One of Geelong’s favourite indie bands, Celtic punk rockers The Go Set, return to the Barwon Club for the Geelong launch of their eighth album, The Warriors Beneath Us.
The launch is also something of an anniversary event, as 2023 marks two decades since the band’s formation in Geelong in 2003.
The Go Set’s frontman and principal songwriter Justin Keenan said it didn’t feel like 20 years had passed since the band began.
“It kind of creeps up on you, to be honest; we’ve had so many opportunities to play that the years have passed really quickly,” he said.
“When we started we had no idea, no one had any vision of it being a 20-year band, we just thought it was kind of fun to combine the elements of folk music and punk rock.
“We’ve definitely become more professional. We’ve probably all improved our playing by 20 per cent, but we’ve improved our listening by 50 per cent.
“It’s one of the traps of a loud band, everyone just plays everything at once. But one thing we’ve learned is how to make light and shade, how silence gives power to sound.”
The album, released on March 17 and available for streaming, offers few stylistic surprises for long-time fans of the band, but displays a continuation of the incremental evolution of sonic and songwriting sophistication evident throughout the band’s 20-year lifespan.
Keenan said COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions had, ironically, given the band the chance to embrace new ways of songwriting and production.
“In the past, it’s always been get a case of beer, get everyone in the studio at the same time, spend a day recording drums and bass, a day doing guitars and vocals and the album’s done in a week,” he said.
“You’re always under time pressure. You have two or three takes of something, bang it together and go, right, that’s good enough, because you’re working through a whole checklist of things that have to be ticked off.
“With this one, it was really, really different. I’d write down an idea, play it in Garageband to a click track and send it to the other guys, who would send it back with a couple of options.
“Then someone would go, let’s change the tempo up, let’s make it swing, let’s put it in 6/8, let’s change the key.
“For the first time ever, COVID allowed us to have the benefit of time, to be able to go through those pre-production hoops and make three or four or five versions of any given idea before it became a song.”
The Go Set will launch The Warriors Beneath Us at the Barwon Club on Friday, May 5.
