Interview with Lost Goat Found: ‘It’s the one that serves as a palette cleanser in the middle of our set’

Brisbane-based pop rock band Lost Goat Found are working on their debut EP, which will come out over the summer and feature three new tracks, including ‘Daydream’.

The band, which was formed two years ago, comprises Morgan Francis (guitar/vocals), Ben Daniels (guitar), Cameron Daniels (bass) and Dom Mercer (drums). Cameron is Ben’s younger brother and went to school with Morgan’s cousin in Brookfield, where they all grew up. Cameron ended up on a playdate at Morgan’s when they were five or six years old and they’ve been friends ever since. Their name has a great story behind it, as Morgan explained: ‘Out in Brookfield, people own goats. One day, we were driving around and saw posters about a missing goat. The posters were around for ages and then one day they disappeared, so we thought oh, the goat has been found! Maybe we should have thought of a sexier name!’

Their latest single, ‘Cold Feet’, with its rich, layered instrumentation and anthemic vocals, marks a return to the rock anthem sound of the band and is one of their most personal songs to date. The track starts off simply, with Morgan’s strong vocals and a haunting, mournful riff before Dom ramps it up on drums and the song morphs into an end of the night kind of festival song that will get everyone dancing and singing along.

‘Cold Feet’ is essentially about the ‘cold feet’ you get in a relationship when you’re not quite ready for it, yet feel terrible that you’re hurting the other person involved. As such, it explores the guilt, fear of commitment, longing and loneliness that you go through at the end of a relationship and was born out of a weekend of jamming a couple of months ago. ‘I wrote it,’ Ben said. ‘Actually, it’s why Dom is in the band.’ I ask him how so? ‘Dom’s good friends with my ex, she introduced us, now they’re living together. I wrote it last year, it was an acoustic song for a while.’

The messiness associated with such break-ups is evident in the lyrics: ‘Not a moment of clarity, two more weeks of uncertainty, you deserve my verity. In sincerity, breaking your heart broke mine enough to kill me, so here’s my apology.’

‘It’s the one that serves as a palette cleanser in the middle of our set’

Lost Goat Found’s upcoming EP will feature the three new tracks, ‘Daydream’, ‘She Knows’ and ‘Running’ as well as previous singles ‘Cold Feet’ and ‘Hooped Earrings’. ”She Knows’ is a bit more dancey,’ Morgan said. ‘We’ve added more synths and it’s more rocky. ‘Daydream’ is also pretty dancey, it’s got a slow groove.’ Ben adds: ‘These are both ‘Morgan’ songs and so are a lot more existential rather than being about a certain event or person. The music for ‘She Knows’ came from a band jam when we were messing around and we liked it so much we turned it into a song. ‘Daydream’ is one of our first keyboard-based songs when Morgan got his fancy Nord.’ 

I ask if ‘Running’ is about running away from or towards something: ‘It’s about a girl, like all good songs,’ Morgan laughed. Ben nods: ‘It could be about either, couldn’t it?’ ‘Yeah, it’s poppy, it’s the one that serves as a palette cleanser in the middle of our set,’ Morgan added.

Other songs, particularly tracks like ‘Hooped Earrings’, are a synthed up nod to the 80’s, layering synths and a glockenspiel type sound, to give it a fresh, jingly jangly spin. Given that the song references a French girl, I ask if it’s based on a French girl they’ve met: ‘Haha, no, she’s not French but it’s also based on my ex,’ Ben said. ‘She did have big hooped earrings, though, she left them at my house and there was this whole thing about giving them back.’ Morgan is laughing: ‘When we talk about it, we think of the saying, “The bigger the hoop, the bigger the hoe”. We don’t use it,’ he adds hurriedly. I say that I’ve never even heard of it and perhaps it’s an Australian saying?

One of my favourite songs of theirs is ‘I Got Time’ (2019), a beautiful acoustic song that could be interpreted as being a straightforward love song, although it actually runs deeper than that: ‘That’s the telling difference between me and Ben, he writes about girls!,’ Morgan laughed. ‘I wrote it first and then we worked on it together. I wrote it when I was being existential crisisey, which I regularly am. I was writing it kinda for myself, it’s about self-care, I must have not been feeling the vibes at work.’ Ben adds: ‘It started as this but as we added some of the other lyrics it definitely became more broad and after playing it live, it has turned into a song for the crowd.’ 

As the song goes: ‘Every time you go out, I just wanna shout out that I got time for you, that I got time for you. Every time you come home, drunk and alone, I got time for you.’

‘It’s helped create some kind of framework for Australian artists’

Ben is a big fan of four-piece indie band from Perth, Spacey Jane: ‘They were very small a year ago but they’re really popular now.’ I say that I’m always amazed at the diversity of music coming out of Australia and ask them what they think might be behind it. ‘I think Triple J has been a massive help,’ Morgan said. ‘Do you know them?’ I say that I do. (Triple J is a government-funded, national Australian radio station featuring alternative music.) ‘It’s helped create some kind of framework for Australian artists.’ Morgan mentions San Cisco, an indie pop band from Fremantle, Western Australia. ‘They’ve got a cool sound, bubbly indie pop,’ he said.

Australia has been quicker to open up than Europe, which means that they have been able to start gigging again: ‘We’re lucky that we’re so far ahead,’ Morgan said. ‘We did a gig the other night with about 80 people up and dancing, which was so great.’ I ask them if they could go to a gig tonight, who would they like to see? ‘Can I have an opening act,?’ said Morgan, thinking. ‘I think I’d like Powderfinger to open for Gang of Youths (a Sydney-based indie rock band) and for Bernard Fanning (Powderfinger’s frontman) to do their song, ‘Let Me Down Easy’.’ Morgan listened to a lot of Bernard Fanning growing up, although he largely listened to his solo albums. ‘I also listened to a lot of beachy stuff like Jack Johnson, I didn’t listen to a whole lot of rock growing up,’ he said.

Ben is still thinking who he’d like to see play live tonight: ‘I love seeing Ball Park play (a five-piece indie rock/pop band based in Brisbane), so I’ll say them, with Spacey Jane opening.’ Morgan looks as if he approves. Dom joins in: ‘I saw Gang of Youths on my 19th birthday, four years ago,’ he said. ‘The energy they have is insane, everyone knows every word, it’s amazing.’ Ben interjects: ‘We often quote Ball Park as the band we’d like to tour with, if we could ever do that. We’ve listened to their music for so long. Personally. I would love to tour with Catfish and the Bottlemen. They have an amazing live show with an unreal energy on stage, especially the front man, Van. They were also the band we were listening to when we started writing more rocky songs.’

(Photo from left to right: Morgan, Cam, Ben and Dom)