A Chat with goodtoknow (03.09.25)
Born from friendship, spontaneity, and a shared love of music, goodtoknow is less a band and more a feeling, one that hovers between vulnerability, play, and creative trust. Made up of Paula, Benja, Nano, and Ger, the group came together in Mexico City, where a late-night session sparked the beginnings of their debut EP. What followed was a process marked not by rigid plans or egos, but by intuition, laughter, and a collective openness to let the music lead the way. In this interview, the members of goodtoknow reflect on their creative chemistry, the joy of collaboration, and the surprising softness that emerged naturally in their sound.
OSR: For those meeting you for the first time, who is goodtoknow, in your own words?
Paula: We’re friends who like making music and had the luck of making music together ,and on top of that, the extra luck of making it inside a room with preamps and microphones.
Benja: A truthful feeling.
Ger: GOODTOKNOW is a feeling that you’ve been looking for your entire life.
OSR: You all come from different musical backgrounds. How did those differences influence the final sound?
Paula: I think you can hear the music we listen to in the songs.
Benja: By not thinking about it.
Nano: Each of us brings unique influences, which helps us approach songwriting in various ways. We focus on what serves the songs best.
Ger: The final sound of the band is a consequence of us letting go of control over the things we feel are not important for us at this moment in our lives. And also, we liked the idea of being open to exploring different ways to make new music with friends.
OSR: How do you navigate creative decision-making in a space where there’s no clear “frontperson”?
Benja: Trusting each other’s intuitions.
Nano: Since everyone in the band is talented and brings their own strengths, it feels natural to let go and allow things to unfold.
Ger: It was something natural. All of us are producers in a way, so we have enough experience to hear what our partners have to say, and what things are important to let the work flow.
OSR: ‘I’LL STAY’ was born from a spontaneous session in Mexico City. How did that night shape the emotional tone of the EP?
Paula: It was two full days and one late night session. I think my personal state emotionally tinted the emotions inside the songs, but the lightness that was in the room as we were making it and the fact that we’re just friends who get along and were having fun together, influences the weightlessness I think is felt in the music. Everything came from fun and intuition and never from our brains or egos or music-nerdyness. We’re music fans who were playing, pretending to be the artists they always looked up to in the most serious way possible.
Benja: Much about vulnerability, and the seek of joy just for the sake of it.
Ger: First of all, the vibe of the studio invites you to connect with something deep. We were so excited about sharing this time together, so the environment was sacred in a way. And I think that approach somehow tuned us into each other and even led to an implicit alignment when it came to approaching the colors, effects, audio processing, lyrics that ended up making the album.
OSR: There’s a remarkable softness and restraint across the EP. Was that an intentional direction or something that emerged organically?
Paula: I think my previous answer responds to this. It all just kind of happened. No one was thinking too much. We were just thinking about what we thought sounded good and what we’d want to hear in the song.
Benja: A lot has to do with Paula’s musicality and personality, also on how that’s representative of the four of us.
Nano: Initially, we did discuss some references, but the softness and restraint really emerged naturally as we played and recorded. It wasn’t a strict direction; rather, it developed organically during the process. We allowed the music to guide us, and that gentle quality became a defining feature of the EP.
Ger: It was something that happened organically, especially when we started to play the songs all together. The character of the acoustic guitar, the Rhodes, the Hofner and the Ludwig was, without a doubt, a good combination to get this sound.
OSR: What surprised you most about making this EP together?
Paula: How easy it was. And how fun.
Benja: It surprises me how little space I was giving to myself as a songwriter personally, to play just for the sake of it, it was both amazing and sad to realize.
Nano: What surprised me the most was how spontaneously the music came together in the studio. Each playback after a take revealed something new and exciting, allowing us to capture moments we hadn’t planned for. This unexpected creativity made the process really enjoyable and added a unique energy to the EP.
Ger: I think the most surprising aspect of this experience was noticing that inside us there is a pure shared enthusiasm similar to when we were children and we started to make music.
OSR: How do you know when something is meant to be a “goodtoknow song” versus something for your solo work?
Paula: Well, I don’t think we’ve gotten there yet. For me, for now, the language is my only filter. Songs I write and like in Spanish go for my personal artist project, and songs that begin to emerge in English feel like a potential goodtoknow song. But that’s probably going to figure itself out the more we get together to make more music.
Benja: As long as we keep leaving the band’s work for when we are all together we will know how to answer that.
Ger: In my case, I don’t know if I want to separate my ideas based on genres. I prefer to have a lot of ideas to share with everybody, and I know that some of these ideas are going to find their place in my life at the right moment.
OSR: Has working in this collective shifted how you approach your individual projects or identities as artists?
Paula: I just know it gives me a fresh breath of air from my personal project when I need it. Gives me energy to keep doing that when it gets a little bit heavy.
Benja: It did. It lectured me on how important is going old-fashion and playing the songs live with a band, instead of tracking bit by bit like we have been getting used to nowadays.
Ger: I think that this experience invited us to explore some new ways to record, to think, to mix a song. The jewel that we discovered is the energy and the magic that one specific moment can have. Chords, arrangements, plugins, are things that have existed for a long time, the thing is to let the road free so that these elements coexist and create something that sounds fresh for us, in goodtoknow or in our own projects.
OSR: And what’s something you learned from one another that you didn’t expect?
Paula: That Benja is an amazing bass player. Ger has really good taste in picking drummers and friends. And that Nano is the epitome of an absolute but lowkey and unpretentious boss.
Benja: That I could love them even more.
Nano: I learned a ton from everyone. I only knew Paula and Benja by name before, so it was cool to see how much I could pick up from working with them. It was awesome to see how well we all clicked together.
Ger: Something that I learned from one another is that all of us wanted to have a band. goodtoknow is a project that makes us very happy.
OSR: What’s something that’s “good to know” about each of you that fans might not already know?
Paula: Ger does have a limit to his peace and love “all is good” aura and energy. We almost met it on night two. We almost made him pop.
Benja: The province of Tucuman is very special for the unity of the band.
Nano: A fun fact is that even though we’re all from South America, I actually met everyone here in Mexico City, where most of us live now. It’s interesting how our paths crossed in a different country, bringing us together.
Ger: Something good to know about me is that I like more music genres than you can imagine, and on Sundays, I love to listen to old boleros and soft jazz.
Many thanks to goodtoknow for speaking with us. Find out more about goodtoknow on their official website, Instagram, and Spotify.
