Stepping Up to the Plate With Geese

MONDAY 7:05 PM AUGUST 25, 2025 QUEENS

Geese’s third studio album, Getting Killed, opens with a hysterical confession: “THERE’S A BOMB IN MY CAR,” shrieks frontman Cameron Winter. “THERE’S A BOMB IN MY CAR.” When Winter entered the studio with that lyric scribbled out 25 times, the legendary producer Kenny Beats thought he was joking. It often feels like that with Geese. In interviews, in their lyrics, and at their shows, the group—comprised of 23-year-olds Winter, Emily Green, Max Bassin, and Dominic DiGesu—are hellbent on coy, provocative gestures. But it’s that very sense of ironic detachment that continues to produce some of the most charismatic, thoughtful, and innovative rock music being made today. 

Geese might not be ready to take themselves seriously, but their rabid fanbase is all in. There are entire meme accounts and Reddit threads dedicated to decoding their lyrics and personas. Last month, when I interviewed them over hot dogs and nachos at a Mets game, I attempted to puncture some of the mystery myself. Among the topics discussed were haters, Pitchfork scores, Bruce Springsteen, and Juan Soto’s $765 million contract. While we were at it, I also tried to clear up some rumors: Was Cameron Winter really born in the back of a cab? And is he still banned from Guitar Center?

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DOMINIC DIGESU & CAMERON WINTER

EMILY SANDSTROM: What’s happening? And what do you think is going to happen?

DOMINIC DIGESU: It’s already the first inning and we’re down 1-0. It’s terrible. We gotta come back. I hate Trea Turner. I hate Kyle Schwarber. Let’s go Mets! 

SANDSTROM: Who are your favorite players?

DIGESU: My favorite player on the Mets is currently Francisco Lindor. When he comes up, we’re all going to sing together. You’ll see. 

SANDSTROM: How do you feel about being here?

CAMERON WINTER: I love it here. The sky is clear as day, literally. The Mets are in fine form today against our rivals, the Phillies. The Phillies don’t stand a chance in hell. That’s what I think, if you want my two cents.

SANDSTROM: Do you think Mr. and Mrs. Met are fucking?

WINTER: Mr and Mrs. Met? Well, whatever goes on in the dugout… I don’t pry into other people’s business. But if they’re the same as many Mr. and Mrs., who’s to say really? 

SANDSTROM: All right. Let’s dispel some rumors. Are you really banned from Guitar Center?

WINTER: Yeah, I am. It’s a lifetime ban. And that’s a strict thing. I’m in the system and they don’t let me in. I can maybe hang out there, but if I ever try to buy anything… It would not look good for me.

SANDSTROM: Do you think with your commercial success, they’ll be lenient?

WINTER: I don’t think they take stock in what I’m doing. I get it, they’re running a business. They’ve got to look out for their margins and stuff like that. It’s not good to have someone kicking around too much.

SANDSTROM: Your voice is particularly deep and sonorous. You said you’ve been singing since you were a kid. Have you always sounded like you’re 70 years old?

WINTER: No, I haven’t. There was a time I sounded four years old way back. I can pinpoint about the week that my voice dropped.

SANDSTROM: When was that? 

WINTER: It was during summer camp. I was minding my own business and then, all of a sudden, my voice cracked on every word. I now have this sort of plangent, sonorous, deep, resounding voice that I’m famed around the world for today. 

SANDSTROM: Is it weird to you that people really like your music and your voice? 

WINTER: I’m glad people like the music, I am.

SANDSTROM: Do you get recognized?

WINTER: Yeah, sometimes.

SANDSTROM: Is that weird to you?

WINTER: It depends on the person. Some people are very polite and they don’t take very long. Some people start pouring their heart out and I don’t always know how to respond. But I’m thankful to anybody who likes the music enough to connect with it like that.

SANDSTROM: What’s the best compliment you’ve ever gotten?

WINTER: I’ve received my fair share of cat calls from construction workers and stuff like that. One of them complimented the movement of my pelvis as I was walking down the street. I’ve never forgotten that.

SANDSTROM: What’s the meanest thing someone has said about you?

WINTER: Hmm. Oh, we’re not very popular in Germany.

SANDSTROM: Really?

WINTER: No. Not me nor the band. I was forwarded an article written about me in a German magazine and there was a comment section in German. I had to press the Google Translate button on this website and all the comments were very creatively mean. One of them said, “I’ve found new music to torture my fighting dogs with.”

SANDSTROM: Their fighting dogs?! 

WINTER: Yeah. Germans…. They don’t care for us. But they work hard, they play hard. They’re typecast as a very serious people, but then you see them in the beer gardens, whatever they are, and they’re fucking reveling. They’re getting so drunk. They’re throwing up on each other. They’re hugging and kissing.

SANDSTROM: You were born and raised in New York, but I don’t think people associate you with the city much. What do you think about that?

WINTER: I mean, I think you have to put in work to associate yourself with a city. I would argue New York transplants do more of that because they want to reinvent themselves really badly. But it would be hard to reinvent myself via New York because I’ve just lived in it all my life.

SANDSTROM: On the new record, there’s a song about blowing up a car.

WINTER: [Smirks] I don’t know which one you’re referring to.

SANDSTROM: You keep screaming, “There’s a bomb in my car.”

WINTER: I believe that’s the first song, yeah.

SANDSTROM: What’s up with that lyric? And that song? There’s someone in the trunk, someone’s getting murdered. 

WINTER: It’s about love, it’s about peace, all that stuff. “There’s a bomb in my car” is actually a very multifaceted metaphor that I think an experienced listener will pick out instantly with the right… Well, that would spoil it, wouldn’t it? 

SANDSTROM: Do you fuss over lyrics a lot, or is it more like you get them down and don’t edit a ton?

WINTER: It depends. Sometimes I fuss a long time over them, and other times they just sort of all happen at once. I prefer the ones that all happen at once. The better songs usually get written in 10 minutes. The ones that take a while are because I’m trying to force something that doesn’t want to happen. Sorry, I’m very distracted by this. [Animation plays on the scoreboard] What is Tube Man?

SANDSTROM: I don’t know. But I want to find out.

WINTER: Oh, there. Yes, I’m familiar with Tube Man. Oh, wow.

SANDSTROM: I recently found out that Juan Soto received a contract for $765 million. It’s the highest contract in sports history. What would you do with $765 million? 

WINTER: Me?

SANDSTROM: Yep.

WINTER: I’d buy Juan Soto out of his contract, and I’d have him play for me already.

SANDSTROM: Like lock him in your backyard?

WINTER: Yeah, something like that. We could use a team. I mean, that’s really good for publicity.

SANDSTROM: Right.

WINTER: We’re trying to branch out of the indie rock business. There’s no fucking money in it. We’re going to try and get a Starbucks franchise or a baseball team. [Gestures to the field] Oh, people hate this guy.

SANDSTROM: Bryce Harper? 

WINTER: No one likes seeing this.

SANDSTROM: What do you put on your hot dog? 

WINTER: I typically put… Wow. Yeah, he threw to third instead of second. He was ambitious in that way. Do you know the general practices of baseball and stuff?

SANDSTROM: No, not at all. I tried to learn for this interview and I get it a little more now. 

WINTER: There are a lot of rules. It’s a bit more restrictive than other games.

SANDSTROM: Wait, what’s on your hot dog?

WINTER: I guess I’m just more of a straight ketchup kind of guy. Mustard kind of overpowers it for me.

SANDSTROM: What’s your diet like? What does a 23-year-old indie rock musician coming into stardom eat?

WINTER: Coming into stardom? Well, stardom tastes a lot like honey mustard and fucking crinkle fries and Coors Light. I try to drink the Coors Light whenever possible instead of the traditional Coors, just to keep myself limber.

SANDSTROM: I read online that you were born in the back of a cab. Is that true?

WINTER: [Yelling at game] No, no, no! Yeah, I was born in the back of a cab. It’s a long story.

SANDSTROM: Where was the cab going when you were being born?

WINTER: We were in Chinatown, we had just made it over the bridge. Labor hit my mom really, really, really fast. So I was crowning by the time she was in the cab.

SANDSTROM: Does that—

WINTER: Holy shit. I just lost my parlay. My parlay won’t hit now.

SANDSTROM: Oh, wow. I like Manhattan. [A mascot on screen]

WINTER: Well, he just won, so congratulations.

SANDSTROM: Everyone on Twitter says you’re Gen Z’s Leonard Cohen. 

WINTER: [Grimaces]

SANDSTROM: You were talking about him in an interview and you said, “I’ve been listening to today’s singer-songwriters and they gross me out compared to Leonard Cohen.” Who’s grossing you out right now? What do you hate about contemporary music? 

WINTER: Ugly Larry is one band I don’t care for.

SANDSTROM: Okay.

WINTER: Skunk Muffin, that’s another one that’s lost on me. Petunia Applegate.

DIGESU: I hate them.

CAMERON WINTER: Yeah, not great. Sutherford Ben Hutchins, absolutely dreadful.

SANDSTROM: What’s your favorite Leonard Cohen lyric?

WINTER: My favorite song by him might be “Tower of Song.” That’s a beautiful, beautiful song. It’s just about him as a songwriter, and about what music does for him. It’s very funny and very stark. It’s really beautifully performed. There’s a lyric where he says, “I’ll be speaking to you sweetly from a window in the Tower of Song.” I’ve always felt that he’s talking about how his music’s going to live on without him, and he cares about the listeners that come even after he’s gone. I only got into Leonard Cohen after he was already dead, so I’ve always resonated with that.

SANDSTROM: Nice.

WINTER: But besides that, he changed the lyrics to “Bird on a Wire” a lot. But in live versions towards the end of his career, he had this in the second verse: “I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch. He said to me, ‘Do not ask for so much.’ And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door, she cried out to me, ‘Why not ask for more?'” I’ve always thought that was an incredible summary of the fucking human condition. How much is enough? How do you be happy? Do you ask for more or do you settle with what you have?

SANDSTROM: When are you going to stop?

WINTER: It’s a fucking good question. I don’t know. Probably never.

SANDSTROM: Are you excited about the Bruce Springsteen biopic that’s coming out?

WINTER: Oh my god, yeah. The Bear is Bruce Springsteen. It’s fucking awesome. I do think that music biopics are generally a poor idea. I feel like the whole point of learning about musicians is to find out that they’re just only human. And biopics dramatize and elevate people too much.

SANDSTROM: What’s your favorite Springsteen song?

WINTER: “Atlantic City.”

SANDSTROM: What’s happening in the game now?

DIGESU: We’re in the fourth inning here. We’ve got to get going. It’s almost halfway over.

SANDSTROM: Are you optimistic about the Mets winning this year?

DIGESU: I’m optimistic, but it’s looking downhill at the moment. But hopefully our Metropolitans can pull through in the end and make September exciting, like they always do.

SANDSTROM: What would it mean to you if the Mets won the World Series?

DIGESU: It would mean a lot to me. I’ve never been alive to witness such a phenomenon.

SANDSTROM: Would you rather a Pitchfork 9.5 rating on the new album or the Mets winning the World Series?

DIGESU: The Mets winning easily. Pitchfork could give Geese 1’s for the rest of our career if the Mets win the World Series this year.

SANDSTROM: Cameron, do you agree with that?

WINTER: Yeah, I don’t think the Mets even have to win. I think we’ll take the 1’s anyway. It’s better to just know beforehand. No one likes being kept in suspense.

SANDSTROM: Dom, I wanted to ask about Steven Cohen. What do you think of him?

DIGESU: Billionaires shouldn’t exist, first and foremost. But Steve Cohen can exist because he’s putting all of his money towards the Mets. If there are going to be billionaires in the world, the Mets are the only thing worth funding, in my opinion. Steve Cohen could do whatever he wants with his money as long as it’s put towards the Mets. All the other billionaires should just die.

 

EMILY GREEN 

SANDSTROM: Now you’re next to me and you’re on Duolingo. What language were you doing?

EMILY GREEN: Japanese.

SANDSTROM: Why?

GREEN: Because we’re playing shows in Japan in like, five months. When we were in Mexico, I didn’t speak Spanish at all and it made me nervous and uncomfy. I want to try and do it right this time.

SANDSTROM: Tell me about the new record. I love it.

GREEN: That’s great.

SANDSTROM: Was there anything significantly different this time?

GREEN: I think with the last record we made, we were really over-prepared, and for this record we were incredibly under-prepared.

SANDSTROM: And this time you kind of had a big label behind you, right? 

GREEN: Yeah. I mean, we had the resources for the last one too. We went bigger and had less to show going into it. And it’s a damn miracle it worked out. I have no idea what’s happening in the game.

SANDSTROM: That’s okay, me neither. You guys all met so young. How have your relationships changed and developed over time? Do you ever want to kill each other?

GREEN: Goodness. I mean, I’ve known Max since I was five. I’ve known Dominic since I was 14. I learned how to play guitar by playing music with these people. And similarly, I learned how to be a human being by spending time with these people. They really accept any version of me with open arms. I don’t usually feel like I want to kill them. I usually feel very comfortable around them. 

SANDSTROM: [Loud sound] This is a crazy place to interview someone. 

GREEN: The last time I was at Citi Field for a Mets game was three years ago. I don’t remember it at all. Then the time before that, I got too stoned and threw up in the stairwell and had to leave early. I’m a lot more locked in these days.

MAX BASSIN

SANDSTROM: Tell me about the new record. Are you excited for it to come out?

MAX BASSIN: I’m excited for the cycle to be over and for the record to have been out. I’m excited to have it not be shrouded in mystery anymore.

SANDSTROM: Do you like touring?

BASSIN: I like parts of it. A lot of touring feels like a “hurry up and wait” kind of thing. 

SANDSTROM: Why?

BASSIN: You load in at 10 in the morning and you don’t play until 10 at night sometimes. You get to see the immediate places around the venue between sound check and eating dinner. So I’ve been to a lot of places, but it’s like I’ve never been to any of those places at the same time. It feels like I’m being fucking shuffled all over.

SANDSTROM: Do you know what just happened?

BASSIN: What just happened is Juan Soto shuffled unfairly out between first and second base and the pitcher saw him and was forced to go to second. He outsmarted the stupid Phillies and got on second base like the legend he is.

SANDSTROM: What’s it like for you now that Geese are being recognized? 

BASSIN: It’s cool. I feel like I still have a decent amount of anonymity. I show up to the Geese show and nobody recognizes me, which is kind of dope. I’m doing exactly what I want to do: I get to play drums and get left alone. 

SANDSTROM: What drummers do you really look up to?

BASSIN: Blue Man Group’s really big for me. Yeah, we just love Blue Man Group. We realized that the blue paint thing would be too on the nose if we started to do it too, so we just decided to stick to flesh and blood, what we know best. 

SANDSTROM: Is there a record that came out recently or an artist that really influenced you?

BASSIN: Fantasy of a Broken Heart. I love them. They put out a record very recently and it’s amazing.

SANDSTROM: What’s the meanest thing you’ve ever read about Geese?

BASSIN: That’s a really good question. Before our first tour, there was a YouTube comment that said, “Geese are a mid band. We’ll see if they make it through their first tour.” We almost didn’t, and I thought about that a lot. Also, people call us Goose. That’s probably the meanest thing that could be said.  

SANDSTROM: Would you ever play in anyone else’s band or are you seeing this through?

BASSIN: I’m seeing this through to the end. It allows me the freedom to have the maximum amount of drummer ego while also not ruining the song. The brainchild of this band was Cameron and I trying to start a studio project, and then Emily joined to help and make the stuff happen and play guitar, and it kind of all seeded from a very innocent, pure place.

SANDSTROM: What is the drummer’s ego?

BASSIN: Well, because drummers play the loudest instrument they want to play really hard and really loud and really fast and do a lot. [Watching the game] Let’s fucking go! Let’s go! Sorry. My guy Mark Vientos just hit a double.

SANDSTROM: All right, what didn’t we speak about?

BASSIN: Nothing. Shout out to the Mets. Shout out Heavy Metal by Cameron Winter. Shout out Geese band NYC. Shout out the Bob Dylan biopic.