In the music industry, there are certain benchmarks commonly applied to determine when an artist has “made it.” These criteria once included getting your song played on the radio or landing an album on the charts. Now it’s having a viral hit or surpassing one million monthly listeners on Spotify.
For a jam band, there is another undeniable sign of prestige: Headlining (and then selling out) the most famous arena in the world, Madison Square Garden. Earlier this month, the so-called “next great American jam band,” Connecticut’s own Goose, accomplished that very feat, quickly moving every ticket for a concert scheduled for June 28.
It was the latest career highlight for a band that has emerged as a legitimate heir apparent to the aging lions of the scene, Dead & Co. and Phish, still going strong on the concert circuit several decades into their respective careers. But when I caught up this week with Goose’s twin frontmen, singer/guitarist Rick Mitarotonda and multi-instrumentalist/singer Peter Anspach, they were steadfast about talking about the concert as an exciting pitstop on a larger journey. Which might be true, but come on: This is MSG. It’s a big deal.
“It is pretty wild,” Mitarotonda conceded. “In a certain respect, from a numbers’ perspective, it’s not too far off from what we did last summer at Forest Hills. But the air to it is just a whole different animal. So, it feels like a really significant thing, and it feels like the right time, and we’re just really grateful that we have the opportunity to do it.”
What makes the MSG concert doubly impressive is Goose’s status as a literal indie act. Their label No Coincidence Records — which will put out their newly announced, sprawling album Everything Must Go on April 25 — is a relatively small operation out of Denver, and they have stuck with the same management team from their earliest days as a little-known club band. But while their business infrastructure remains modest, their music is more grandiose than ever. Everything Must Go is a 14-track behemoth that clocks in at 90 minutes, enough to fill out three vinyl LPs. Many of the songs will be familiar to fans as setlist staples for the past few years, including “Red Bird,” “California Magic,” “Silver Rising,” “Feel It Now,” and the first single “Give It Time,” which has a music video that premieres today.
“Give It Time” typifies the sound of the album. Goose’s primary influences (aughts-era indie pop like Vampire Weekend, Fleet Foxes, and Bon Iver as well as, of course, prime-era Phish) are readily apparent, as is the beefed-up production courtesy of long-time collaborator D. James Goodwin. But unlike Goose’s previous studio LP, 2022’s Dripfield, Everything Must Go also affords ample space for jammy instrumental interludes. (All of the tracks are at least five minutes long.) The result is the band’s heftiest and most satisfying studio effort yet.
Sessions for Everything Must Go began in May 2023 and extended into 2024. Part of the reason for the album’s size — and the three-year gap between records — was that they kept booking studio time to record newly written songs. (Though one track, “Your Direction,” originates with Mitarotonda’s pre-Goose band, Vasudo.) And then there was the matter of replacing founding drummer Ben Atkind, whose departure was announced in December 2023.
Anspach estimates that the album is “about half and half” recordings pre- and post-Atkind, with some of the older sessions augmented by re-tracked drums. Both musicians gingerly hinted that the “tension” of 2023 and the subsequent hiring of current drummer Cotter Ellis acted as a kind of “through line” for the album.
“The atmosphere of the band is super light currently,” Anspach said. “And it just feels like we’re in a really good place, just as a group of people.
The first time I wrote about you guys, I talked to the CEO of Nugs.net, who likened your potential arc to Phish’s career path in the 1990s. And it’s interesting to note that Phish headlined MSG for the first time 11 years after they formed. And you guys are headlining MSG for the first time 11 years after you formed. As a career landmark, how big is this in your own minds?
Peter Anspach: For me, still feeling inspired to make music as a band is what I’m chasing, as opposed to just playing this venue. I am super humbled that we’re playing Madison Square Garden and it’s sold out. That’s crazy. But if we were to play Madison Square Garden and that was it, I would be like, “What? That’s not what I wanted!” It’s more about the long game, where if we can continue to be inspired to play together and write music and create, that’s the ultimate goal. It’s all about just being present and enjoying that aspect of the band.
Rick Mitarotonda: Sometimes I feel like I could do better at smelling the roses every once in a while. Sometimes the scenery is wild and sometimes certain scenery, it’s like, “Holy shit, how did this happen? This is weird.” I try my best to be grateful and do the best we can with it. But at the end of the day, it is just scenery and what Peter’s talking about is the real thing.
You made this new record over the course of two years, and the sessions spanned the transition period from your founding drummer departing the band and the hiring of current drummer Cotter Ellis. How did that change the band, and how did you navigate that period?
PA: There was a lot of tension, so the release of that tension is very freeing. And we did some recording in 2024 that I think put a different spin on the record than what it was feeling like in 2023. And just introducing Cotter into the recordings was really fun. All the sessions we did last year really brought a good positive spin for us, and the experience was great. So the record really finished with a high note, after it started in somewhat of a weird place.
RM: It was this bridge through the whole process. I think it holds a really cool place because of that. As Peter mentioned, the tail end of that, the recording that we did last year with Cotter on it, really set a tone. And to me at least that is indicative of a very bright path forward. We kept adding songs to the record because there were new things that were popping up that we were excited about, and that’s part of what delayed it so much. We kept booking more recording sessions to add those songs and work on and refine things from earlier.
This is a jammier record than Dripfield.
RM: Going into that one, there was more of an intention to subvert our thing. The intention here was to embrace it, those aspects of what we do live, and also to embrace some of the newer things that we’ve picked up along the way.
Most of this record will be familiar to fans that have seen you play live in the past few years. How many unrecorded songs do you still have in the coffers?
RM: There are many different categories of backlog, and shit takes time. We don’t stop grinding. I often fantasize about what it would be like to be one of these bands that puts out a record, tours for a year or two, and then goes dark for however many years they need until they put out another 10-track album.
That is certainly an interesting dynamic with being a jam band as opposed to a “normal” band. Most bands put out a record and perform the songs live for the first time after that. You did it in reverse order. Did that influence your approach to recording the songs?
PA: I feel like it did more on Dripfield. It was like, “Oh, well, we do this, but let’s do this instead.” I feel like this time it was a little bit more of, “How can we fully represent the song the best way we’ve been playing it?” A lot of the tracks ended up being a lot more similar to the live arrangement. We weren’t trying to reinvent the wheel, we were just trying to capture it in the best possible way.
RM: There was no heady agenda around it. If something felt stale, then we’d explore something different. But if it felt fine the way we were doing it, it should be captured that way just for posterity alone.
My main takeaway is that this is the biggest and most muscular-sounding album you’ve made.
RM: Post-Dripfield, post 2022, there was a lot of growth. Reaching cruising altitude from that was subconsciously definitely a difficult process, and in a lot of ways, we are still doing it. But the songs that came out of that year, that time, felt instantly like a core part of the band. The songs you’re talking about that we’ve been playing since that year, they felt like staples of the band right out of the gate. I think that this record, a lot of the intention was to honor that, capture that, salute that, as opposed to making a move for something really different or new. It’s like trying to capture the bigger picture of the thing at this point.
PA: I feel like the collection of songs is just incredibly strong through the entire 14 tracks. A lot of that has to do with the feeling of just the way when we are playing them, they feel like they really are telling a good story. There’s a lot of good arrangements. Just looking at the tracklist, I was like, “Damn, this album looks sick.” [Laughs.] And that was a cool feeling. It has a lot of weight to it.
Rick, you said these songs felt like staples right out of the gate. What gave you that feeling? Was it the audience reaction? Or was it more of an internal, instinctual thing?
RM: “Give It Time,” for example, that one was in the wings for a number of years between Matt [Campbell, his co-writer] and I. And then we were rehearsing for the Capital Theatre shows, our first shows with Cotter. And that song, for whatever reason, was poking at me. It was just popping back up. We had tried it in the past. We had tried fleshing it out, and for whatever reason, it didn’t feel like it found itself. And then that time, it just rose to the surface. I remember the arrangement came together very quickly during those rehearsals.
In the past, there was always this question of should it be the more introspective and quieter, or should it be the more jubilant? I always liked the idea of it being both but never found a way to do it. It’s simple enough, but connecting those dots, it all just felt right at that period. So, to answer your question, sometimes perception of things is surprising or impacts those types of things, but for the most part, it doesn’t at all. I think it’s our own perception of “This is working, this is great, let’s keep working on it.”
I think there’s a natural assumption about that song in some way commenting on what was going on in the band as you were making the record. I know this is probably awkward to discuss publicly, but can you give me a sense of how you worked through that?
PA: The tough thing was communication, just not being on the same page about music and direction and stuff like that. It was a really hard thing to talk about, and that was in a lot of ways somewhat stifling in terms of rate of growth. So that was the really challenging part that immediately once we started working with Cotter, it was pretty much the floodgates were opened in terms of it being really easy to talk about music and direction and how we wanted things to feel. And he’s such a good team player and such a positive dude. He’s having such a good time playing music, so he’s pretty much up for anything, and that kind of attitude just felt amazing.
When I saw you guys in September, I could see how Cotter fits that old-school “wild man rock drummer” mold.
PA: He definitely doesn’t take himself too seriously, which is perfect. He’s in a Led Zeppelin cover band where he does a John Bonham drum solo with his hands. He does all these weird, crazy videos. So, he’s got this whole history of just being a silly dude who’s great at music. It’s kind of awesome.
How has the success of the band affected you? I imagine that must have also added to the tension you’re talking about.
RM: There’s a lot of subconscious aspects to that, and there’s a lot of weird things that you don’t really foresee. Relational-type things, but also just personal things, subconscious ways that affect everyone differently. Consciously, it doesn’t seem like that was a major factor of the whole thing. To me, the big thing was just the need to evolve, the need to keep growing and the way that that is pressured sometimes, albeit self-imposed, by external success and things like that. Personally speaking, that breeds a desire to keep moving and keep evolving and working on what we’re doing, trying to get better within our scope. So, to Peter’s point, communication and the ability to be on the same page and understand a common goal is pretty critical.
Before I let you go, I must ask about your pretend rivalry with King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.
PA: [Laughs.] Did you write an article about that?
I did! Because I saw both bands within a week or so of each other, and it was a good excuse to write about these comparisons that I see come up a lot in the jam band corners of social media. On one hand, it makes no sense, because your band has nothing in common with King Gizzard. On the other hand, however, you do occupy the same context in terms of your audience. So, I’m curious: Is this faux-rivalry something you’re aware of?
RM: The only piece of that that we got was when they fucked around on that interview and did the whole green room thing. I was like, “We didn’t ask for any green room!” But as far as the band, they’re badass, they’re wild, they’re hilarious. We did go see them at Red Rocks that night, and, man, they were so funny. Just wild energy, saying ridiculous shit. That was my biggest takeaway, was how much fun they were having and how wild they were on stage. I was like, “Man, that’s got to be insane to be in that band. That’s got to be a fucking wild feeling.” But I don’t think about that too much. They’re cool, we’re cool.
PA: I’m definitely a fan of those guys. I got to meet them last year, and they’re super awesome, very nice. They apologized about the green room thing, which was great. I wasn’t expecting it. They were like, “Oh, dude, we were just trying to say something funny.” I was like, “Well, you know.”
Everything Must Go is out 4/25 via No Coincidence Records. Find more information here.
