Here’s an idea: think about how many bands there are. The ones you know, the one’s you’ve heard about. Now think about how many of those bands do something different. Really different. Possibly get-naked-on-stage different.
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The Gooch Palms are one of those bands, and their weird and wacky take on musical performance – built largely on on-stage stunts, bright colours and the aforementioned nudity. At this point, it’s only done them favours.
“I don’t remember the last time we stopped,” Gooch Palms’ frontman Leroy Macqueen said.
“At this point, it’s felt like two years since we’ve had any meaningful break. We’ve probably clocked up close to 400 shows in the last two years.”
That’s a pretty crazy number for any band, but for the Gooch Palms, it’s par for the course. The two piece – partners Macqueen and Kat Friend, the symbiotic paring somehow manifesting more energy than most full-size bands – have a very definite, and much-loved, aesthetic.
Describing themselves as Australia’s pre-eminent “s**t-pop” band, Gooch Palms’ stage sets, video clips and all-around appearance drips novelty.
But this is only, really, the facade on what is a well-oiled machine; Macqueen and Friend live the Gooch Palms, the entire ship being steered by their ever-creative minds.
The release of their second LP, the revealingly-titled Introverted Extroverts, also saw the formation of their own label imprint, as well as their shot at the stages of the US.
“The first album we did, we made in nine hours in our front room,” Maqueen said.
“I don’t wanna say it was half-arsed, but it was definitely… pretty off the cuff. So going into a studio, with an actual engineer, was a huge change for us.
“We had started building a bit of a base by that point, so we wanted to make something that reflected who we are, and what it is we do at our shows, which is basically have fun above anything else. It was definitely everything we wanted from the second album.”
The jump to American audiences seems like a given for Australian bands these days, but it arguably makes more sense for the Gooch Palms: their raucous sets – basically built around Friend’s pounding drum beats, Maqueen’s riffs from a crotch-covering guitar, and both of their anthemic calls to action, or to party, or to sit around in the living room – seem tailor made for US audiences.
“They love it, they eat it up,” Maqueen said.
“I mean, if you show initiative and passion in what you’re doing, audiences will respond anywhere. You can’t be lazy about it; you’ve gotta show the fans that you’re as into being there as they are.”
