As Tracks prepares for its last two stops on the Tracks Party Tour, we decided to catch up with Northern Beaches based band The Good Kids who will be supporting the Goons of Doom at our Sydney show which is being held on 17 May at the Harbord Hotel in Freshwater.
Birthed from a lack of musical experience, a gumtree drum kit and a council-clean up bass guitar the quartet of surfing Sydney friends have since gone onto play shows with well known bands like The Terry’s, South Summit and performed at Rolling Sets festival.
They’ve also released numerous sing-a-long surf punk rock tunes that will have you belting out every note at the top of your lungs.
Mark, Jake, Sean’o, Darc and Vol are the epitome of organic, humble and a bloody good time. The energy they bring to the stage is second to none and if you attend one of their shows you are in for a tear up, a heap of beers and plenty of body heat thrown around in small spaces.
JS:Tell us a bit about the origins of the band? How did you guys come together and start playing?
GK: Jake and Mark had this idea of “playing music” so they got together with their instruments and just jammed, with absolute minimal musical experience. They scissor, paper, rocked and the loser had to sing – Mark. Eventually the boys were like “fuck it, lets start a band.” They realised they wanted someone with somewhat of a musical ear so they called up one of the boys who kinda rips at guitar, Vol. Word caught wind amongst the boys then Seano said he wanted in. We asked him if he’s ever played the drums and he said he’d never held a pair of sticks before. We said if you buy a kit, you’re in. A quick gumtree search and $200 later, we had our drummer. Lastly we needed someone on the bass, so we hit up our good mate Darcy. He’d never played before. However, we explained the situation, informed him we’ve got a bass picked up off council clean-up and he was in.
After that it was all gathering together in Seano’s garage, getting abused at by his neighbour and then realising we had the perfect rehearsing studio in Vol’s dad’s glasses warehouse. Shoutout to Domani Eyewear, we wouldn’t be a band without that warehouse.
JS: How did you all meet?
GK: Well Jake and Mark knew each other from when they were little squirts running around the oval at lunchtime together. Sean and Vol might’ve crossed paths with Mark on the footy field when they were young, but all the fellas really became mates during high school. We all sorta went to different high schools, but came together on the weekends when the surf was cooking and then we hit the age of a new house party every weekend, whether we were invited or just jumping over the back fence to say g’day to everyone.
JS: How would you describe your sound and what led you to taking this route?
GK: To be honest we’ve never really focused on what our “sound” is. We find it a bit hard to sit back and reflect on our own music and decipher what category we fit in to. All we know is, sitting in the warehouse together for hours on end and eventually leaving with a product that we all froth and really had fun creating.
As we each, bar Vol, have minimal musical experience, we are all sort of learning on the fly with this whole band experience. Whatever we are creating in the studio always seems to be filled with high energy. All we really want to do is transfer that froth we have in the warehouse and bring that and a tonne of energy to our live shows. We decided to focus on this kind of “sound” because it’s what we have the most fun doing. If we’re getting technical about it all I guess we might fit into some sort of garage/surf rock outfit. Whatever we’re doing though, feels organic and allows us to maximise our engagement with the audience, whether live or in headphones, which for us is what it’s all about.
JS: What can people expect from a Good Kids show?
GK: You’ll have one of the best nights of your life.
Haha, nah. We just like to have a good time. Our buddies seem to continuously keep turning up at our shows, so there’s always a heap of friendly faces and good energy around the place. What we lack in musical talent we make up for in onstage presence and engaging with the crowd. We love getting our mates on stage with us, bashing the keys or grabbing the mic, it just makes for a great time and it’s epic to see people enjoying themselves at our shows. You might see the odd unsettled security guard, unsure whether or not the people storming the stage are meant to be there, but we encourage it. Just be careful of Vol’s guitar pedals pls, beer and electricals don’t mix.
We love playing shows but look at it more like we’re just spending the night kicking it with our buddies. So look, expect a heap of beers, an epic crew of people, alright music and lots of memories to be made. Tell all ya mates and bring em’ to the next one.
JS: Highlight moment from your time as a band so far and why?
GK: Whilst we’ve had a tonne of highlights as a band; playing the Surfest afterparty, shows with bands like The Terry’s, South Summit, scoring a slot on Rolling Sets Festival alongside Hilltop Hoods, DMA’s, Dune Rats etc. Undoubtedly our highlight moment for us as a band is our first ever show.
We started this band during covid, so organising a show was fucked. Dunno how many times we had to cancel, but eventually after another show was cancelled, we said fuck it we’re throwing our own party. We had three days to order a portable dunny, build a stage and get the carpark of Domani Eyewear ready for an absolute party. We hit up a few buddies and organised another couple genuine bands to warm the crowd up for us. Before we had even stepped on stage, if you classify 14 pallets strung together a stage, we were hearing chants of “Good Kids, Good Kids, Good Kids” from inside the warehouse and were absolutely losing our marbles.
We proceeded to walk out and tick off our lifelong goal of playing a show before we die. Looking back the music may not have lived up to how rowdy all of our mates and crowd were getting that night. We think all that built up Covid energy, cancelled shows and no security guards to tell anyone off meant everyone was gonna go hell for leather at this gig. That night was really something to remember and is probably a reason why we are still going today. Everyone who came to the show still talks about it and can’t wait for us to set up a stage in the carpark again. However, we got a bit of convincing to do with Vol’s dad before that happens. We’ve got a bunch of shots and videos up on our Instagram if you wanna relive any of the carnage of the night.
JS:Tell us a bit about your new single ‘Trip Trip’.
GK: Trip Trip is a banger… in our opinion haha. Nah it’s one we are super proud of, musically. Real rocky and grungy, its one that seems to get the crowd going at a live show. Vol as always, we throw it to him and he’s able to melt ya face with a sick solo, mixed in with some epic keys work from Snakey… I dunno we’re probably rambling, but the gist of it is, we fucking froth this song and have been itching to share it with everyone.
What its about. Well…Trip Trip sorta has two main meanings. The first revolves around how we came up with the idea for the song and the lyrics. The lads were on a surf trip up the east coast, scoooooring might we add (nosedive galore), but what do you do when it’s flat? Go for a bushwalk and we’ll leave the rest up to your imagination. One of our buddies might’ve overindulged in a few too many lollies and sorta wigged out… sugar overdose I suppose. Anyhow that’s how we came up with some of the lyrics, but the more we began to think about the song we started to ask ourselves who was really tripping. Was it us? Five buddies on an epic surf trip up the east coast, scoring waves, sitting round the fire swapping stories and pissing themselves with laughter or is it the people with hundreds of thousands of dollars, miserable, in the same old routine, slaving away, wishing for something to spark up their lives.
To purchase tickets for our two remaining events click the links below:
Coolangatta with Goons of Doom, DJ Eddy and Purple Disturbance – 10 May.
Sydney with Goons of Doom, DJ Eddy and The Good Kids – 17 May.
