"Backstage Underage", "Friends with Benefits", "Slut Parade", "Our Love is a Crime", "Soccer Baseball"...Soccer Baseball? Just what exactly is the common thread between those first 4 song titles -- each its own mischievous little take on the most (in)famous subject in pop music -- and the latter homage to summer afternoons in the park? As The Good News' vocalist Rodrigo Gonzalez explained to us as we ogled passers-by (read: girls) on a Granville Street patio, the correlation is quite simple. "I just write songs about the stupid shit that happens in our lives."

"He's not re-inventing the wheel," guitarist Trevor Risk elaborated, "Pop lyrics are pop lyrics. We have a song about dating a girl and her killing her husband for him. You'd think "well that's intense", but the Smiths have songs wrapped in dreamy chorus pedal stuff about morose shit. That song is our poppiest sort of tune, and it recontextualizes it into a sad/happy story, back and forth." This makes sense--
Morrissey crooning about knowing how Joan of Arc felt when she burned is easily as pleasant as hearing the Trashmen pump out the Poppa -Oom-Mow-Mows on "Surfin' Bird". Pop musicians with an earnest sense of self-consciousness occupy the uppermost of tier in the genre, and in this light both "Bigmouth Strikes Again" and "Surfin' Bird" carry equal weight. I doubt if The Good News (or Morrissey, or the Trashmen) would disagree.

"I just don't want to get caught lying," Gonzalez continued, "I just want to sing about the stupid shit in my life whether it's about hanging out with really young girls or whatever." Without a doubt, The Good News understand the importance of being earnest.

The band, which began as a pet project of Risk's, have formed over the past 2 years into a full-sized 6 piece pop band. The impetus behind forming The Good News, Risk explained, was to form a band with his friends in order to play music for his friends. "Vanity project for sure," Risk laughed, "everything local was just really--not that I dislike the local stuff--I just didn't think there was a local band making softer music. I thought it was more ballsy to make softer music."

The Good News acquired bass player Daniel Knowlton (who came up with the band's name, and remains the only original member alongside Risk) after Knowlton told Risk that he played the bass, although he had only played bass in one show prior to joining the band. And singer Rodrigo Gonzalez joined after beating out over a dozen females vying for position as vocalist for The Good News. They then added keyboardist Natalie Vermeer (who played with The Doers and plays in the Huge Manatease) because, as Trevor explained, "she shreds the shit out of keyboards...[and] she's a pretty keyboard player and every band wants their own pretty keyboard player."

Perhaps unlike the aforementioned lead singer of the Smiths, understanding the importance of gender difference is paramount to The Good News' aesthetic. This, they explained, applied not only in terms of the process how a band creates music, but also how a band's music is received by an audience.

"Hugh Hefner has this rule," Risk said, "every good party has more girls than guys. You play and make music for girls because girls have this visceral way of enjoying music, whereas if guys like a band they'll buy their records forever because they feel it's a responsibility. But girls are just like, 'I like this song' [and] it's a more noble way to listen to music." I quietly tucked away my copy of the new Locust record and we continued...

"It's a good gauge if girls receive your music or not," Risk finished, "I don't understand the whole 'guy' thing. Guys download and girls buy..."

As we all finished up our respective beverages, The Good News explained to us their plans to take their time before touring and, not wanting to waste their draw on dead shows, to take it slow locally too--so you'll have to make good on any opportunity you get to check them out. And you should because as bass player Daniel Knowlton explained, "I want people at our shows to drop their egos and get down and comfortable...when I get up on stage I think about how I've got nothing to lose. Like Neil Young says, 'Push it all the way to meltdown point. 'Til it falls apart.' If you're not up there doing that, then you shouldn't be on stage."

<p>Be sure to check out the Good News when they do some Ramp Blasting <a href="http://chalkedup.com/events/view/the-good-news">this Thursday @ The Bourbon.</a></p> <p>Michael Barrow, 20 Nov 2007</p> <p>Photos by Pika Blades</p> <p>The Good News on <a href="http://www.myspace.com/wearegoodnews">Myspace</a></p>