It was that bass synth that hit me first. Right in the stomach. It was over ten years ago but I remember like it was yesterday. Even in a small venue that sound punched me so hard but rather than hurt, it massaged me from the inside out.
From that moment I knew I had musical friends for life. I played every single they ever released on my Remix Radio show. They played my club night and I saw how London clubbers loved this band like I did. I watched them tear the roof off The Remix tent at Secret Garden Party, and that even that super-eclectic crowd responded with reciprocal sweat, smiles and hands in the air.
GOOSE have always managed to unite people. Rockers and ravers. Pill-heads and piss-heads. Minimalists and maximalists. Techno junkies and indie-dance kids. They bring together two polar worlds and make them seem like they were always meant to be together. And they did this the hard way. It’s much easier to go down the well trodden path, but bands like GOOSE know that although the journey is more treacherous, the view from the path less travelled is always better, the people who take that path are braver and the journey more interesting.
This band never said “we are the answer”. They exist more to ask questions. To push boundaries and challenge preconceptions. Their raison d’être is first and foremost to be a band. They write, record, rehearse and perform live like any rock band, and if you’ve been to a GOOSE gig, you know they have a rare and formidable ability to connect with a crowd in the same way that usually only a really good DJ can. A band that are able to make a rock crowd rock and make a dance crowd dance. That is a rare and wonderful thing. Ask The Prodigy, they know this too.