I’m with the Band: Go for Gold

ByQ Media: Can you explain how “Go For Gold,” or well why “Go For Gold?” Why the name “Go For Gold?”

Go for Gold: There’s a movie called the Ringer - movie with Tommy Bosco. It’s about fixing the Special Olympics. I guess it's, like, a little bit subtle. There is a part in that movie where he's throwing all the different sticks, and there's one part where he's yelling “go for gold, go for gold.”And, it kind of stuck with us.

Naming a band is one thing, but each member brought specific goals and ideas to the table. Specifically, Jared knew the sound he wanted to accomplish with most of the music composed and some lyrics lingering in his head. Spencer did not only have the vocal range of your favorite sad boi; he brought collaboration with an intentional vision. Together their only goal was, and is still, to create the music they like, they enjoy. But with maintaining anything, there are levels of responsibility and commitment. And sometimes, all of these can be challenging.

When discussing the beginning of the band, the guys shared different stories about former members, specifically the band’s first singer. It’s a good laugh. The guy left the band after hearing his voice on the track’s recording for the first time. A memory to chuckle that adds to the layers of who and what G4G is. Band members leave. Creative ideas change shape. Roles grow, and with it, the band’s identity also shifts.

My question about their process was too vague for my standards: What does the process for each song look like? Is it the lyrics first or the music first? It’s not an easy question to answer. Finding balance is not as effortless as their final songs may suggest. There's discipline to be found. There’s a sense of familiarity.

ByQ Media: Do you find that it takes a are really long time to write a song, or like is it consistent? Does this really depend on the mood, the day, or?

Go for Gold: I think it takes a long time to get a song idea you really like. I don’t think it takes a long time...

ByQ Media: That makes sense!

Go for Gold: Because we’ll go through 50 ideas and hate all of them.

ByQ Media: So interesting talking to different types of like artists and just like the ages, because talking about your writing process and then mine when it comes to writing is so drastically different. Like if my life is happy, I have nothing to write. And if I'm sad, I have all the material to generate everything I need. It’s so interesting to talk about the different processes each artist can have.

I am a writer first. For my creative process, there’s so much that goes into the craft and life of each character birthed. Along with study and technique, raw emotion is in the passenger seat through laughing, overstimulation, aggravation, yada yada.. [Insert writer’s rant here.]

There is a lot to be said about individuals who meet halfway with determination to create something for the fun of it, yet at the same time, not realizing just how far that because I want to mentality has reached.

ByQ Media: How do you feel about what you’ve accomplished so far, from the beginning until now? What about the community formed around you?

Go for Gold: Sometimes I’m blown away by what we have, man. What we've been doing for so long is just putting out music that we like, and it's like music that we want to write, and I feel like a lot of people resonate with that. Absolutely.

Discovering G4G could not have arrived in my life at a better time. I had just ended a three year shitty-situationship a month before. COVID was rampant. I desperately wanted to be back at home with my family, especially my dad. I found comfort in their song Greenlight. Take it as a life sign if one must, I guess. And in 2021, Step Out became a part of the playlist I used to get me through that year. I also finally felt like I was officially a part of the community that formed around them.

As cheesy as it sounds, G4G isn’t a group of guys who can play together. They’re a band whose members show up to play and to create with the goal of doing all of this full time. Shooting the shit and diving into a little more of their history and bromance, their exchange really gave a glimpse into their camaraderie behind the scenes.

ByQ Media: Listening to a lot of your guys’ newest stuff, what’s a current theme that’s really stuck out and/or stuck with you? For example, my catalog is filled more with music towards self-growth, esteem, identity, and facing different types of loneliness. And it’s delivered in the ass shaking of Cardi B, to the anger of Fever 333, to the SadBoi core that is the Front Bottoms. For you, is there anything specific that sticks out thematically?

Go for Gold: There’s a lot of them where relationships and struggling are a connector for a lot of our stuff.

The concepts of relationships, agoraphobia, heartache, and success play a few roles such as subject, theme, but I think their most important role inside the lyrics of these songs is the fact they are a binding thread that go beyond personal to them into personal for those who get it. Their lyrics hit with universal relatability that captures and holds specific moments of the human experience still. It also adds an interesting layer to the dichotomy of the band’s pop sensibility mixing with punk angst. The whole project can be messy, complicated, yet rewarding.

We find different ways to measure our own success through the number of accomplishments, our milestones, opposites. There’s an endless list everyone holds up while providing their own definition. Go for Gold’s because we can or because it’s what we want mentality is a refreshing accomplishment in itself.

These guys created Go for Gold in one space, yet the band found its way into another becoming a personal part for so many.

Speed Round Questions:

ByQ Media: Dream Venue?

GFG: Red Rock

ByQ Media: Dream Collab?

GFG: Vinny

(And my final and favorite question) If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?

Spencer - golden apple. Jared - mango.