Like a lot of artists robbed of the opportunity to take their music out into live venues, Belgian indie outfit GOOSE have spent most of the last couple of years in the studio. And just as it has for a lot of us, not just musicians, the last two years presented an opportunity for a soft reset for the band, to take a step back, recalibrate and shift focus.
For GOOSE, that meant separating themselves from outside forces to work on their fifth album, Endless, in the confines of their Safari studio—which also happens to share its name with their imprint—with only one outside contributor: Victor Le Masne, a producer GOOSE member Michael Karkousse worked with on several of the solo singles that ended up on his most recent EP, Where Do We Begin.
As it turns out, although the bulk of Endless was written and recorded in their Safari Studio, it wasn’t until the group connected with Victor that it really grew into its final form. On Victor’s suggestion, the band upped sticks and set up camp in the famed Motorbass Studios in Paris, a space steeped in French music history thanks to its owner, Philippe Zdar of Cassius—one of the most important contributors to the ‘French touch’ sound and, understandably, a huge influence on the band.
We met up with GOOSE—aka Mickael Karkousse, Dave Martijn, Bert Libeert and Tom Coghe— at the Motorbass Studios in Paris to discuss the new album, how it connects to their previous releases, and the mythos that shaped it.
“We’re a rock ‘n’ roll band, basically, even though we use synthesisers and drum machines sometimes.”—Dave
COMPLEX: There’s a ‘90s indie-electro sound to this album, which is quite different to your previous albums. What’s changed between then and now?
Mickael: We always try to look for things that inspire us or excite us. And for this album, the general feeling was to just be the four of us and not have too much input from outside. We wanted to have this small world, and we were able to create that within our studio in Kotrik, the Safari Studio. That’s where we write all our music, but to finish the record—by coincidence, almost—we came upon Victor Le Masne, the producer who I worked with previously, and we had a chat with him about working together on a GOOSE album and he said, “Well, there’s a studio in Paris that I really love that would suit your sound perfectly: Motorbass Studios.” When he said that, we were like, “Let’s go!”
Dave: It all came together naturally. It was really, like, a good coincidence where, suddenly, you’re in the right place. If we’d wanted it too much, it wouldn’t have happened the way it did.
Is that why you put it through Safari Records as well, to keep everything in-house?
Mickael: It’s part of the freedom that we’re trying to have in our own studio, the Safari Studio, our own label. It creates the freedom that we need to do what we want. It helps us to be focused. The most precious thing about it is just the four of us and the friendship between us. Sometimes you have to shut out the world to be able to be free and just be honest with each other and look for that thing that will excite us. We found it, and we’re in a good place with the band now and the record label gives us a lot of freedom and energy.
How hard was it to strike the balance between keeping things between you four while also working with Victor?
Mickael: It’s handy when you’re a band and you’re making an album. It’s handy to have somebody next to you to be the captain of the ship, but it’s always very difficult to find the right captain. I worked with Victor on a solo project and we had a really good vibe, and with GOOSE, he touched on emotions that we’re attracted to but don’t necessarily have in our team.
Tom: And he knew us as a band. He comes from the same kind of background.
Mickael: We talked about music and the importance of emotion in music and being very direct about what you feel and what you want the song to translate. And then he suggested working on the album in this studio. Two weeks before we ended up here, in Paris, we finished the structure of the album in our home studio, then we moved here and a lot of magic happened.
What’s your creative process when it comes to writing a record?
Bert: Each album or song has a different approach. We all make music separately, sometimes together, then we have a bunch of ideas and the ones we like together, we work on. It’s chaotic in the beginning and then—all of a sudden—it starts to take shape or we find a common emotional feeling or sound.
“We can usually feel if there’s something going on, something that triggers us to start something new.”—Mickael
Does it start with a conscious decision that you’re going to make an album, or is it something that evolves over time?
Dave: With this one, Bert had already started with demos, even maybe before we were thinking we have to make an album. Sometimes you feel it and you just start on your own. But we all do stuff in the studio, recording other projects in between all the GOOSE stuff.
Mickael: We can usually feel if there’s something going on, something that triggers us to start something new.
Tom: Then we chose the ingredients.
Mickael: We always compare it with faders on the [mixing] desk. We’re all on different levels, but then at a certain point, we’re all aligning. Zero. The desk is loud. That’s when we go like, “Okay, now we’re ready.” Also, there was a very big urge to play live, so that was also in our mindset when we were writing or when there were demos. Playing live was the thing we were most excited about. With every song we were thinking, “Imagine how this will sound live?” Whatever we were doing, we always thought about the impact that it was going to have. We also had a specific venue in mind that we wanted to play in Martinique in Brussels. Having that in mind when we were listening to the music was also a reference—“is it going to sound good there?”
Presumably, you’ll be taking Endless out on tour as well—have you been able to plan anything yet?
Mickael: Yeah, we have a good tour coming up. We’re going to start in Brussels, and then we’re going on a European tour together with an American band called The Midnight. We’re doing 17 dates in Europe, including London and Glasgow.
You’re probably a bit sick of talking about Covid, but it’s all been fine booking the tour and everything?
Bert: Fingers crossed, so far.
Dave: Take it day by day. We have confidence it will happen, which is a good starting point.
Have you got any festivals lined up?
Mickael: Yeah, but we haven’t announced them all yet. We’ve announced a couple in Spain, which is nice in the fall.
Dave: We’re really happy to be touring again because it’s basically what we like most. We’re a rock ‘n’ roll band, basically, even though we use synthesisers and drum machines sometimes. We started as a rock ‘n’ roll band and the four of us learned to make music that way, so it feels so natural and good to go on the road again and to travel and bring music to people.
