I do remember a period of time when we were practicing five days a week playing the new songs over and over again, and everytime we’d stop to take a break, Max and I would go on the rough - mostly to smoke weed - but we’d be listening to Physical Graffiti.
Max: Physical Graffiti and a ton of Rolling Stones.
Cameron: I was really rediscovering The Beatles and Funkadelic…
Foster: Nilsson?
Cameron: A lot of Nilsson. Mostly older music. 70’s studio musician stuff. The bands who are our contemporaries really stay away from that stuff. I think everyones wanting to be more angular and punchy, and that’s cool, but I leaned more toward older stuff.
Oddly punk rock to see everyone going toward heavier angular sounds and you lean into Nilsson.
Foster: Yes! Finally someone sees us as a punk band.
Cameron: The true punks sell out.
I have this strong belief that Midwestern-Emo is the most punk rock scene out there because everyone hates on it and it has no redeeming qualities or anything that makes it cool. They have no real fans. I love it. Same for Math Rock.
Foster: I like that, I’m going to start telling people that.
Cameron: Their fans are all broke high school kids and you I guess.
Max: There are probably like forty five thousand Math Rock fans in the entire world, and they’re all in the midwest.
Foster: There are forty five thousand Math Rock bands and they all have one fan each.
Cameron: And each fan is like, the drummer’s mom.
Max: If you go and look at the biggest Math Rock band on earth, their monthly listenership is exactly forty five thousand.
Cameron: You don’t have to do a lot of math, ironically, because the numbers are so low.
Is there anything non musical that inspired or influenced you?
Foster: That’s a good question…
Don’t think too hard. I asked another band this question and they said they watched Anchorman after every practice.
Cameron: We definitely didn’t watch Anchorman.
Max: Seinfeld was really big on tour. That Europe tour, we watched probably fifty episodes of Seinfeld.
Cameron: Good television, for sure. Sopranos was around for a while. I started realizing how funny the Sopranos is. For so long I thought it was this sad, depressing show, but it made me laugh every single episode.
Foster: It’s so goofy.
Well we are half way through this interview and you guys have been mostly doing bits at each other that I’ll have to cut out for word count, so it seems like comedy is a big factor for you.
Foster: I will say that there were definitely a lot of moments when we were making the record and we’d come up with an idea and be like, ‘this is hilarious this is a really dumb idea,’ and then it’d end up on the record anyway. The process just turned off in that moment. There are parts that aren’t necessarily goofy, but they are ideas we came up with when we were like fifteen.
Do you think that as a band you are all adding up to what you wanted to be when you were fifteen?
Foster: I don’t know but I also wouldn’t trust my fifteen year old self to be responsible enough to plan my future.
Cameron: When I was fifteen, I wanted to be a horse.
At fifteen you wanted to be a horse?
Cameron: Yes. I wanted to be a horse. I would practice galloping around the yard. I don’t know.
Max: That became a real issue, he was too focused on horsedom.
Foster: Yeah, he’d be galloping and doing horse shit and we’d have to be like, ‘stop, stop, we need to practice.’
Cameron: Yeah pooping on the floor between every take, it was really rough.
Foster: All of us wanted to be in a band in one way or another. I remember vividly being in high school and we just finished making Projector and being like,’ alright that was our last album we are all going to college, going our separate ways,’ and Max saying,’I think we are going to get signed,’ so much and all of us going, ‘shut up, Max! We are not getting signed!’ What I’m saying is that Max really manifested it for us.
Cameron: You know why he manifested it? Because he was the only one not going to college.
Max: Oh, I was banking on this shit because it was either that or I work at McDonald’s or go to the army.
How’s this working out for you now?
Max: Ummm pretty well. I’m a drug dealer, now, full time.
Cameron: The thing about being in an indie rock band in this day and age is that you don’t get paid for a long, long time.
Foster: However, if you’re a drug dealer, you get paid pretty often.
Cameron: Yeah, the turn around is pretty fast. Luckily we are at an age where we can be poor and it’s still fun.
How old are you guys?
Cameron: I’m twenty one, he’s twenty.
Max: I turn twenty one tomorrow, actually.
Cameron: Oh shit! That’s right!
What’re you gonna do? Drink alcohol, I reckon.
Max: Sit at my house, pound some beers, I don’t know.
Do you think that you are all on the trajectory of getting to where you want to be? What’re your aspirations?
Foster: Our aspirations have changed probably fifteen times, we’re very restless.
Max: Yeah, we can’t settle.
Cameron: Well, you know, I think that Geese, as a band, is trying to be bigger than Jesus. We are trying to ultimately replace Christianity.
Foster: And I think that we are on track to do that. At any moment.
Max: I don’t know what we want. Everything we were trying to do, we’ve done, but maybe because our goals were small. We wanted to play a sold out show, and go on tour, and make records, and we’ve done all of that.
Cameron: Aspirations are weird because the moment I introduce expectations, I get a stomach ache. There’s only so much that I can control. We can make something really great, and work really hard, and we did work really hard on this record.
Foster: Believe it or not.
Max: Contrary to how shit it is.
Cameron: We do all take the music dead seriously. I guess our goal is to not become complacent in our sound.
Foster: This’ll sound weird, but our aspiration every time with every record- we make something and then start in on the next and we sit down and go, ‘alright, this time, we cannot make a shitty record. We are going to make a good record.’ That’s the only aspiration that’s stuck around. We cannot make bad music. When we make a bad album, Geese will break up. That’s why we keep almost breaking up.
See, hear, and smell Geese, here.