Gooseberry Photo credit: Peyton Miller
For the last several years, Gooseberry have been making a name for themselves as one of New York City’s most exciting guitar bands. Blending alternative rock, indie, blues, and classic rock into a sound that’s equal parts grit and melody, the Brooklyn trio has carved out a lane that feels both timeless and unmistakably their own. That momentum recently earned them a place in Guitar World’s “15 Hotshot NYC Guitarists You Should Know,” alongside fellow indie standouts Horsegirl and Geese — a fitting recognition for a band whose explosive musicianship has become central to its identity.
The recognition arrives at a pivotal moment. After a run of successful winter and spring tours, major festival appearances, and growing an audience of more than 70,000 monthly Spotify listeners, Gooseberry are preparing to enter their most ambitious chapter yet with the release of their sophomore album, Simple Sucker, due September 25. Alongside the album announcement comes the band’s latest single, “Fault Lines,” as well as news of an extensive European tour this fall with stops across the UK, Germany, and Austria.
If Simple Sucker marks a creative leap forward, “Fault Lines” offers an immediate glimpse into just how far Gooseberry have pushed themselves. One of the heaviest songs in the band’s catalog, the track channels the muscular riffing and emotional intensity of ’90s hard rock while remaining rooted in Gooseberry’s knack for unforgettable hooks. It’s a song about distance—both physical and emotional—and the strange ways nostalgia can warp our perspective.
Frontman Asa Daniels traces the song’s inspiration to a feeling many musicians know all too well.
“You know that meme where Squidward watches from his window as SpongeBob and Patrick have all kinds of fun?” he laughs. “That’s essentially what this song is about. It’s about picking up your life and leaving a place you’ve known forever—say, New York City—and relocating 300-plus miles away to a city that couldn’t feel more different. From afar, all you can do is rot away watching on social media as other bands play your favorite venues back home—shows you can’t be at. In many ways, this song is about homesickness, but also about how isolation can completely distort your perspective.”
Musically, he points to Soundgarden as a major influence, helping shape one of Gooseberry’s most forceful and uncompromising recordings to date.
Comprised of Daniels (guitar, vocals), Evin Rossington (drums), and Will Hammond (bass), Gooseberry have spent years earning their reputation through relentless touring and electrifying live performances. Whether headlining iconic New York venues like Bowery Ballroom or opening for artists including Ringo Starr, BabyJake, and Tanner Usrey, the trio has steadily evolved into one of the city’s most compelling live acts.
That confidence extends throughout Simple Sucker, an album that uses the archetype of “the fool” as a lens to examine modern life. Rather than pointing fingers, Gooseberry embraces contradiction, finding themselves in the same crosshairs as everyone else. “There are songs where we’re poking fun at people for being fools,” Daniels explains. “Fools in love; fools who think they can impart wisdom for change; fools ourselves, longing to return to days gone by.”
Across the record, those ideas unfold through towering guitar riffs, sharp songwriting, and a healthy dose of self-awareness. Bigotry, fear, arrogance, nostalgia, and obliviousness all come under scrutiny, but never without humor or empathy. Gooseberry’s songs thrive in that tension—simultaneously cathartic and tongue-in-cheek, capable of delivering massive singalong choruses while questioning the impulses that brought them there in the first place.
With Simple Sucker, Gooseberry aren’t simply making a louder record. They’re expanding the emotional and musical scope of a band already on the rise, embracing bigger riffs, sharper ideas, and the uncomfortable truths that come with growing older. If “Fault Lines” is any indication, the trio’s next chapter is poised to be their boldest yet.
You were recently named one of Guitar World’s “15 Hotshot NYC Guitarists You Should Know,” alongside artists like Horsegirl and Geese. What does that recognition mean to you, and how has the guitar become such a defining part of Gooseberry’s sound and identity?
GOOSEBERRY: That was pretty wild! Certainly an honor to be included alongside great bands we love like The Thing and Skorts. And of course, fragile egos that we have, it’s always nice to feel like your efforts go noticed. Life as an artist in 2026, let alone a fully independent one, can seem like you’re constantly shouting into a void with no real shot at being heard. We appreciate anyone who takes the extra second to listen.
As for the guitar, well… there’s only three of us, so I guess by default. We’ve all grown up with a love of the guitar trio, whether that’s Hendrix, Cream, Nirvana, Green Day, and so on. Inevitably those influences are going to spill out. The hope is that you can carve out something uniquely your own as you go.
Simple Sucker seems to use the idea of “the fool” in a lot of different ways—from people blinded by arrogance to those simply chasing love or nostalgia. Was there a particular moment or experience that made that concept click as the thread tying the album together?
GOOSEBERRY: No single moment but a lifetime of foolishness. Of observing foolishness. We live in spectacularly stupid times. We all seem to take ourselves so seriously, the lead role in some cosmic play that no one else cares about but ourselves. I know I suffer from that main character syndrome plenty. The songs weren’t written intentionally with this theme in mind, but as we started whittling down the tracks for this record, the through-line of the fool kept coming to the forefront.
“Fault Lines” is one of your heaviest songs to date, and you cite Soundgarden as a major influence. As you were making Simple Sucker, were there other artists or records that pushed you to expand Gooseberry’s sound, and how did you balance those influences while keeping the band’s identity intact?
GOOSEBERRY: I am forever listening to Chris Cornell’s discography at all times, ‘Fault Lines’ is probably just the most direct physical representation of his and Soundgarden’s influence on Gooseberry. We made a collective decision with our producer Colin (Bryson) to focus this album in a specific world. And we wanted that world to be heavy in the way of 90s grunge. So bands like Soundgarden, Nirvana, Veruca Salt, and Jesus Lizard lead the way in terms of what we wanted to accomplish sonically. The amps we chose. The mics we used. It was all informed from that pursuit, but we also wanted to give ourselves the room to explore modern sounds like Wunderhorse and Fontaines DC.
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