A Conversation with Good Kid on Chaos and Electricity
Interview and photos by Diana Solis
Graphic by Rebekah Witt
When Good Kid, the five-fronted indie rock band from Toronto, took the stage on a Friday night at Elsewhere in Brooklyn, what ensued was absolute electric spirits from not only the band but the crowd as well. Good Kid has found themselves not only at the height of one of their most energetic crowds consisting of long-time listeners but also welcomed by those who were only recently introduced by the band as the result of their virality. One thing was common amongst all: energy fueled by chaos which led to a fabulous show, crowd and band all together.
It’s been a wild month for Good Kid. Having only released their fourth EP, Good Kid 4, a month prior to the show, the band began their This Can’t Be the End Tour with 21 dates spanning across the United States and parts of Canada. KCM was lucky enough to sit down with David Wood and Michael Kozakov to discuss their newly released EP, songwriting, composing techniques, and what goes on in the talks behind the scenes.
Welcome to Kinda Cool Magazine. Can you introduce yourselves and your role in the band?
David Wood: I’m David. I play guitar and do some singing.
Michael Kozakov: My name is Michael. I play bass and I jump.
We were just talking about how you guys have been on tour for almost a month now, starting in Vancouver. Has there been a particular show date that has struck any of you as a favorite or just most memorable?
DW: I think Michael and I both agree on this. I think it was Washington, D.C. Our shows are like, at their worst, B+. Every show that we play is really fun. We are very lucky to have a very energetic crowd. You were there last night; you saw how people are jumping and singing. We’re very lucky to have that. There’s always a baseline of a really great crowd, a really great show. It makes it really easy for us to play. I think Washington was particularly hyped, and we also played pretty well. A show will be so crazy and people are jumping around and bouncing off the walls that it almost makes us play worse just because we love it. We’re feeding off it. I think something tips over, and we just start playing really badly. Washington was this perfect balance of a great energetic crowd. They stayed energetic the whole time. We didn't hit that tipping point; we really stayed strong on stage, and I think it was one of our better performances. The wheel of chaos went great, all the bits in between songs, and the transitions were smooth. It was just a good show.
MK: I felt really good about it. During the encore, the first song is an acoustic song, and David and I are not on stage for it. This is our moment to huddle up and be like, “How is it going?” D.C., we were both like “Yeah.”
When you’re performing, do you feel like you’re falling into the groove of the crowd, or do you shut yourself in when it comes to performing and focusing?
DW: Definitely feeding off the crowd. We noticed that we tried to do certain song placements throughout. The setlist changes constantly as we’re touring just to fine-tune and make sure that there aren’t too many dips in energy. We don’t have many slow songs. We don’t have many heavier low-energy songs, but we do notice a couple of them will change the trajectory of the show. We’re constantly trying to tune it so that we know the crowd is going to get really hyped for a certain part. In turn, we also get hyped off because we’re always feeding off the energy in the room.
MK: The show is designed around facilitating that energy. We very early on started with very, very high energy. We ask a lot from the crowd to participate with us quickly. We get there very early in the show so that for the rest of the show, no one has any reservations and people can just feel free. Release whatever energy.
I definitely saw that last night! It was such an energetic crowd. I was just telling David right now how I saw a lot of parents in the crowd, very energetic for their kids and for you guys, which is always a very sweet moment. I’m curious whether you guys have a number one essential when it comes to touring, something that just has to be on your rider.
DW: Vegetable platter. We don’t divide with it. If we’re left to our own devices, we will order fried chicken sandwiches until we die. On tour, we forced ourselves to level up in the green room.
MK: My number one rider request—I don’t care if they don’t feed me—there just has to be a towel on stage because we get so hot up there, and it’s not good for anybody.
DW: We have fun with our rider because we’re not really drinkers in the band, especially on tour. It’s just a recipe for disaster. We get to play around with fun things to put on the rider. One thing we have going right now are little ginger shots and immunity boosters. I think it’s an absolute gobbledygook. I actually don’t think it works or does anything, but it makes me feel really good.
MK: Nick likes beer, so on the rider, he puts down “Best local beer you got.” At some venues, we arrive and they just give us Budweiser. They did not understand the assignment. At other venues, like we arrived last night in New York, they surprised us with this amazing-
DW: It was a beer called Confetti, I think?
MK: Yeah! It was like a great sour beer. This tour has been particularly really interesting for riders.
The area you guys played last night is a very industrial side of Brooklyn. If you walk out a bit further, it’s like a whole scene with a bunch of bars. Definitely a fun area if you guys have never walked around.
DW: We actually did after the show! We did a little adventuring. We ended up at a place called KeyBar, which was fun. We went to Key and Johnsons. Johnsons were too hot and too full. We went to the Key, and it was empty at the front, so we were like perfect.
That’s how most Williamsburg bars go. It’s either really hyped or the complete opposite. I know Elsewhere transitions to a rave-type of scene.
MK: Oh, it transitions really fast.
Yeah, it’ll go from the indie rock scene that you guys had last night, and as we’re walking out, it was full of people ready to rave.
DW: Our fans are really cool, but there was a different level of cool when we came out. It was like a packed house. We were like, “These aren’t Good Kid fans.”
I want to shift gears to Good Kid 4, which is your fourth EP. When it came to this EP, was this something that came from scratch, or did you bring any demos that you had worked on previously?
DW: It was a mixture of both. I think a couple of our songs, we had already been sitting on them for a little bit. We had songs that we’d been working on for a while, like “Summer,” for example. Jacob had been slowly piecing that together with us. We brought it together in the studio. There was also “From The Start,” which is an example of something that came together really quickly. It was just a decision by the band to play a cover. We were doing an opening spot in England and wanted to give the audience a really fun time, so let’s pick a song, cover it, and have fun with it. That was the song we chose, and we really loved it. At a point in the song where “What’s a girl to do,” we were making it really theatrical.
MK: Nick would take a flower, disassemble the flower, take the flower petals, and just toss it into the air. We did it every show. There was a group of people who followed us from show to show, and they noticed it. At one of the shows, they brought their own confetti, so when he said, “What’s a girl,” five people right in front of us tossed a massive amount of confetti in the air. There’s an amazing video of all of us just looking very shocked on stage.
DW: The song grew and developed its own key moments throughout the tour. People had been coming to multiple shows. We kept seeing it grow and grow and grow. People were anticipating that song at the shows, even though we were just the opener at that point. The reception was so hot with the audience that we were like, “Yeah, let’s just go into the studio,” so that one came together very quickly.
MK: When we were recording it, we weren’t recording it for the EP. We just recorded it because it was fun. I think later on when we heard it in the context of the EP, it actually made a lot of sense.
DW: It was doing really well. We thought it really belonged on the EP.
Funny enough, we actually covered Laufey for our issue back in August, and I did that interview. It’s very nice to see that connection and to have you guys here today. What was the process of translating her jazz sound to have it fit into your indie rock sound?
MK: It was very easy because Jacob translated the guitar part. When Jacob came through the rehearsal space with the sick indie rock riff, he was like, “I’m playing Laufey.” We were like, “Oh okay, I can do this. It’s easy.” We wrote our parts for that in half an hour. We were rushing to finish the prep for the tour and write the rest of the songs for the EP because we were leaving for the UK for a month. This just came together so quickly.
DW: It was torture for me because I had the lead part. I had to do the scatting. I had to learn that on the guitar. During the tour, Nick and Jacob started debating over what key to play the song, and they were like, “Let’s just change the key.” I was like “Oh yeah, sure guys, let's just change the key.” I already learned this, so now I’m playing it in a different key, and then we switch it back to the original keys. There are shows where I’m like, “Where do I even play this solo?” We eventually got there.
It’s very awesome seeing you guys grow. It’s been about eight years since your first EP came out. When it comes to composing or writing, are there any techniques you’ve held on to throughout the years?
MK: We have this amazing technique of just letting David write the songs. He brings them in, and they’re great. We have something to start writing our parts on top of.
DW: Michael’s being modest. I have not written a single bassline for this entire discography. We’ve actually let go of a lot of practices more than kept. I think the ones we’ve kept are if we don't agree on something, move on and say, “Let’s work on something else.” When you’re writing songs, a lot of the time, it’s just the flow of that day. Sometimes you know you’re going to break through with this song, so it’s the idea of working on something else. Eventually, it can become a bit of a problem when you’re doing it too much because certain songs get left behind. If it’s always the same song, it’s just never going to get worked on. Ultimately, I think we’ve let go of certain practices with songwriting and all-around writing with egos where you feel attached to a song. It’s important to know that, at the end of the day, the song is not going to sound 100% of the way you expect it to sound. It’s always going to be a little different, changes made. That’s a good thing because our music speaks for itself. Whenever we do these releases and people listen to our music, we’re obviously doing something right because the reception is incredible. The feedback we get, the comments and people posting on Twitter, we see it. We try not to overthink it too much and put writer mentality aside and say, “Let’s just make the best possible song.”
MK: In the last year, there’s been a little bit of a shift in philosophy and just leaning into being playful and not being okay. Consistency matters less than just having fun. I think you see it in our show, where we bring out a wheel of chaos and we used to have Beyblades battles. In the EP, you also hear it. We have a song with crazy double kicks, a song with trumpets. It’s just all these really fun ideas that might not all be 100% consistent, but it’s so fun that it kind of glues it all together.
DW: I think that’s a good point. I’ve noticed the same thing where we’ve adopted the style of just going with it for our live music and all these shows. We just go where the crowd is going, like going with the room, because that’s what puts a really good show together. We find that, when you do that and sort of let the show happen that way, it’s going to happen, not trying to make it your own and rigid. You find that the show goes so much better. People have so much more fun, and we have more fun in the end by doing that. I think you’re right in that we have a kind of philosophy that has also translated now over to our songwriting where it’s just like, “Hey, let’s just go with it” and see where it takes us. That ended up being the ethos for the EP. We tried a bunch of things that we had never tried before, even though it didn’t necessarily sound like typical Good Kid songs that have been put out in the past. We just have fun with it, like the brass section and fun outro in “Bubbly.” I’m really happy we went with it on those because I think it’s just my favorite EP that we’ve put out.
I think it’s an amazing EP, and I enjoy hearing how it came together. I wanted to transition to music videos. You guys have had the chance to work with a lot of great creatives, such as professional dancers for “Dance Class.” Has there been any consideration of Good Kid taking on the screen and doing a music video or any vision for a particular song?
DW: We’ve actually been talking about it a lot. It’s funny because the hardest challenge for Good Kid is scheduling music videos. Music videos are like, “You have to be available this Saturday on this day, all five of you, and you all have to be excited to be there.” We’ve noticed it with photo shoots too. If you go to a photo shoot and one person’s having a bad day, the photo shoot is over. You can see it in the photos, in the result, and the lack of energy. It’s like that with music videos. We’ve had some luck in the past, but it’s always been a freeform experience. The higher you go with music videos, the more you may spend on it, the more investment you put into it, the more rigid it’s going to get. You have to follow a director who’s going to give you clear instructions like this. With that comes a lot of scheduling and lacks that free flow experience. It’s not the antithesis to us as a band, but it works against how we do things. One positive experience we had was when we did the “Orbit” music video. I remember that day; it was just a big green screen around us. They were like, “Perform the song however the hell you want to perform it. Just have fun. We’ll do a few runs of it,” and they were going to strap Nick to a rope and hoist him up as an astronaut. It was great because there were no constraints. It was just going with whatever you feel like at the moment and seeing what happens. It actually ended up being a really fun day, and you can see in the video that we had a lot of fun with it. I think that energy comes out in the “Orbit” music video, which is why it’s one of my favorite videos that we put out because you can tell on-screen and off-screen that the vibes are good. With music videos, it’s really tricky to get all five people invested and excited about the same ideas. It’s also really hard to connect with directors, and some are hard to communicate with sometimes.
MK: The thing is that we are a band of five very opinionated people. All of us, as soon as we start talking about a music video that we have some control over because we’re in it, now everybody has a vision for what it should be. Aligning on the vision, we’re bickering with each other about what it should be. It’s very hard to come to a director and present the vision. I think we’re getting there. David and I are on the same page, and we know what the next one might look like.
I know a lot of people are anticipating a debut album. Has there been any discussion of what it would mean for Good Kid sonically or lyrically?
MK: It was a discussion a week ago where we sat down and talked about what an album could be and why we would make an album if we were to make one. We talked about whether we’re the right band to make a concept album and what’s the benefit of it. If we have 10 songs, why should it be an album and not two EPs? I think the benefits of having an album that was there 15 years ago are not necessarily always here. The question is like, “Okay, if we’re going to do an album, what does it actually mean? Why are you making an album?” The answer has to be because it sounds better with that collection of songs. At the end of the day, that’s really the reason to make an album. Now that we’re starting songwriting, it’s just going to be up to “What songs do we have? Do they sound better together or separate?”
DW: I agree. A really cool conversation I had yesterday after the show was with Phoneboy. They were at the show, and we got to hang out with them. I was chatting with James, their bassist. They’re an amazing band who’s released EPs but also full-length albums. I asked him, “What is the strategy involved? What is the motivation behind putting out a full-length album versus an EP?” James was like, “I don’t want you guys to go against what you’re doing right now. Something is obviously working for Good Kid.” It was just more of a conversation around what we want to provide for our fans, and a full-length album, it’s a lot less conversation around certain release strategies and marketing. The EPs work for us in terms of marketing and strategies. We try to make an event of it, even our smaller songs that aren’t necessarily blockbuster songs on the EP. We did “First Rate Town” back in January a year or two ago, and it came with a made-up mayoral election campaign on our Discord and social media. We take something and are like, “How can we have the most fun with it and get the most feedback from singles?” That comes with releasing EPs, putting out singles, and having fun with it. It’s not just for convenience but also fun with the marketing around releasing a single. With a full-length album, it is more of a philosophical discussion around what we want our band to be and what we want our releases to look like. Now more than ever is the time for us to sit down and look at doing our debut feature-length album. It’s mostly what we want to do as musicians. Behind the scenes is like, “If we want to release a full-length album, what would it look like? What would it sound like?”
MK: The real answer is “We’re going to have to wait and see what the songs are.”
DW: The first step is just writing a bunch of songs. We can do that like Michael said. We could release an EP if we want to, but we start with “Let’s just write tons of new music,” which is what we’re doing right now behind the scenes when we’re not playing shows. We’re constantly trying to write more songs that we can put together and make that decision on whether we want to do an EP or a full-length album.
One final question, what have you guys been watching on tour?
DW: You actually caught the two least anime watchers. Jacob has been watching all the anime. I’m currently reading “Dungeon Meshi.” We actually have a book club on our Discord and decided to switch over to a couple of manga series. If Jacob were here, he would say, “Go watch ‘Bocchi the Rock!,’” his go-to show. I think Michael and I are more vanilla when it comes to anime.
MK: The show I have downloaded right now is “Fallout.”
I have a friend who’s been telling me I need to watch that.
MK: Everyone’s been mentioning it to me, so I’m excited to start it.
DW: I do like a lot of the classics though. My favorite so far is “Cowboy Bebop,” which is an amazing show. So is “Neon Genesis Evangelion.” I have a lot of fun watching those.
MK: Is it really produced Evan-gellion, not evalleion?
DW: I think it’s Evan-gellion. I have no idea.
MK: Depends on who you are on Earth.
Thank you guys so much for joining us at KCM!
If it hasn’t been shown enough from the genuine love, details, and energy put into their performances by Good Kid, then it has to be said. Good Kid understands their role as not only performers but writers and composers who truly take their listeners and themselves into mind. They’re not writing songs, simply to get them out into the world. This is a band that takes a careful approach to what they’ve created so far and why they’re creating. Even as openers on larger-scale tours, they come out every night with a mission to have every single person in the crowd to open up and jump around. It speaks for itself as to why listeners keep coming back for more shows. It was an absolute pleasure to speak with the band, following a great night of their headlining show in Brooklyn. Good Kid will be ending their North America leg of the This Can’t Be The End tour this June in Ottawa before crossing the ocean to Dublin for a UK/EU tour this fall. Be sure to take a listen to their newest EP, Good Kid 4.
Adan Diaz
Good Kid
