\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \n\tTHAT GEESE ARE, to a degree that has thrilled and bewildered roughly equal shares of the public for the past year, ever since their third proper album, Getting Killed<\/a>,<\/em> landed them smack in the middle of an indie-rock culture war. Suddenly, here was a band whose members had mastered the fundamentals of rock, to the point where they can slip a slice of Pink Floyd<\/a>\u2019s \u201cInterstellar Overdrive\u201d into one of their live sets if they feel like it \u2014 yet also a band with enough of a stubborn experimental streak to confound any expectations you may have, over and over again. Whether they\u2019re playing loud or soft, Geese\u2019s music has an uncanny intensity that\u2019s missing from so many other indie bands. And when Winter sings, in that distinctive yowl of his, you feel like you\u2019re looking right into his tortured heart.<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \n\tGeese didn\u2019t come out of nowhere, even if their supersonic spike in popularity has made it seem that way to some. In fact, they have been cultivating a devoted fanbase for a decade, starting practically the moment that Winter, Bassin, guitarist Emily Green<\/a>, and bassist Dominic DiGesu<\/a>, all now 24, started the band as teenagers. Their audience grew steadily in the years that followed. By the release of 2023\u2019s 3D Country<\/a>,<\/em> their well-reviewed second album, they were close to maxing out the modest level of success that a bunch of kids playing rock music can realistically hope for today.<\/p>\n \n\tBut something else is going on now, something much more mysterious. These days, the shows are bigger and the tickets sell out in instants, filling theaters around the country with concertgoers whose response to Geese\u2019s music can best be described as rabid ecstasy. \u201cOh, pipe down,\u201d Winter coyly told a room full of people chanting \u201cGeese! Geese! Geese!<\/em>\u201d at one sold-out New York show last fall. (The people did not pipe down.) When they played Saturday Night Live<\/a> <\/em>in January \u2014 treating an audience of millions to \u201cAu Pays du Cocaine,\u201d the most heartrending ballad on Getting Killed,<\/em> followed by \u201cTrinidad,\u201d a.k.a. the one where Winter keeps screaming \u201cThere\u2019s a bomb in my car!\u201d \u2014 they became the show\u2019s most talked-about musical guests in ages. Some of that chatter came from clueless cranks who wondered if their performance was a comedy sketch<\/a>, but that\u2019s how it goes with this band. All year long, they\u2019ve been heatedly debated in online threads where some hail them as rock & roll saviors, and others raise doubts, in the manner of ultra-buzzy acts since time immemorial.<\/p>\n \n\tThat last part, the way that all of this evokes a long-past era of rock fandom, is the real puzzler. These four young musicians are driving people crazy with guitar, bass, drums, and vocals \u2014 more or less the same tools the Beatles<\/a> and the Stones<\/a> used \u2014 and they\u2019re doing it right now, in the 2020s. This isn\u2019t supposed to happen anymore, but look around you and you\u2019ll see that it is. So what the hell is going on? Is it possible that Geese are just that good?<\/p>\n \n\tJack White<\/a> thinks so. \u201cGeese, to me, are a real American band, and a real New York band,\u201d says the decorated indie vet, who\u2019s become one of their most vocal fans. \u201cThe vibe, the attitude, and the execution all feel that way to me. I love that despite living in an era of content creators sucking the energy out of anyone who gets their head above water for even a second, they\u2019ve captured the magical thing where people are very excited about a rock & roll band in a visceral way.\u2026 Them blowing up shows us there is hope.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tGeese started noticing their change in fortunes almost immediately after Getting Killed <\/em>came out through Partisan Records on Sept. 26, 2025. The next day was a Saturday, and they marked the album\u2019s release with a free outdoor show at a plaza in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, called Banker\u2019s Anchor<\/a>. \u201cI was really pissed that we had to do that,\u201d Winter tells me. \u201cI thought no one was going to come, and we would be busking, basically.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSuffice it to say, when the afternoon of the 27th rolled around, they were not busking. \u201cWe came in that morning, and we were like, \u2018There\u2019s going to be 500 people that show up, at the most,\u2019\u201d DiGesu recalls. \u201cAnd then at least 2,500 people came.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tFor the band at the center of it all, the sudden increase in attention was disorienting at times. \u201cIt was very scary when it was starting,\u201d Winter says. \u201cIt didn\u2019t feel like a good thing exactly. We didn\u2019t really know why. I think we still don\u2019t know why. It just feels like a weird time and place for this record to land well on a bigger scale, to be the thing that makes everyone want to buy a ticket to the show.\u2026 I don\u2019t know. It was probably robots or something.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAh, yes. The bots. If you were even a little online this spring, you\u2019ve likely heard about the more sordid and conspiratorial explanation that\u2019s been offered for Geese\u2019s success. The accusation first came to light in March, after two guys from a digital-marketing firm with the rather-too-perfect name Chaotic Good talked to Billboard<\/a> <\/em>about the services their company provides. According to these dudes, they practice something called \u201ctrend simulation\u201d using a vast network of farmed social media accounts to boost conversation around their clients. \u201cWe can drive impressions on anything at this point,\u201d one of them bragged. \u201cWe know how to go viral, we have thousands of pages.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\tChaotic Good took credit for campaigns pushing megastars like Coldplay<\/a> and Travis Scott<\/a>, but none of those names seemed to outrage people when paired with marketing-deck lingo the way Geese\u2019s did. Maybe that\u2019s because indie fans have a higher expectation of authenticity from their favorite acts, whatever that word means; maybe it\u2019s because listeners felt betrayed by the suggestion that they\u2019d been manipulated into the vulnerability they felt when they heard Winter sing about a sailor in a big green coat. Either way, the narrative around the band took a sharp turn on March 31, when singer-songwriter and podcaster Eliza McLamb<\/a> posted a Substack titled \u201cFake Fans,\u201d<\/a> and zagged straight to hell two weeks later, when Wired <\/em>published a report<\/a> with the provocative headline \u201cThe Fanfare Around the Band Geese Actually Was a Psyop.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOn one level, the \u201cfake fans\u201d charge is absurd, a nonstarter. If you\u2019ve attended a Geese show at any point in the past year, or even seen someone\u2019s shaky phone footage, you know that their crowds are full of actual, flesh-and-blood music enjoyers who exist on the same plane of reality as you and me. \u201cCome to the show, man,\u201d DiGesu tells me, sounding understandably exasperated. \u201cJust come to the show, and fucking tell me how many bots you see.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWinter, though, is less defensive when I ask how he felt about the assertion that his band\u2019s breakthrough was the result of a shadowy mind-control program. \u201cI thought the same thing, I really did,\u201d he says, and laughs. \u201cThat seemed like a reasonable explanation.\u201d He tells me that the debate raging around the band this spring caused major consternation inside the band, too: \u201cWe were just like, \u2018Oh, my God. The whole fucking thing is fake.\u2019 We were having a meltdown. Then we marched up to our label over email, the relevant team members, like, \u2018How long have all our fuckin\u2019 fans been fake, you sons of bitches?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tNow, in the band\u2019s first interview since the psyop allegations broke, they want to clear up some misconceptions about what Chaotic Good did and didn\u2019t do for Geese. First of all: \u201cWe learned that we should show up to Zoom meetings about how our record\u2019s going to be advertised,\u201d Winter says. When they belatedly asked their team for an explanation, they say, they were assured that they\u2019d only hired the company to share and repost live clips of their music, nothing else. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t comments or fake fans or bots or anything,\u201d Winter adds. \u201cIt was low-effort TikTok posts that were used to boost the algorithm. They showed us samples, and it made me feel better because they were so shitty.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tWinter<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tIn other words, pretty much all of the hype around Geese was legit, believe it or not \u2014 a product of the same apparently unquenchable drive to talk about this band that, in turn, produced the backlash that followed. \u201cI\u2019m glad that people have thoughts about our stuff at the end of the day,\u201d DiGesu says. \u201cAt least we\u2019re not boring and mid.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBUT FORGET ALL THAT BOT TALK. The secret behind this band is nothing more or less than old-fashioned human creativity, actually \u2014 a group of lifelong friends who pushed themselves and one another until they made a leap that surprised even them. Their chemistry as four musicians who understand one another\u2019s instincts and needs is the engine behind all they\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n \n\tFor DiGesu, it\u2019s easy to pinpoint the moment that set his life on its present course. It happened in September 2016, on his first day of ninth grade at Elisabeth Irwin High School, a progressive institution in downtown Manhattan that began the school year by sending its students upstate on a freshman-orientation trip. \u201cEveryone just gets dumped off the bus,\u201d he recalls. \u201cNo one knows each other, except for the kids that went to the middle school. So there\u2019s all these friends already, and then there\u2019s the stragglers, meeting everybody for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThat group of newcomers included both him and Green, who promptly introduced herself. \u201cI was standing with this kid in the jungle-gym area,\u201d DiGesu continues. \u201cHe was trying to do a backflip, and I was watching him. And then Emily comes over, like, \u2018Yo, can I try?\u2019 By the time we were leaving the campsite, we were sitting on the bus together.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDiGesu chats freely as we stroll through Central Park, not far from the Upper West Side apartment where he lives with his mom and their Yorkie, Cheyenne (\u201clike the city in Wyoming\u201d). He\u2019s the only Manhattanite in Geese \u2014 the other three members all grew up across the East River in Brooklyn, where they met in elementary school \u2014 and in many respects, he\u2019s a classic New York type. \u201cI\u2019m very Italian. Like, 80 percent Italian,\u201d DiGesu tells me, explaining that his mom\u2019s family can trace its origins to \u201ca little island off Sicily called Lipari,\u201d while his dad\u2019s roots go back to \u201ca small town in Calabria called Cessaniti.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very scary when it was starting. We didn\u2019t know why. We still don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\tHis parents met at a Knicks game in the early Nineties, and he\u2019s been a fan since birth. When we meet, the team is two wins away from its first NBA title in 53 years, and DiGesu is proudly rocking a vintage \u201cGo New York, Go New York, Go\u201d tee that his mom snagged years ago at Madison Square Garden. Really, though, he\u2019s more of a baseball fiend, with a near-religious devotion to the New York Mets. When the team\u2019s giant-headed mascot, Mr. Met, made a special appearance at a Geese show in Brooklyn last November, DiGesu was overcome with emotion. \u201cI genuinely started crying,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \n\tWalking deeper into the park, DiGesu points out a spot by the lake where he and his friends used to hang out in high school. \u201cI would get Emily to come up after school sometimes. That was fun,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019d go to the park, smoke weed, then watch cartoons.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMore often, he took the subway out to Brooklyn, where Green, Bassin, and Winter were all enrolled in extracurricular lessons at the Park Slope Rock School. DiGesu, who\u2019d been getting good on bass at another School of Rock program back in Manhattan, fit right in. \u201cEmily introduced me to Max and Cam, and then all of a sudden, we were all hanging out in the basement, jamming,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \n\tThe basement, a.k.a. \u201cthe Nest,\u201d plays a mythical role in Geese\u2019s story. That\u2019s the sparsely furnished space underneath the Bassin family\u2019s Fort Greene brownstone where, at age 14, the four of them began an embryonic form of the band. \u201cWe had this really dingy New York basement that had a fucked-up concrete floor,\u201d Bassin tells me later. \u201cMy mom put up some drywall. We put some curtains up, a bunch of fabric to make the sound as dead as possible, and a bunch of carpets and lamps and shit. The vibes were pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDiGesu, who\u2019d grown up listening to parental faves like the Doors and Led Zeppelin, remembers his new bandmates turning him on to acts like Radiohead and Animal Collective, and how his world expanded from there. It\u2019s a process of discovery that could have taken place in countless American basements at any point in the past three to five decades, except this group of adolescent rockers started a band that has a good shot at standing alongside those heroes when all is said and done. And if that dream seemed unlikely back then, DiGesu is doing his best to get used to it now that it\u2019s coming true.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt feels unbelievable,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I look out and see how many people are in our crowds \u2026 We all love playing the shows. And we love that everyone is into it more now. Hell, yeah. We think it\u2019s better, too.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe sun is shining down on the drained bowl of Bethesda Fountain as he sums up the state of Geese heading into 2027. \u201cHonestly, I believe in my bandmates so much,\u201d DiGesu says. \u201cWe have, what, three albums out? There\u2019s so much ahead of us. I\u2019m excited to see what we can do to music, man.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tA FEW HOURS LATER, I find Green on the Lower East Side, in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge. Gray storm clouds are gathering over the East River as we mount the towering industrial structure where jazz great Sonny Rollins famously went when he needed a break from the spotlight in 1959. \u201cI like walking when I have conversations,\u201d Green \u2014 tall, wiry, dressed in all black \u2014 tells me as we begin to make our way over the river toward Brooklyn. \u201cIt keeps the hamster wheel going.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tBassin<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1996-98 AccuSoft Inc., All right<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThe conversation pauses every few moments to let a J, M, or Z train lumber loudly past us, but also because Green is someone who chooses her words with great care. When Geese were recording their first widely released album, 2021\u2019s Projector<\/a>,<\/em> in Bassin\u2019s basement during their senior year of high school, she never let herself imagine any kind of career in music: \u201cI had no expectations,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s just so rare. There\u2019s so many bands, and so many of them have a very short life span and a very small amount of people that listen to them or come to the shows.\u201d Now, six years later, the fact that she\u2019s the lead guitarist in a world-renowned rock band is still hard to process sometimes. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s even more ludicrous and unrealistic, the life that I live,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \n\tJust the other day, she visited a record shop in Ridgewood, Queens, and found her band\u2019s music on a shelf marked \u201cDad Rock,\u201d near some Wilco LPs. \u201cThere\u2019s a Geese section in record stores!\u201d she says, sounding incredulous. \u201cWe play big shows that sell out for people that really want to see them. Playing in the band is a ton of fuckin\u2019 fun.\u201d But that\u2019s not how it always feels. \u201cNo, of course not,\u201d she adds. \u201cMy brain is very good at finding things to complain about.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tShe falls silent for about 30 seconds when I ask her about something DiGesu told me earlier \u2014 that everyone in Geese is \u201chaving a great time, and a terrible time, at the same time.\u201d He played that comment off as a joke, but Green knows what he meant. \u201cI guess we can\u2019t really move with as much abandon as we used to be able to,\u201d she says finally. \u201cIt\u2019s strange, because in some ways we have more freedom to do what we want, but the decisions that we do make echo more. It gets heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe increased number of business meetings and conference calls required to be part of a functioning band seems to be a source of pain for her. \u201cInterfacing with the industry does not feel particularly conducive for making art,\u201d she says. \u201cI have not been able to find anything in it that makes me feel happy, or excited, or stimulated, or creative.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tShe\u2019d much rather be making music, which is how she spends nearly all of her free time. Since 2023, she\u2019s played \u201ccapital-R Rock music\u201d in Star\u2019s Revenge<\/a>, her side project with Sunflower Bean<\/a> co-founder Olive Faber, whom she describes as \u201clike my older sister.\u201d \u201cI just plug into an amp and shred for 30 minutes onstage,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s fun.\u201d And in January, when Winter gave a spellbinding solo performance<\/a> at a New York club under the name Chet Chomsky, Green opened the show with her own set of bittersweet, melodic gems that sounded nothing like Geese. Most of them were new songs she\u2019d dashed off earlier that day. \u201cWhen I write a song, there\u2019s a very narrow window of time when it\u2019s accurate to who I am as a person,\u201d she says. \u201cMaybe when I stop changing so much, I\u2019ll be able to write songs that last longer.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cI think about everything \u2014 how we\u2019re perceived, what the fuck we\u2019re going to do next.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\tWe\u2019ve crossed over into Williamsburg now, and Green stops when she spots a record store across the street. \u201cDo you mind?\u201d she asks. \u201cFive minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tInside the store, sure enough, there are several copies of Getting Killed,<\/em> including a limited-edition violet-wax pressing with a $75.99 price tag. Green wanders over to the folk racks and picks up a copy of the late singer-songwriter Karen Dalton<\/a>\u2019s 1969 debut. As she brings it over to the register, some kids sitting in the store start murmuring about Geese and shooting glances her way. \u201cI wonder if they thought you\u2019re my bodyguard,\u201d Green quips after we leave.<\/p>\n \n\tShe\u2019s been doing her best to stay offline this year, mostly because reading about herself on social media makes her feel \u201chorrible\u201d: \u201cThere\u2019s an Emily that exists in lots of people\u2019s heads that is not accurate to who I am as a human being, and it\u2019s strange to see that person reflected back onto me.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHowever mixed her feelings about being a public figure, she\u2019s optimistic about where Geese can go from here. \u201cI still think we can make better music,\u201d she says. \u201cMostly I just think that I\u2019ve lived almost two years since recording Getting Killed,<\/em> and I\u2019m better at being a human being. We all are. Everyone grew up.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe biggest difference? She\u2019s learning to trust herself. \u201cI was anxious as hell making that record,\u201d she adds. \u201cI put a lot of pressure on myself to be fucking awesome.\u2026 It feels better to stay loose.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThere are certain standards that Geese will always hold themselves to, though. When I ask how long she can picture this band going \u2014 Ten more years? How about 20? \u2014 she laughs. \u201cAs long as we can make good music,\u201d she says. \u201cThe second it gets bad, we\u2019ve got to fucking shut down the whole operation.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\tAFTER MY CONVERSATIONS with DiGesu and Green, the band heads to Manchester, Tennessee, to play Bonnaroo \u2014 a festival that they all think of fondly, thanks to the memories they made there on their first trip in 2024. \u201cIt was one of the biggest crowds we\u2019d ever played to at that point,\u201d Bassin tells me when I meet him at his favorite coffee shop, a Danish roastery in Bushwick, the following Monday afternoon. \u201cReally sick, nighttime slot. We had an insane show, then played an even freakier show at, like, two in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThis year doesn\u2019t sound like it was quite as sick, just a quick trip in and out, but Bassin is in a terrific mood all the same as he peruses the single-origin beans on display, reading the copy on each label aloud for comic effect. \u201cCrisp, tropical, round: No. Juicy: No. Very floral: No.\u201d He settles on a $25 sack of Rutas Del Inca, orders an iced oat latte, and takes a seat, dripped out per usual in a dark-red hoodie, oversize bug-eye shades, and several chunky silver rings.<\/p>\n \n\tThe city is buzzing after the Knicks\u2019 victory over the weekend, and Geese\u2019s affable drummer is no exception. While DiGesu is by far the biggest Knicks loyalist in the group \u2014 Bassin reps the Nets, and Winter was more of a football kid growing up \u2014 Geese, like everyone else across the five boroughs, got swept up in finals fever. So, the night after they flew back from Bonnaroo, all four of them gathered with some friends to watch Game Five projected onto a white bedsheet in Bassin\u2019s backyard. Around midnight, after Jalen Brunson and his teammates took the championship in San Antonio, the whole group poured out into the street to celebrate.<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cI put a lot of pressure on myself to be awesome. It feels better to stay loose.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\t\u201cPretty immediately, someone clocked that all of Geese was standing on a corner in Ridgewood,\u201d Bassin recalls. \u201cI was like, \u2018OK, we should probably go back in as soon as possible.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThis kind of thing is happening more often to Geese lately \u2014 earlier, DiGesu told me with amusement about getting recognized by the staff at a dispensary. But being treated like a celebrity is still a bit surreal for Bassin, who grew up in a neighborhood full of them: \u201cYou\u2019d see Jason Sudeikis in sweatpants walking down the street and be like, \u2018That\u2019s my neighbor Jason.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBack then, music was something he did for fun with Winter and Green, his classmates at Brooklyn Friends School. \u201cWe started playing music together really fucking young,\u201d Bassin says, remembering sessions that began when the three of them were no more than nine years old. \u201cThere\u2019s a bunch of recordings we did that are terrible,<\/em> but it goes all the way back. To all the people that think we\u2019re an industry plant: 2011, bruh.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tGeese often felt a little out of step with their generation of teens. \u201cIt was so uncool to be a band,\u201d Bassin says. They got a boost to their confidence in the summer of 2018, when Bassin, Green, and Winter went to see the Aussie act King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard<\/a> at Brooklyn Steel. (DiGesu hadn\u2019t turned 16 yet, so he stayed home.) \u201cThe entire crowd was a mosh pit,\u201d Bassin recalls. \u201cWe left that show saying, \u2018Oh, my God, band music is back, baby. We gotta lock in and be like those guys.\u2019\u201d Within a few years, Geese would be opening for them.<\/p>\n \n\tToday, Bassin is a man of many enthusiasms. In addition to being a budding coffee snob, he\u2019s an amateur photographer (he\u2019s been trying out a vintage point-and-shoot that reminds him of one he saw in Austin Powers<\/em>); a happy stoner; and a tattoo aficionado, with dozens of miniature images covering his forearms, many of them inked by visual artist Charlotte Tampol, his partner of about six years. \u201cI pretty much told her, \u2018Go ahead and practice on me,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tGreen<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tTo a casual observer, Bassin might seem like the most chill member of Geese, but he says there\u2019s \u201ca chronic overthinker\u201d beneath that relaxed exterior. \u201cI think about everything \u2014 how we\u2019re perceived, what the fuck we\u2019re going to do next, what I wear to shows,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s part of why I smoke so much weed. It makes my brain slow down a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBefore we part, I ask if he\u2019s heard any of Winter\u2019s new solo album. This is the sequel to the singer\u2019s debut, Heavy Metal,<\/em> whose legend has grown exponentially since its release in December 2024, and Geese fans are dying to hear it. So are his bandmates, who have steadfastly supported his solo work even when their own label was lukewarm on it. Though Winter has performed several new ballads full of spiritual allusions and profound emotions at his recent solo gigs \u2014 including a show at Carnegie Hall that\u2019s being released this fall as a live album and a concert doc directed by Paul Thomas Anderson \u2014 Bassin tells me he has yet to hear any studio versions.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHe keeps it very close to the chest,\u201d he says of the bandmate he\u2019s been tight with since third grade. \u201cI know that about him. But he\u2019s working really fucking hard on it right now.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m glad that people have thoughts about our stuff. At least we\u2019re not boring and mid.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\tAROUND 6 P.M THAT EVENING, Winter moseys up to a storefront Chinese-takeout spot in Bed-Stuy. He\u2019s dressed nondescriptly in a grayish T-shirt and dark pants, carrying a black backpack and a plastic shopping bag. He stares at the faded pictures of lo mein above the counter and orders a small container of steamed pork dumplings, which he pays for in cash. \u201cI should stop eating pork,\u201d he says, dipping a dumpling into some sauce. \u201cJust because they torture them to death. I feel like it\u2019s a real blind spot in my life that I still eat meat.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWinter seems tired, and he tells me he just came from a solo recording session. I ask if he had fun at Bon\u00adnaroo over the weekend. \u201cKind of,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was more fun the first time, because we were all high as fuck. Everyone and their mother wanted to give us shrooms, and we partook. But this time, it was all business.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHow about the NBA Finals party the next night? \u201cI am happy about the Knicks, definitely,\u201d he says, though he doesn\u2019t sound too elated, particularly when he starts talking about how it felt to be approached by a gaggle of Geese fans on the street afterward.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI don\u2019t know why the fuck Max lives in Ridgewood,\u201d he says, referencing the neighborhood whose per-capita listens to Geese\u2019s music likely outpace much of the city\u2019s. \u201cIt\u2019s the belly of the beast. It\u2019s like throwing a mango to an anthill.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tEvery other member of Geese has told me that their lives have changed dramatically since Getting Killed<\/em> (\u201cObviously,\u201d Green said), but when I ask Winter the same question, he seems unsure of how to answer. \u201cKind of,\u201d he says again. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to tell. In a lot of ways, not much has changed at all. Like, my routines are not different. It feels like everyone else has changed.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThose routines run deep for him: working on music every day, slowly hammering toward some kind of transcendence. But so does a sense of resentment. Even the supportive environment that produced Geese \u2014 in his case, a composer father and a writer mother, both Jewish, who encouraged him to pursue his interests from an early age \u2014 seems to have left a sour taste in his mouth.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tDiGesu<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\t\u201cWe were supported against our wills, really,\u201d he says. \u201cMy parents made me take piano lessons from when I was six. I hated them. Even the rock-school thing was tedious to me. I liked hanging out with my friends and bashing on the instruments, but really my parents just wanted me out for the weekend. We were lucky to have those supports, but I only started feeling good when the supports were gone and I insisted on quitting the piano lessons, or I outgrew the friggin\u2019 rock-school thing, and started doing it on our own.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tFor all of his independence, though, he\u2019s troubled by the idea that other people find his band\u2019s music challenging. Take the reaction to their Saturday Night Live <\/em>performance, all the confused and hostile comments from viewers unfamiliar with Geese\u2019s game.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt really fucked me up just how hard people took it,\u201d he tells me. \u201cOf course, there were plenty of music-nerd people who loved it, but I felt like the reason they loved it was almost because <\/em>it was sticking it to these average people who just turn on SNL <\/em>after work. It depressed the shit out of me, because that\u2019s not what I was trying to do. It\u2019s not like I wanted to play a fucking song in a weird time signature that\u2019s really loud and repetitive, and then just be like, \u2018Ha, ha, you don\u2019t get it like we do.\u2019\u201d He thumbs his nose, waggling his fingers impishly. \u201cThat\u2019s stupid. But a lot of what we do gets seen as that. I don\u2019t know how to fix that.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHe\u2019s been struggling with how to balance these concerns in the new music he\u2019s working on \u2014 the desire to make something that expresses his unique point of view, while also being accessible to listeners. \u201cIt\u2019s hard,\u201d he says. \u201cI used to write songs with interesting, difficult almost, chords in them, and now it\u2019s like I-IV-V until the cows come home.\u201d Even a mildly unorthodox musical choice feels pretentious to him now: \u201cIt\u2019s actually getting worse and worse. It\u2019s like the fucking rut is getting deeper and deeper, because then I do a ii chord<\/a>, and I\u2019m just like, \u2018Ew. What are you, fucking Keith Jarrett, you piece of shit?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s a funny line, but I can\u2019t help noticing the thread of harsh self-critique that runs through much of what he says. Starting to feel a little like an unlicensed therapist, I ask Winter where that comes from. \u201cI don\u2019t know, my Semitic side?\u201d he jokes.<\/p>\n \n\tGesturing at the madness that has surrounded Geese for the past year, he says, \u201cThere are parts of it that are hard for me, in particular. Like, even Max, for example, he\u2019s better at dealing with all of this than me. It hurts my feelings a lot. It\u2019s just a drag. It\u2019s like I said before: It feels like everyone else has lost their fucking minds, and everything that is good that\u2019s happened to me and bad that\u2019s happened to me is the work of other people from start to finish, and it\u2019s just a big fucking maelstrom, and honestly, I\u2019d rather not be part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cCome to the show. Just come to the show, and tell me How many bots you see.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\tWhen he was younger, he sometimes wondered what it would be like to be in this position. He doesn\u2019t have to wonder anymore. \u201cLike, why do bands break up when they\u2019re so popular? Oh, don\u2019t I know now,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s actually a miracle bands don\u2019t break up sooner.\u201d He laughs morosely, and lowers his voice. \u201cI just want to feel like a person, an actual person. It doesn\u2019t make you feel good to feel like more than a person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\n\n\t\tWatch the video interview below\t<\/h2>\n
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