Sound of 2026: How Brooklyn basement band Geese took flight

Geese have been described as "Gen Z's first great American rock band" - and it's not hard to see or hear why.

The Brooklyn four-piece - comprised of childhood friends Cameron Winter (vocals, keyboards), Emily Green (guitar) and Max Bassin (drums), alongside Dominic DiGesu (bass) - formed in high school, and were set to split up before they went to college.

Instead, their demos sparked a record label bidding war.

"I probably had the best April 2020 of anyone on Earth", Winter told GQ about the flurry of video calls he took during the first Covid lockdown.

Since 2021, the band have released three albums - but it was the latest, 2025's Getting Killed, that drew the attention of everyone from BBC Radio 1 listeners to 6 Music stalwarts.

A savage and unpredictable record, Getting Killed originated as a series of experimental jam sessions, recorded in just 10 days with producer Kenneth "Kenny Beats" Blume in Los Angeles.

It finds Geese sounding a little like their influences - Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, Suicide, The Strokes and Radiohead - and a lot like something entirely new and original.

Endlessly inventive and musically restless, their songs are given focus by Winter's sharp unfiltered lyrics, cutting through superficial relationships, state propaganda, and social divisions.

The frontman seems to somehow anchor the rhythmic chaos, warbling words that swerve wildly between incisiveness and irreverence; wisdom and wonderful nonsense.

"If you want me to pay my taxes / You'd better come over with a crucifix" he chants, defiantly, on lead single Taxes.

The music video for the track depicts the band playing to an orgy of adoring, thirsty fans.

Raised on the sharp-elbowed sounds of fellow New Yorkers Television and Talking Heads, Geese have gone from being a School of Rock style after-school project to now finishing fourth on Radio 1's Sound of 2026 - confirming them out as one of the year's most exciting breakouts.

Speaking to BBC News, bassist DiGesu recalls how the now high-flying band first got their memorable, ornithologically-themed name.

"We got our first gig as a band in early 2017 and had a different, very cringey name," he explains. "After the show we all went to dinner with our families and listed off a bunch of random names off the top of our heads.

"The origin of Geese is Emily's nickname in high school being 'Goose', and then the plural of that to include the rest of us, basically, and it just stuck the best."

DiGesu was the last member to be recruited ("I joined the band before Emily even finished asking," he recalls) and says the first song they played together in Bassin's basement was Tame Impala's Mind Mischief.

Between 2018 and 2019, they self-released an album and two EPs - all of which have since been scrubbed from the internet.

"We were just 15," DiGesu says. "It's cool to look back on for sure but definitely not a good representation of where and who the band are now."

Still, the songs had enough promise to attract the attention of several record labels.

"It was obvious how fast they were going to evolve artistically," said Tim Putnam, who signed the band to Partisan Records in 2020, in an interview with Rolling Stone.

"However, I didn't yet understand how prolific a songwriter Cameron was, who consistently writes so far ahead of the curve."

The band's first "official" album, Projector, arrived in October 2021, establishing their jagged, basement rock sound. They followed it up with the vibrant, oddball, goosebumpy 3D Country in early 2023.

Getting Killed was recorded about this time last year - just weeks after Winter released his critically-acclaimed solo album Heavy Metal.

Released in September, it lit a rocket under their career, featuring at the top of multiple best of 2025 lists, which DiGesu, 23, says is "pretty weird and new for us."

He continues: "We used to be aware of basically every press [article and] post about us before it got published, and now stuff just comes out without our knowledge and my mom sends me articles I haven't heard of."

Their music is the full of dread, misdirection and dark absurdity. Winter's metaphorical - often stream of consciousness - lyrics capture something tangible about a world where comfort, terror and societal decay co-exist.

"I'm getting killed by a pretty good life," he sings as the title track closes.

Does DiGesu think people have embraced the music because it reflects the times we live in?

"Yes, I think sometimes Cameron's lyrics are so broad yet meaningful and can be applied to a lot of real world situations and interactions you may have."

The album may have taken less than two weeks to record, but you get the impression from other interviews that the process wasn't entirely plain sailing.

"I remember it took us a little bit to get the wheels turning full speed," DiGesu admits.

"With it being the first time we worked with [producer] Kenny we were still figuring out how to best work with each other and where to give space and when to be more hands on."

Not that they didn't have fun - in true Gen Z style - blowing off steam with frenzied Mario Party and Mario Kart tournaments on the Nintendo Switch.

"Cameron usually goes Donkey Kong," he reveals. "Max usually goes Monty Mole. Emily will mix it up but I know she's a fan of Shy Guy and, in Mario Kart, she's a huge Conkdor fan.

"I really [play] with Luigi."

Mario aside though, there is, he says, "rarely a time when we're not in the middle of writing or working on something, regardless of whether it'll see the light of day."

His band are "still processing" what happened to them in 2025, which included an appearance in the Live Lounge.

"Geese is always grinding so this [last] tour was our moment to look up and see all the new fans and old fans who're just as excited and more proud.

"None of us are changing as people, though. We all have the same mindset and are just super excited that other people like what we like."

They'll be winging their way around the world from February, arriving for a string of sold out UK gigs in March.

"Trinidad has become a powerful live song every show," DiGesu notes of their last album's wild opener. "People are really excited to go crazy for it.

"So we'll play with that anticipation sometimes and really drag it out.

Cobra, a more melodic recent single, "was hard to capture live", he admits. "I think we're still working [on] making it perfect.

"It's hard to make a beautiful song with a lot of little parts sound the same with just us five [including touring member, Sam Revaz] playing our usual instruments."

The lyrics to another track, Husband, could be interpreted as they don't owe critics or fans any explanation for their lyrical or musical choices, we suggest.

The band, who seemingly enjoy toying with journalists, playfully decline to comment.

But if we should get one Geese lyric tattooed on us, what would it be?

"I'm trying to think of lyrics with the best imagery," DiGesu replies. "Maybe a really small sailor on a big green boat [a reference to the track Au Pays Du Cocaine].

"Or a goose driving a car that may or may not have a bomb in it [as heard on Trinidad]."

The Chinese zodiac may have 2026 down as the year of the horse, but we have it down as the year of the Geese.

Additional reporting by Mark Savage.