The formation of the flock
Geese: “a. Flock of Geese organized by Basketcase. b. Live in Los Angeles,” so says my Geese baseball tee I got for Christmas. And not to be confused with the band, Goose.
It was a Friday night in Isla Vista, and my friends and I were at our first band show of the year. The Geese mania that has since taken over our college town were mere whisperings on that September evening, and after the show we hung around to talk to our friends in the band.
“Have you ever heard of Geese?” I remember someone asking. I wrote off the question pretty quickly — I knew their front man was Cameron Winter and his grovelly voice, which I had given a try in the past — it wasn’t my favorite. And then two days later, my dad texted me telling me to listen to a band on the verge of exploding: Geese. So I caved and skipped through their most recent album, “Getting Killed” (released in late September 2025), until I found a song I liked. From that day on, I listened to “Au Pays du Cocaine” at every chance I got.
Winter (vocals), Emily Green (guitar), Max Bassin (drums) and Dominic DiGesu (bass) started playing together in 2016 as just another Brooklyn high school band rudely interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the world paused, and by the time they were 16, Geese had already independently released their first EP on Soundcloud (the album, “A Beautiful Memory” was taken off streaming platforms in 2020). Hoping to release another album before graduation and their predetermined dissolvement and departure to college, the band wrote demos for “Projector” in late 2019 and early 2020.
Much darker than their earlier releases, “Projector” caught the eye, or in fact, ear, of Willie Upbin, an expectant graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and set to be a scout for Atlantic Records. Upbin sent “Projector” to a lawyer who essentially guaranteed a record deal. And from that, a bidding war began, popping Geese’s private school bubble.
Winter told GQ magazine that he had the best April 2020 out of everyone. After signing with Partisan Records, “Projector” was officially released on Oct. 29, 2021, becoming the band’s debut LP and establishing their indie, basement rock sound.
While they were on track to break up and go their separate, collegiate ways, Geese evidently stayed together and went on to release “3D Country” in June 2023, with a much lighter sound than “Projector.” While “Projector” seemed to sink in the sea of Brooklyn post-punk bands, “3D Country” swam.
Following the story of a cowboy on psychedelics wandering through the desert, Geese completely pivots their sound to groovy beats with the favorite track being “Cowboy Nudes.” It’s hard to not hum the lyrics “Be my warrior/ just you and I” and scream “New York City/ Underwater” alone in the car.
“3D Country” flows through what seems to be an LSD trip, beginning with ridiculous lyrics, goofy, but catchy riffs and a lot of screaming. In the most simple description, the first four songs are chaotic. Towards the middle and end of the album, the tracks slow and long jams emerge, perhaps symbolic of a drug comedown.
In a press release, Winter painted “3D Country” as a description of 20-something arrogance and a commentary of climate change and imminent doom.
While “3D Country” sparked attention, it was 2025’s “Getting Killed” that skyrocketed the band into popularity — and is the likely reason for I.V.’s next big obsession. It’s an album that returns to this melting pot of genres — post punk and art rock (a genre that blends rock with more classical music) — with youthful vocals and, again, chaos, earning them the title of “Gen Z’s first great American rock band.”
“Getting Killed” began as a series of jam sessions, recorded in less than two weeks, which were then produced by Kenneth Blume (known professionally as Kenny Beats). It isn’t hard to see that the album overflows with influences of The Velvet Underground, Pavement and Radiohead, especially in tracks like “Cobra” and “Au Pays du Cocaine.”
“Getting Killed” was at the top of multiple best album lists of 2025 and is a strong contender for the Grammy Album of the Year award, if only it had made the mid-2025 cutoff. If the momentum continues, it has a shot at the 2026 Grammy cycle.
But, with all great bands on the rise, not everyone loves their sound. In an interview with Zane Lowe, Winter described his dad expressing concern over “Getting Killed,” saying some tracks were assaulting the audience. I can only assume this was a nod towards the song, “Trinidad,” a four-minute song that screams “There’s a bomb in my car.”
In an online poll posted by the Daily Nexus, anonymous students voiced their opinions on the band. While the campus as a whole seems abuzz with the new musicians, none of the individual responses were positive.
“I don’t understand the hype. The instrumentals are great but dear lord the vocals sound the same on every song, scratchy, too breathy, a bit incoherent at times. Giving male manipulator Taylor Swift. Nothing amazing, nothing new,” one UCSB student said.
The fan base can be another issue, especially Geese’s tangling with the new “performative male” trope. Geese is now just another addition to the virality of men in Dr. Marten’s, wearing cord headphones and carrying feminist books in canvas tote bags.
“Fans are annoying as hell. Cameron, I respect however,” another UCSB student said.
Seetha Rao / Daily Nexus
Are we thinking the same thing about Cameron Winter?
When Cameron Winter’s solo album “Heavy Metal” released, my curiosity did not get the best of me. From my perspective, it was yet another sad and potentially nepotism singer-songwriter coming from an indie band, and I immediately dismissed it as I figured it wouldn’t offer anything unique.
Then, I heard the song “Drinking Age.” I was immediately captivated by a lot of elements of the song, like the simple yet dramatic piano. But I wouldn’t have stayed if it was for his voice; skilled enough to resemble Jeff Buckley, stylized enough to resemble Julian Casablancas, but unique enough to compare him to Tom Waits, or even Bob Dylan.
Ultimately, it was the lyrics that made this song scratch me to my soul. Lyrics like “I don’t know if I’m ever gonna stop reminding myself everything is lying” to “From now on this is who I’m going to be / a piece of meat,” made me meet who I was going to be: a Cameron Winter fan.
“Drinking Age” was a close second as my top played song of 2025. First place was Winter’s most popular song, “Love Takes Miles,” which speaks to my soul in a million ways. The song describes Winter feeling “Lonely as hell, walking around,” looking for a lover to “make her watch the wind all night” and that he needs “somebody sent down from the sun that talks to me like you used to.”
“Love Takes Miles” is the best example of what separates Winter’s solo career from Geese; while it has traits that a Geese song would have (like a catchy melody), Winter’s solo songs are noticeably more vulnerable, with lyrics that prioritize specific feelings opposed to telling a story.
The intro track, “The Rolling Stones,” is the perfect opener to the album, both instrumentally and lyrically. At first, it doesn’t make apparent sense; “I will keep breaking cups until my left hand looks raw / until my miracle drugs write the miracle song / Until the conga line behind me is a million chickens long.”
Then, he moves into the chorus: “Like Brian Jones / I was born to swim towards a month ago / towards the rolling stones,” a twisted reference to the former Rolling Stones member who drowned in a swimming pool. Later in the song, he says “Like Hinkley’s son / I was born to dance with a candy gun towards the president’s ass,” referring to John Hinkley Jr. who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan.
My favorite part of the song is near the end, where he says “we will stand here / where we can see the pianos are landing on me and you,” as he continues to repeat the simple yet romantic phrase, “me and you.”
“The Rolling Stones” perfectly captures the essence of the album. The instrumentals are calm and folksy, the lyrics are profound yet abstract and, best of all, his singing is both soulful and distinctively unique.
Winter’s songwriting gets the most ambitious on the later half of the album with the song “Nina + Field of Cops.” This song has a lot going on; the piano is hectic, Winter is belting as always and while the lyrics can be perceived as rambly, they set a scene of pure chaos. Certain nonsensical lines on the song, such as “tomatoes in the missing barrels all have met many-handed boys with laughing brains and know gorilla-fingered yapping dogs” could be confused with an abstract rapper such as MF DOOM, and lyrics like “motorcycle made of rocks eat this hotel key and ride away” may turn away the average listener since it doesn’t seem to make any sense.
However, I believe the nonsensical writing is one of Winter’s strong suits. His voice is inherently gatekeepy — anyone who is able to work past that likely already has a tolerance towards his more zany songwriting approach.
If I had to say one song that perfectly captures Winter’s ability, I’d have to choose “Cancer of the Skull.” While the track is sonically beautiful and showcases some of Winter’s best singing, the lyrics continue to be a highlight. Lines such as “I buckled up for the fatal crash / took a bullet through the bullet proof glass” capturing a distinct image which can still be up to interpretation.
A prevalent theme throughout “Heavy Metal,” along with all of Winter’s output, is theology. The song “$0” is a prime example, where he wails at the climax of the song “God is real / I’m not kidding this time / God is actually real / I wouldn’t joke about it / I’m not kidding this time.” Winter has delved even further into this with his unreleased songs, with the songs “If You Turn Back Now,” discussing the devil, and “LSD,” where he makes one of his bolder religious statements “Let’s find the Lord and beat out everything that fucking bastard knows.”
Whether or not Winter is religious himself is up to interpretation. While his lyrics may come off as sarcastic or absurd, Winter’s lyrics represent the struggle of wanting to have faith in a higher power despite having internal feelings that go against those beliefs.
Winter has a lot on his plate. So far, he’s been attached to two of the most critically acclaimed albums of the decade, and is currently on an unprecedented run of high-brow outputs, such as performing at Carnegie Hall and working with acclaimed film director Paul Thomas Anderson. If he’ll exceed these expectations is yet to be seen, but if Winter’s proven to us anything, he’s clearly got the ambition to become one of the great songwriters of our generation.
Winter was parodied on Saturday Night Live in early Dec. 2025 as part of their “Random Duet Christmas Spectacular,” alongside skits of Bob Dylan, Katy Perry, Yoko Ono and Benson Boone. Geese is also set to appear on the weekend sketch comedy show on Jan. 24. Getting mocked on SNL — that has to be a sign they’ve made it.
A version of this article appeared on p. 13 of the Jan. 15 print edition of the Daily Nexus.
