Photo by Sabrina Gutierrez
Kenny Becker’s world turned upside down while he was in the middle of recording Goon’s new album. When his marriage came to an end, the songs he had already written took on a new weight, their words and emotions now reflecting the grief he was working through. Released on the band’s new label, Born Losers, Becker is careful not to call Dream 3 a breakup album, but he admits that the feelings of loss inevitably shaped the music. The resulting record is something he’s immensely proud of, a creative outlet that helped him get through those difficult days.
You toured with labelmates Preoccupations before the album came out. I’ve talked to other artists who have done that. Some say it’s a tour they couldn’t pass up. Some say they are a live band first and foremost so they’ll always be on the road. What was your thinking? How did you end up on that tour?
KENNY: It was kind of an interesting thing, because I don’t feel like we are necessarily a live band first. At first I thought the timing was weird, because we were originally supposed to turn the record in about a month earlier than we actually did. If that had happened, the record would have come out right before the tour, and it felt like it was going to be perfect. But as the deadline drew nearer, it was clear we needed more time to finish because it was such a studio creation.
So we ended up pushing the deadline by a month, which made it so the record came out right when we got home from that tour. We got on the tour through our label, Born Losers, which Preoccupations is also on now. They made the connection and pitched us, and Preoccupations was down to have us. Born Losers is awesome, they were able to get us the vinyl in time for the tour, over a month before the record was officially out. We sold it on the road, and people were really receptive. It remains to be seen what the long-term effect is, but it was exciting to let people know we’d be back in a couple of months for our headlining tour.
We talked in 2022 about Goon’s touring. At that time, you weren’t really a heavy touring band.
KENNY: Yeah, that’s right. The record we did in 2022, I don’t think we toured that much leading up to it. Maybe a small run, probably on the West Coast. It was after that record came out that we started getting more opportunities to open for people, and the offers kept coming. We ended up touring a lot in 2023, but we were always opening, never headlining. So this upcoming tour in September and October will be our first real headlining run.
This is like going from the minor leagues to the major leagues, right?
KENNY: It does feel like that. In the minor leagues losing sucks, but in the majors every win matters. When you’re opening, it’s fun because you get to enjoy another band’s crowd and hopefully make some fans, but if the room isn’t packed you don’t take it personally. Of course, you want every night to be full, but headlining is definitely different.
What kind of writer are you when it comes to music and lyrics? Back in 2022, had you already started working on the next batch of songs, or are you the type to finish a project, get it out, and then start again?
KENNY: I’m trying to think about the songs on this record. Definitely a couple of them were started earlier. When I’m working on songs they usually have random file names. The one that ended up being called “In the Early Autumn,” I started working on with my buddy Kristian Saarup, who drummed for us on a tour. He’s a really awesome drummer. I remember we got back from that tour and I was itching to make new stuff, but that was probably in 2023, so not quite right away. That might be the earliest one.
This record came together in such a piecemeal way compared to some of our others. Our second one was more concentrated, but this one was recorded sporadically over a long period of time rather than all at once.
I interview Jacob Durate from Narrow Head. He said that when he was writing songs for his solo album, the working titles were named after the bands that influenced the song. When you’re writing music, are you referencing other bands in your head?
KENNY: Some parts, yeah. Like on the song “Closer To,” for a long time we just called it “Pinback” because it reminded me of their faster, frantic songs, like “From Nothing to Nowhere.” Funny thing is, on our second record there’s a song called “Bend Back,” and that one was called “Pinback” for a long time too. I couldn’t call two songs that, so we opted for something that just sounded like Pinback. With “Closer To” I knew I had to come up with an actual title.
And that song mostly sticks to that same kind of “From Nothing to Nowhere” tempo, major/minor 7th vibe, intricate plucking, but then it shifts into a totally different beat with chords that feel vintage, almost early-digital synth strings. To me it’s reminiscent of Nintendo 64 soundtracks, specifically the Ocarina of Time Zelda score.
We always called that part “the Draag section,” after our friends in the L.A. band Draag. They’re really good friends of ours, easily one of my favorite bands ever. We’ve been friends with them since the very beginning of this band. I’ve always looked up to them, and we always wanted to tour together. It’s finally happening on this headline run, they’re joining us on the first leg, from California to Texas. Houston will be their last show with us. That’s been a long time coming.
So, obviously this is stuff that ends up in the press release. Like you said, you’ve been recording this over time, not in one chunk, but you had a pretty big life change – the end of a long-term relationship. I’m curious, when you started writing in 2023, are the feelings in those songs ones you carried forward, or is this a whole new batch on the other side of things? Or is it a mix of the two?
KENNY: Yeah, it’s definitely the same songs. Maybe two or three of the songs were brand new, post-breakup, but the spirit feels continuous. Honestly, it was always kind of a hard question for me, because I don’t really know that I want this to be perceived as the “breakup album,” or the “sad” one, or whatever. I try to be delicate about it, but it’s also true that I was very heartbroken through the process of making this. I chose to include that in the press release because ultimately it was kind of the power of music, an outlet that became a source of, not always joy, but a form of joy. Something to work on.
The process of making it was the healing part. Now, having made and released it, I almost feel like I need to start making something new again. There’s this weird emptiness that comes with releasing music. For me, the fun part is over, so to speak.
I’ve heard people say that there’s a sadness in releasing something, because it’s no longer theirs. It belongs to the listeners now. It’s not this private thing anymore. They’re happy to get it out, but uncomfortable sharing it with the world.
KENNY: Absolutely. I’ve heard that same thing too, and it almost feels like a cliché, but it’s so true. While you’re making it, it feels like your little secret thing that you get to listen to on drives, think about what to add, what words fit. It’s like a puzzle.
I have to imagine a breakup like that involves grief. Did writing and recording help? Or did you need to disconnect? Were you able to keep working on music, or did you have to put it aside?
KENNY: No, dude. I fully disconnected. This record probably could have been done a lot sooner. If you put together the amount of time we actually spent in the studio, it still took a decent effort, it’s over 50 minutes of music. But I was so depressed, not doing anything.
The one thing I did during that time, though it didn’t make me feel better, was write “Death Spells.” It felt right, at least. I wrote that in the heart of that time. It’s not on the record, but it was a single we released with Born Losers to announce we were working with them. That’s actually why the record got pushed by a month, we decided to do that song even though we were working on the album. It felt current, autumnal, mournful but also pretty.
And before I get to my own stuff, a couple more questions. On the last record, if I remember correctly, everybody that played in the band played on the record. Did you write everything and hand it off to them, or were they contributing?
KENNY: I wrote the songs, but it was kind of a COVID thing. I had a batch of songs, and then me and the band fleshed them out together. By fall 2020, we felt safe enough to meet up and just play music together, but not much else. We were in our rehearsal spot almost every day, working through these new songs that we ended up recording the next year.
So the follow-up question to that, because I was wondering if, for this record, it was kind of the first time that you were all together and people were contributing their own stuff. Or was that the way it was last time, too?
KENNY: This one was, I think I was actually a little bit more indulgent in my own stuff this time around. This one actually felt even more piecemeal and less band-focused. There are a few songs on this record that are the same lineup as Hour of Green Evening. “Rabbits,” “Bottle,” “Sun Sweeping,” and “Closer to That” are the core Hour of Green Evening lineup. The rest of the record is some version of that, like with either one person not on it, or a different drummer. But Dillon Peralta and Tamara Simons, guitar and bassist, are mostly on the whole thing. Dillon sings on it, and even Tamara sings on it, which is cool. Having them both featured vocally more was really fun.
I feel like I sort of Brian Wilson -ed this one a little bit, where I would call people in as I needed them, but mostly tried to keep it to a certain group of musicians, trusted good friends.
I love the last record. I listened to it a lot, but in a compressed amount of time. A year later, I had already listened to 40 other records. When I got a link to the advance of this one, I was at work, threw it on, and wasn’t paying a ton of attention. I thought, wow, Tamara’s actually singing a lot more. But it was actually you. I always forget your voice sounds the way it does. I thought, wow, they’ve really changed the vocals but then I realized it had just been a while since I heard you sing.
KENNY: Yeah, that’s funny. I just love singing high. I’ve always admired and idolized musicians who do that. Sigur Rós was a huge influence for me, and he totally does that. Even Pinback does that sometimes.
There’s just something about a male falsetto voice that I find so intriguing. People like to call it androgynous, and I’m into that for sure, but that’s not why I’m doing it. I just like singing up there. I think those are beautiful melodies, and singing them high is fun. The Beach Boys, Animal Collective, all those guys, I love that approach.
Do you ever wonder if you’ll be able to hit those same notes if you play these songs 20 years from now?
KENNY: I feel like if we’re lucky enough to be playing our songs to a devoted fan base in 20 years or whatever, I’ll figure out a way to make it happen. Maybe we’ll just drop it down a few whole steps or something.
Did the song “Begin Here” already have its title and then you decided to make it the first song on the record, or did you title it after deciding it would be the first song?
KENNY: It’s funny, this actually happens for me a lot. I had a totally different song named “Begin Here,” the one that ended up being called “Toluca.”
That one began not in the studio, but fully on my own, messing with my tape machine. I recorded really slow, then sped it back up so the guitars sounded super high. I did that for a whole pass of doubled guitars and a bass take that was already really high, so it sounded even higher. The claps were recorded at slower speeds, then sped up, and I added a synth swell. That’s as far as I got on my own. When we took it to the studio, we added drums, Dillon did a guitar pass, and Tamara added bass.
That song was called “Begin Here” for a long time, and I really liked that name as a concept. I thought about bands like Broadcast, where certain songs reference childhood audio books: “When you hear the chime, you can turn the page.” There’s this weird mystery to it, like who is giving me these instructions? Some entity that knows better than me, but I’ll obey.
Boards of Canada too, their opening track on Geogaddi is called “Ready, Let’s Go,” and I’ve always loved that. I wanted to do something like that, have an entry point into the record. As we worked on “Begin Here,” it became obvious it would be a great opener. So we called that one “Begin Here” and I came up with a new name for the other, which became “Toluca.”
You talked about this album being a little bit more Brian Wilson indulgence. Is there a song that you, even as a writer, almost don’t recognize from its origin because you changed it so much?
KENNY: Yes, absolutely. That would be “Jaw,” the last track. These days, I try not to demo things too much. If I make a demo too pretty or cool, or even too lo-fi in a cool way, I’ll get so attached to it that it’s like, okay, that’s just the song now. I don’t feel like you can re-record this.
That was beginning to happen with “Jaw.” The original demo is just me mumbling, but there’s still something so captivating about it to me. It’s pretty stripped down, and I love the guitar melody being plucked but also doubling as the singing melody, or maybe a harmony of it.
When we brought “Jaw” into the studio, it became much more. It was like, “Let’s flush this out. Let’s add some harmonies, a whole other B and C section that were kind of implied in the demo but we expanded. We added these bells, like the ones at a train crossing. I had made a recording of that on my phone, put it to tape, and then sped up or slowed it down so the bells would be in key with the song. You can hear those at the very beginning, which really felt like a Brian Wilson move.
And then the whole outro, the ending where it gets huge, we couldn’t add enough layers. It was like, let’s add this synth. Now let’s blast that synth to tape five times. Now let’s add another synth. Let’s add another drum beat. Kind of a classic “give a mouse a cookie in the studio” vibe.
Coincidences are a little bit of what play into the story I’m about to tell you, my grief story. We lost our 17-year-old daughter seven years ago to something that is like a brain aneurysm. I get a link to your record and start listening to “Patsy’s Twin.” My wife’s name is Kate, my daughter’s name is Olivia. You start the song singing, “Cicadas in the yard / With Katie and Olivia.”
KENNY: Holy shit.
When I heard you sing that, it sort of stopped me in my tracks. I don’t believe in higher powers, and you don’t know my wife or daughter or my story, but it was just a weird coincidence that was part of a series of coincidences with people talking about my daughter around the same time I heard the song.
KENNY: Dude, that’s insane. You know what’s crazy about that line in particular is that when I’m writing, I’ll get little bits of a lyric here and there. On this record, as the songs were coming together, I realized I was using a lot of my friends’ names. I wondered, is this a lyrical crutch? Should I find different words? I tried to be okay with it but also thought, maybe let’s audition some other words.
And that was the first one that came up. “Katie and Olivia.” I didn’t even have the “cicadas in the yard” part yet. I just had “with Katie and Olivia,” and nothing rolled off the tongue like that did. I’ve never even been in a yard with cicadas with my friends Kate and Olivia, but I had to keep it.
That was the first part of that song I had, and then I built the rest around it. In a way, it was the first mysteriously essential bit I couldn’t get away from. I tried a lot of other things, but it was so sick I just had to keep it.
Grief is grief. I experienced grief from the loss of a child. You experienced grief from the loss of a relationship. The situations aren’t the same but there are some common elements of grief that we share.
KENNY: With heartbreak of any kind that’s overwhelming, there’s this insane loneliness. But there’s also this strange comfort you can find. I don’t even know how to say it, because ultimately, I wish nothing bad ever happened. I don’t want to try to spin it into “find the good.” At a certain point, I’m not interested in that.
That being said, I heard this from someone, I’m stealing it, they said, “I would never wish suffering on anyone, not even my enemies. But I tend to love people who have suffered.” It breaks you in a certain way. I don’t know. And of course, you know this more than anyone.
I noticed you mention a lot of names in your songs. Are those real people?
KENNY: Yeah, they’re all real people. I’m pretty sure there’s Katie, Olivia, Daniel, Tamara. There are also references to Tony Gwynn and Tony Soprano, but I don’t know those people personally sadly.
A few years ago, I asked you about living in L.A., I think you mentioned seeing Zack de la Rocha at a coffee shop and Josh Klinghoffer, too. Have you had any more random celebrity sightings since then?
KENNY: Honestly, I weirdly can’t think of any. Most of my celebrity sightings happened while I was working at LAMILL, the coffee shop in Silver Lake. Not only are you in Silver Lake where these people live, but a lot of them specifically go there for coffee, it’s kind of a spot. It was an awesome place to work, I met so many cool people.
That’s actually where I met Ed Droste from Grizzly Bear. That was kind of a crazy one. Back in 2017 or 2018, we had just put out our Happy Omen EP, and I had it on CD. Ed would come in a lot, he was super friendly with my coworkers, but I was too scared to talk to him. My friend Mitra, who worked there too, encouraged me. One day he came in alone and I finally told him, “I’m such a huge fan of you and your music.” He asked if I did music, and I said yeah, actually, and gave him our CD.
Later, I checked my phone and it was blowing up. He had taken the song “She” from that EP, and put it at the number one slot on his “Favorite Songs of 2017” playlist. He even posted about it. It was one of the most affirming moments, if I had any doubts about pursuing music, that erased them. I thought, “Okay, I can do this. I’m going to do it.” It was such an honor. Such a crazy thing because I went from feeling sort of cringy about it, like, one of my idols noticing me, but then I was like, wait, he liked it.
You ever hear from him again?
KENNY: Yeah, absolutely. He kind of became a friend. He was super supportive and friendly.
