Sadder songs bring more optimism
There’s a distinct sense of melancholy coursing through the stellar debut EP “Dusk of Punk” from the upand-coming Los Angeles band Goon — like a gloomy atmosphere set against memories of a lost, happy moment.
Part of that feeling might come from the unique circumstances in which Goon’s frontman Kenny Becker, a multiinstrumentalist and visual artist, wrote the lo-fi, grunge-tinged tracks.
Becker, who plans to bring Goon to the newly reopened Cafe du Nord on Friday, July 7, suffers from sinus polyps that have almost permanently erased his sense of smell and often deaden his hearing. The condition has intense and painful side effects, requiring periodic steroid treatments that determine a constantly shifting wave of wellness. But Becker, also a painter who created the album’s cover, eventually used his suffering as a form of creative energy to write the six tracks of murky alternative rock that became “Dusk of Punk.”
During the lows of his ailment, “I would feel really s—, have these sad, inspired sort of moments, and write a song maybe,” the 27year-old says by phone during a stop in San Diego. “And then when I would feel really good again, it would just amplify that feeling of, ‘I know this door is going to close again, so while it’s open, I have to capitalize on this.’ ”
Amid the physical highs and lows of the writing process, Becker says he also had to grapple with some personal uncertainty. Once deeply religious (the band initially formed in 2013 with classmates from his Christian college, Biola University, where Becker studied painting), Becker refers to a disillusionment with his faith in describing the record.
“When you have a strong religion in your life, you tend to feel like things are purposeful even though you don’t know the reasoning behind it,” Becker says. “Or you have this allpervasive notion that no matter how senseless or weird something that happens is, someday this will make sense — even if it’s not even in this lifetime. That tends to be a vibe that I feel while I’m writing, but then
The often doomy grunge sound on Goon’s “Dusk of Punk” tends to belie its wonderfully indirect, poetic lyrics.
asking, ‘Well, what if that’s not true?’ ”
Thoughtful but perhaps self-consciously so, Becker often refers to these obscure feelings he wants to capture with Goon’s sound, before immediately backtracking on his own explanations that he deems too “mopey” or “flowery.”
“Man, how do I say this?” Becker says, as if wondering where the sound comes from.
What he comes up with — “glowing nostalgia, a warm, longing kind of feeling, set to music that’s maybe darker” — tends to make sense on a record that nevertheless manages to avoid overindulging in emotions difficult to describe but easier to hear and feel.
“I love playing sad rock music, but I don’t want to ever be like melodramatic about it,” Becker says. “I want to be honest, and to be just so sad and so bummed out is not entirely honest. It actually ends up being more interesting when you can write a song that feels mean or sad or sounds happy, but actually has the lyrical content that makes you second-guess that.”
Indeed, the often doomy grunge sound on “Dusk of Punk” tends to belie its wonderfully indirect, poetic lyrics: “Yeah all I ever/ All I ever/ To sin or swim or willingly watch my eyes,” Becker sings on “Gay Rage,” as if he were drowning underneath the surrounding chaos of rock instrumentation. The song came out of reflecting on discrimination against gay people.
Other moments on the EP can be more focused, such as the final song, “Scab,” a forlorn track on longing: “And the olive of heaven in your eyes/ Passed me by and moved away/ No one tell her.”
This assured voice on Goon’s introduction to the world quickly caught the attention of outlets from NPR to Spin to Rolling Stone. The reaction has been surreal, Becker says, especially for a collection of — at the time of its September release — 2-year-old songs he felt were just personal demos that the band would hand out on burn discs at shows.
Riding on the wave of buzz, Goon’s upcoming debut LP is in its finishing stages, after which the band will shop it around to labels. The forthcoming record, Becker says, intends to do what “Dusk of Punk” hoped to do, but with “bigger sounds and sadder songs.”
“I’m very optimistic and just excited for whatever. It’s cautious optimism I guess,” Becker says. “If anything this is 10 times more of an opportunity to bust our asses and make the most insane music we’ve ever done.”