Have A Gander At - Goose

For those of you that have heard Goose - well done! For those of you that have not - what the fuck have you been doing with your lives? Reading books? Eating crisps? No time for that rubbish with a band as sexy and magnificent as Goose around our parts. Get on the Internet or down to a record shop immediately before you hear that Mika song one more time and your ears fall off.

Gigwise was lucky enough to meet the genial Belgians before one of their typically stunning live shows, and duly asked them to fill in those of you not in the know about Goose and what they are about:

Charismatic frontman Mickael Karkhouse starts: “Basically we have all known each other for a long time, from school, college and just being friends around the town we come from. In the beginning we tried to copy our idols (Elvis, The Beatles and Nirvana) and play a cover every once in a while.” This ‘Occasional cover’ has been misconstrued in other interviews as meaning that they were a fully-fledged AC/ DC tribute act something Goose want to get clear they were not, “Our songs sounded like AC/ DC but it’s not true that we were a tribute act. They are inspiration though, their sound and the impact they had as a live band is something we want to achieve. But today we listen to everything.”

So what is on Gooses tour bus iPod right now? “At the moment err The View ha ha no not really, lots of French stuff, Four Tet. Lately I have been listening to everything that is not rock and is not dance. I have a few jazz compilations and I am trying to listen to nothing that sounds like us or that I would normally like.”

Goose’s music fits perfectly into the current genre that we refuse to call ‘New Rave’ as it has all the energy and passion of rock music but with the euphoria and fun of dance music. Think Primal Scream at their dirtiest or a glammed up Klaxons maybe. Mickael comments: “I think we fit in that scene but just as we would sit in any other scene. We did gigs with Datarock and Metronomy and it works but we also played with Erol Alkan in Holland and that was also a good combination. At the end of the day it’s about having fun, if you play well and have fun then that’s all that matters.”

We asked Goose whether they saw themselves, as more of a dance act or a rock band, “We are just a band” is Mickael’s simple answer. “We recorded our songs on a computer because it was easier that way, but we were always aware that we wanted to be a live band. It was not because we had to but we chose to take the computer on the road. We are the ones that control the computer not the other way round.” So what does a Goose gig entail? “It’s always a bit different because we play in rock venues and in dance clubs. In the rock venues people stand still a bit more but they look like they are having fun and they all look in the same direction! When we do gigs in clubs people are dancing and it’s more like a party. The live show helps people understand the music, Once they have seen it live they totally get what we have done on the record.”