\n<\/p>\n
Geese<\/a>, the indie rock sensations whose breakout last year benefitted from an alleged astroturfing campaign, have addressed the fallout from their association with the publicity firm Chaotic Good. They do not seem terribly upset about the narrative that fake fans fueled the band\u2019s stratospheric rise behind Getting Killed<\/em><\/a>. \u201cI thought the same thing, I really did,\u201d Cameron Winter<\/a> said, laughing, in a new cover story with Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a>. \u201cThat seemed like a reasonable explanation.\u201d He continued, \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 The fake-fans debate had begun swirling back in April, when singer-songwriter Eliza McLamb<\/a> posted a Substack, Fake Fans<\/a>, cross-analyzing a Billboard<\/em> interview<\/a> with Chaotic Good\u2019s founders. Two weeks later, Wired<\/em> published a report<\/a> headlined \u201cThe Fanfare Around the Band Geese Actually Was a Psyop.\u201d The attendant discourse risked flattening some context of the Geese explosion: Winter had released the cult-making solo debut, Heavy Metal<\/em><\/a>, in late 2024 (and is working on a follow-up, per RS<\/em>); Getting Killed<\/em> had already been festooned with critical plaudits upon its release last September; and the clips promoted by astroturfing accounts depicted shows attended, naturally, by thousands of real fans.<\/p>\n In the band\u2019s first interview since the hoo-ha, a typically acerbic Winter appeared happy to broach the matter, telling interviewer Simon Vozick-Levinson that he, too, struggled to get his head around the success of Getting Killed<\/em>. \u201cIt 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 Amid the astroturfing discourse, the band sought answers from its team. Chaotic Good, they explained, had been hired to share Geese concert clips, but \u201cit wasn\u2019t comments or fake fans or bots or anything,\u201d Winter said. \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 Bassist Dominic DiGesu added, \u201cCome to the show, and fucking tell me how many bots you see.\u201d<\/p>\n