A Quick Chat with Goodmonster

The Wolf Is Young feels really cohesive. Did you go into the process with a clear vision, or did the EP take shape as you were writing?

It definitely evolved as we wrote it. We were learning as we went along; tracks like the King Of The Sea and Scream were written first, and we wanted to put the rest of the material in the space between those worlds, the former's mythological outlook and the latter's raw, real-life emotion. We'd developed an intense live feel as a band on stage, and we wanted that to translate to the recordings, but being in production offered the chance to make exciting leaps in soundscape we hadn't thought of in the rehearsal room. Dig Down and A Whispering are good examples of finding a freedom there, whether with atmospheric synths or with distorted banjos.

The dynamic between quiet, intimate moments and bigger emotional releases is a real standout. How intentional was that contrast?

Totally intentional. Our core tenet as a band is to be a reflection of the human condition; in that, our music should be quieter than a whisper in the rain and louder than a howl at the moon.

Sisyphus introduces Turkish percussion, which feels like a left turn sonically. What sparked that idea?

Sisyphus was the last song to be added to the EP, and our process for writing it was a collaboration between Dylan (lead singer, songwriter, it's me responding to these questions, hello there) and our fabo bass player OG, who is Turkish, from Türkiye. We wanted to try out some new ideas in the percussion section; the track starts with more 'producer' percussion (stomps, claps, anything that keeps a simple beat), lands in Turkish and Middle Eastern percussion in the middle (a tribute to OG) and finally comes home to a strong rock beat played on a drumkit, in line with our origins.

There is a strong theme of restlessness across the EP. How much of that reflects your own headspace over the past year?

The production style is a fingerprint of that time period, yeah... our process of making music, art, whatever you want to call it, is an unscratchable itch. Restlessness is a theme that extends beyond the past year (the oldest of these songs, King Of The Sea, was written in 2019), but also this last year we mostly took a step back from doing live shows and focussed on making the EP. It was a meandering path that led off into the dark and unknown, but we knew by following it we could be ready to come back out into the light with a clearer identity.

You have self-produced the project. What did you learn from taking full control of the recording process?

Gosh... it takes a while to get it right! But it's very satisfying when you do. We've learned a lot making The Wolf Is Young and are already looking forward to making the next one. A useful quote that someone else said, for those other DIYers out there: perfection is the enemy of good.

How are you thinking about translating these songs into a live setting now that the EP is out?

Get in the rehearsal room, thrash it out, and then get back on stage; we have some shows later this year that we're pretty excited about. Watch this space.