A goose is not just a goose. Singer Michael Karakos also makes solo albums. Tom Kogg (bass/synth) plays in concerts for SX and Bazart. Drummer Bert Libeert has his own B1980 techno project. Guitarist Dave Martin has already written soundtracks for this series day And the twelveAvailable today via Zoom. They are the manufacturers together without enda tall player we called retour de force in these columns.
Bert Lippert: “The title song was the first song where it all came together.”
Dave Martin: “Adventure. Game. Guitar tracks.”
Lippert: “The demo was basically a guitar. Mikael added three chords, gave his vocals and gave the song a dreamy chorus. A magical moment. He made the whole record go on.”
In the accompanying video, images from your early days are transferred over the song, via lipsyncs. Where did that come from in your history?
Mickael Karkousse: “We could have picked something stylistically and a little too far, but we went for honest and direct. Coincidentally, Dave’s dad—who was everywhere at the time—was digitizing those old photos. When we saw the boys since at work, We thought: We’re still doing the same thing. We’re still four friends, and we’re still making the music that gets us excited at that moment.”
Lippert: “That youthful energy is still there, yeah.”
Tom Cog: “We didn’t know if this lip-syncing would work, but there seems to be a lot of past in what we’re doing now. Some of the breaks Burt played at the time also fit the new music.”
Dave, for the first time in a long time you brought out your guitar. Why did you comment it?
Martijn: “In our early years I was looking for a new sound, but after a while playing guitar I felt like I was mimicking a musical genre. I too suffered from muscle memory: I always came back to something that was already on my fingers. I would have loved to play like Jeffrey Burton, with whom the guitar sometimes no longer sounds like a guitar. In those days I was also taken credit for by Daft Punk: they were more adventurous and dangerous than the rock ‘n’ roll bands of the time. So.
“In the new song Run Away, I go back to the tracks I was a little ashamed of: now I play it shamelessly. Anyway, we wanted to take to heart the band with the new record. Get rid of everything preprogrammed. Play, find on strings and melodies. And shift production to a later time.”
carousse: “without end Resembles bring itOur first appearance, but now we have more baggage. This studio is full of analog effects boxes and analog guitar pedals, all superfluous: we can work on 10 square meters with one computer. But our love for all that is tangible and what you cannot control is too great for that.”
The record was produced by Victor Le Massin: What did the Parisian teach you?
Karkousa: Allow clear emotions.
Coghe: “We have hidden beauty so much. Victor suggested: ‘Only in this beauty is the emotion of the song.’” “Why don’t you highlight them?”
In the 90s, all the French combinations that seemed a bit electronic were devoted to French Touch: what names of this type are most important to you?
Lippert: “Daft Punk, Air and Phoenix. But our influences go beyond the French touch. Is Phoenix French Touch? Isn’t that basically a French band that makes pretty pop music?”
Karkousa: “Our first contact with the French touch, as it were, goes back even further. I grew up half French, but I’m not the only band member who goes to the Sunday morning youth program. Dorothy Club It was seen on TF1″.
Martin: “And to the sitcom Hélène et les garçons†
What do you think of Lille and Paris?
Coghe: “They found If the son of de Courtray Interesting. Because we’re less cheesy than the French. Because we have something raw. After all, we are also influenced by bands like Millionaire and Old Rock.”
Karkousa: Just to be clear: We didn’t register in Paris without end As close as possible to a French touch. The new songs are mainly made in our own studio.
I worked with Victor from where we startSolo EP. We clicked, and he added a new color for me – the goose color. We thought he could be a good leader. We wanted a recording with guitars but no guitar record. We wanted the synths but not necessarily a dance recording.
“Victor himself suggested the Motorbass studio in Paris, a place with a soul that had been run by the late Philippe Zadar for twenty years. (known as half of the producer duo Cassius, editor)† Allow studio life, eat out, talk about the record: that was his way of working. There we celebrated son Bert’s birthday, with cake, champagne and fruit juice. There was a beautiful balance between strong focus and a kind of lightness. So basically the French influence was that we enjoyed the whole process.”
Neville gang
Mikael, last fall I did it Standard Your five life lessons. Someone says, “There is a solution to every problem.” And addressing each problem individually, this is where your solutions begin.
Karkousa: “Dave once told me: Don’t stack your problems. Put them next to each other, then they look smaller and you can’t get confused anymore. We run our careers ourselves and we are involved in many things in the studio that we publish our activities in. We complete project after project. .
“At the beginning of this year I heard this good advice in winter timeThen the actor Matthew Simonic Explain to him the meaning of surfing. “The sea sets the record straight,” he told Wim Helsen. “My problems are no longer on top of each other, but next to each other.”
Martin: “We were very focused when we were without end made. In the meantime, I consciously isolated myself to work with Jeroen Swinen to work on music 1985, a new fiction series by VRT and RTBF about Bende van Nijvel. And now I’m proving that you can’t do two things right at the same time: create an audio clip and do a remote interview.”
You won’t hear us complain! Mikael, how important are Gus’s words?
Karkousa: I was raising slogans. I echoed over the barrier. This time I wanted to say. I tried to put the character in the lyrics and at the same time make it sound to Burt, Dave and Tom.
“References to films and images remain. “World Party,” for example, comes straight from a rave ad from an iD magazine edition (British bimonthly magazine devoted to fashion, music, art and youth culture, editor) From the nineties that were open in the studio. The record’s cover was also inspired by that magazine, which was very different in form from today’s magazines: much larger print, a different balance between text and image…”
Lippert: “In the past I would have said, ‘Only the music is my thing.’ But in the studio, those magazines were in the dining room and in the bathroom, and I must say, an old identifier like this generates very different things, for example, this newspaper Morning. Beautiful colors, different clothes…Imagine for a moment that you have such a life. Mickael does it more consciously than I do.”
Krakus: “This is how my mind works: visually. Bee without end I fantasize about a big party between friends. You have an aperitif, everything, drink the wine, the music is played until six in the morning. Each song can be a character or moment of that night. It is a night full of longing. But is this desire fulfilled? The whole record is about the tension found in this question.”
‘young man!’
In his biggest hit, Kurt Cobain sang: “Our little group always was and always will be until the end.” Dream of him, but you just do it. Glory!
Martin: “With the years you learn how things work and you start using your brain. But as a musician, you’re not allowed to do that. You have to be a bit naive. I think it’s great that we are still naive together. We can make something from scratch, thinking We’ll see where we end up.
Coghe: “In everything we do, our independence has always been central. We should be proud of that. And we don’t know many groups that have lasted all this time.”
Krakus: “We don’t see ourselves as a goose but as Tom and Dave and Bert and Mikael. Then you start to think differently about your mutual relationship. I’ve known Bert since kindergarten, I didn’t. I never wonder: Isn’t it time to find another boyfriend?” ”
Lippert: Before we became famous, we were really good friends. We kept our feet on the ground, and we still do. As soon as one of us starts to float, the others do a reality check: “Dude!”
Another tile wisdom from Mickael from a quality newspaper: “Don’t go after success.”
Karkousa: “Yes, and you have to learn that if you are like me, by nature you are very ambitious. After our first registration, we were suddenly allowed to go to England and even Japan. If you then start to think that big foreign festivals are the norm, you are doomed to not be Happy. The more you leave such goals, the more surprising life becomes. ”
Lippert: The worst thing you can do is wait for that to happen. Because maybe nothing will ever happen. And if something happens, it will turn out differently than I expected.”
Coghe: “It’s also a matter of growth. When you start out, blazing ambition is a must.”
Lippert: “And later you can still be ambitious, but without explicitly working towards a goal.”
Karkousa: “If you belong in the first group in Belgium, you have to be able to persevere. Don’t do that by saying, ‘Next year we have to top the title again at Pukkelpop.’ You can do that by saying, ‘Goose, we are four.'”
“We are enjoying the journey together more and more. What we do here and now, we simply want to do our best. Then the most important work is actually done. And then self-confidence naturally radiates.”
All four of you do a lot of things outside of Goose. Has anyone ever been about to leave the group?
Karkousa: We’ll hear that now. (He laughs)†
Lippert: “We’re not starting a side project because we want to leave Goose, but to expand our expressive possibilities. It also makes us feel alive for each other. We give each other space for, uh…no, ‘cheating’ isn’t right.”
Karkousa: “Polygamy in the life of a musician. Otherwise, there may be tensions, yes. The more we lose with each other, the better we become.”
Martin: “If you limit yourself to one thing, all the tension is there. Because of those side projects, Goose has been a playground.”
Coghe: “We make oxygen for everyone individually, so we can also catch our breath as a group.”
Lippert: “And of course we punish each other regularly, in the playroom here.”
We conclude with a quote from Stijn Meuris: “I don’t understand much dance. But I’ve got a goose.
Karkousa: Perhaps because we are a band. And what the band does is never fixed. Our music does not come from the computer. She has a beating heart.”
Koji: “Many fans just really understood us during our shows. Convincing everyone while playing: we think this is the best.”
without end out at Universal. Goose plays at Pukkelpop on Friday 19/8. All flight times and tickets: goosemusic.com
© Homo
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