Meet Geese – a band that begins and ends in Brooklyn, as a project between friends to build a home studio out of a basement. Consisting of lead singer Cameron Winter, guitarist Gus Green, second guitarist Foster Hudson, bassist Dom DiGesu, and drummer Max Bassin.

But first things first, I just have to know the background behind their band name, ‘Geese’ and how it came about. Naturally, I’m wondering if it’s their favourite animal or if they, like me, really enjoy eating goose for Christmas (apologies to all vegetarians and vegans!).

Gus from the band enlightens me that “we think it was like the night after our first show. And the way that I remember it’s just funny. This is actually the one question that has different opinions of how it happened. But the way that I remember it, is that we were eating dinner. And we were looking up the names of like animals, because we just didn’t know what name we wanted. And my nickname was Goose in like middle school and high school. So like a geese, we will call ourselves that.”

The five-piece actually met in high school, and have spent most of their time doing Rockstar stuff while still being in school – isn’t that impressive? “Cameron wanted to build like a home recording studio in Max’s basement with him. And I wanted to help out with that,” Gus mentions. “And so it was three of us building learning how to record and then brought Dom on board for bass for a show and then three years later it was officially a band.” In-between classes and having to do homework on the side as well, Geese fit in recording sessions wherever they could and began working on their debut album Projector throughout senior year – out now. When I ask them about how they managed to keep up time management in-between so many commitments, they acknowledge that “it was hard to devote a lot of attention to the music and the record when we had much more academically pressing things on our plates, that actually were a lot more important.” But because they saw the album as more of a ‘passion project’, the pressure wasn’t on too much. “It was a fun break from all of that school stuff. Which I think like probably made us a lot more invested while we’re making it. But just let left us like less time to do that”, Gus follows up.

“We have very similar tastes and what we want things to sound like ”

– Geese

I do wonder whether their parents have been supportive at all since, at least from my experience, they still might want to ‘control’ your life while in school, but luckily this hasn’t been the case for the band members at all. “They were definitely supportive. It was only when we were slacking with school work but otherwise they’d be like ‘do whatever’.” It did take a while for their fellow class mates to recognise their undeniable talents though. “We weren’t very cool in high school. It was a sort of uncool thing like, we’d have to try and like ask all friends like, Yo, can you take out like your Friday night? Can you spend your Friday to kind of pay $20 to come see our band play? And they’re like, I’d rather not. There are some good friends of that would always come. But right before we played like one of our last shows did a lot more asking around, people would come over. And that sort of started to feel more like us wanting to play more shows with people and make this more of like a social thing. And now that’s happening like two years later, but there was a very big gap.” Better late than never – if their classmates didn’t want to come back then, they will certainly want to now that Geese have their successful debut album under their belt, played shows abroad and have an ever-growing international fanbase. Plus, we all know being ‘cool’ in high school is sooo overrated!

Based in Brooklyn, NYC, Geese have been exposed to a rich musical heritage but getting into the music scene posed more of a gradual process for the five-piece. “For those first couple of years, we were much more focused on staying home. Like it was more like hanging out at Max’s space and then play a show every six months or something. But we knew other people making music and now that we’re playing more shows, we play with a lot more people and there’s more of a defined scene that we play with”, the band clarifies. However, being in a band of five means that different members have different responsibilities or tasks within, so I wonder how they approach a new song, and whether it’s ever challenging in any way to communicate thoughts and ideas. “It’s gotten easier”, they chuckle. “We’ve streamlined the process more. Usually Cameron will come in with a song or an idea for a song. And that could range from like being pretty fully fleshed out to not that well done. We do have a system and when we’re in the room, it feels fairly democratic. We have very similar tastes and what we want things to sound like. So that helps,” they unveil and agree on the fact that Radiohead and The Beatles, among others, are their favourite artists as a collective.

Not only do Geese have a debut album out right now, but they’re also going on tour in March! “We live in a Covid Apocalypse right now but we will be on the road in March, and going to Europe in June”, Geese proclaim, with SXSW Festival in Austin and Amsterdam are probably the destinations they look forward to the most. So last but not least, I just have to ask what someone who’s never been to a Geese show can expect – turns out, you can’t miss it and should really buy a ticket for a show in a city near you, because their concerts sound pretty great.

“It’s a lot more gravity. You can expect for us to jump through the drums probably, to either jump into the crowd or the drums. Be ready or have your phones ready? We like to have a lot of fun on stage usually end up playing louder just the way we like, to have that rock show experience basically.”