“We Were Golden”: The Soundtrack of a Lost California, and the Band That Never Was
There’s a moment in “We Were Golden,” a nostalgic surf rock anthem from Mikey’s in the Mustang, where you can almost feel the salty ocean breeze on your skin and the innocence of a bygone era slipping through your fingers. It’s the California of the 60s—the golden era of sun-kissed beaches, drive-ins, and young love. And yet, as Mikey (aka Mike Mahoney) reflects on the past, it’s clear that this isn’t just a song; it’s a reverent tribute to a time when life felt simpler, when the waves seemed endless, and when every drive felt like the beginning of something new. But “We Were Golden” is more than just a retro throwback. It’s a piece of a much bigger story.
With its rolling surf and upbeat, beachy vibe, the song is part of a grand project—an album that will serve as the soundtrack to a movie currently in the works.
“I wanted to do a tribute song to Brian Wilson after I’d finished my legacy stuff,” Mike explains. “But my producer, Dave, said, ‘You don’t want to write a geography song. You live in a time, in a place that’s unique.’ And that’s when I started thinking about my own experiences. It wasn’t a geography lesson—it was about my life, my memories.” The song “We Were Golden” was co-written with Mike’s longtime collaborator and producer David Blackburn, and became a tribute to Wilson’s timeless influence on Mikey’s own musical journey.
And those memories? They come flooding back in the chorus of “We Were Golden,” with imagery of places like Disneyland in the 60s when the park wasn’t a corporate powerhouse but a haven for young lovers and dreamers to enjoy the dances they would put on with live bands. The song captures the innocence of a time when girls had to pay $2 to get into Disneyland, and the guys paid $4. They’d wear their best suits, head to the dance stage, and wonder if the girl standing across the room might be their first love.
“It was the innocence of the time. That’s what I wanted to convey in the song,” Mike recalls. “We used to go to Disneyland, and the world was simple. There was magic in everything. I wanted “We Were Golden” to take people back to that time. And it wasn’t just Disneyland. It was about the whole experience—sitting at the Tastee Freeze with your friends, talking about the future, but not knowing where it would lead. We didn’t have the distractions of modern technology—we didn’t even have the internet or cell phones. A long phone cord in the kitchen was all we had.”
This reflection on the simplicity and wonder of youth drives “We Were Golden”—and the larger project that’s slowly unfolding. The track features some of the same Beach Boys-inspired harmonies that made the 60s a magical time. “I knew I didn’t have the voice anymore to do it, so we brought in a couple of guys—Patch and Liam—and they knocked it out in under eight hours,” Mike says, chuckling. The resulting track has that rich, layered sound that calls back to Good Vibrations and all the great music of the California coast.
And it’s not just the sound that evokes nostalgia—it’s the visuals too. The music video takes you on a journey through a time capsule, featuring scenes of a white Mustang, carefree beach days, and vintage clips of the iconic places Mike remembers. Some of the footage, he admits, is stock—“I couldn’t drive around to find 32-cent gasoline anymore,” he laughs—but the imagery brings everything full circle. When Mike sings about driving with a bucket of gas, it’s not just a line; it’s a visceral snapshot of a time when a few bucks at the pump meant a full day of adventure.
“It was about evoking those memories,” he explains. “We wanted to show what it was like to live in that world—a world where you could just get in your car with your friends and drive off into the sunset. And Disneyland, the Tastee Freeze—those were the places that defined it all.”
But beyond the sweet, sunny vibes of “We Were Golden”, there’s a story within the story. Mike is working on a film—Think American Graffiti meets The Notebook, but with a twist. The film opens with a reunion concert of 70-year-old men who never got the chance to play the gig they dreamed about as kids. It’s a journey through youth, love, and the undeniable pull of nostalgia.
The film will explore the impact of the Vietnam War, the way it changed a generation, and the ripple effects it had on the kids who lived through it. The film’s storyline follows a group of college students in 1967 who were also in a band, capturing their lives in Orange County before the Vietnam War swept in and forever altered their world. The film will then shift to 2017 when the band reunites for “one of the concerts they never got to do.”
“We were still innocent when the war hit,” Mike says. “We weren’t into the drug scene, we were still hanging out on the beach, drinking beers. But then, the draft hit, and a lot of my friends—some of the best ones—didn’t come back. It decimated our community. That’s something we’re trying to capture in the movie.”
The project, which is set to film a concert scene this spring, will bring together the talents of a well-known Hollywood director and cinematographer, along with William Gereghty, who will help guide the film’s visual direction. A close friend is also working on the script. The project is being spearheaded by men in their 60s and 70s, a generation that is keenly aware of the passage of time and the opportunities lost.
It’s not a movie about young rebels running from the law or fighting for their lives in the streets. Instead, it’s a story of lost opportunities, of what could have been—a reflection on the promise of youth and the stark reality of adulthood. “We Were Golden,” in all its upbeat, surf-inspired glory, is a celebration of that lost innocence, a look at how even the most carefree days can end in heartbreak.
Mike’s passion for the project is palpable. “It’s not about the money or fame,” he insists. “It’s about telling a story—one that I think a lot of people, especially those from my generation, will really connect with. We were golden, and now we’re just trying to bring that feeling back.”
Listen to “We Were Golden” now and watch the music video!
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ON THE RISE
Gang of Youths frontman David Le’aupepe has spoken to NME about the band’s first new single in four years ‘Things Take Time’ and the “philosophical freedom” that has come with writing new material for the band’s long-awaited fourth studio album.
The single marks the band’s first new original material since their acclaimed 2022 album ‘Angel In Realtime.’, and marks a significant change of pace. Rather than returning to the maximalist, big-swinging indie-rock that has shaped their previous albums, ‘Things Take Time’ opts for a refined and jazzy groove that swings atop sparse piano chords and stabs of horns.
As far as comeback singles go, it’s about as subtle and discreet as possible – as if it’s entering through a side door rather than kicking the front gate open. As Le’aupepe revealed, this has very much been done by design.
‘Angel In Realtime.’ was given four stars by NME upon its 2022 release, and described as “a triumphant exploration of love and life”. It led to the biggest shows of the band’s career, including their first-ever headlining arena shows in their native Australia and selling out Brixton Academy in the UK. After a final show in support of the record at British Summer Time with Lana Del Rey, however, Gang of Youths effectively went dark – save for the late 2023 release of ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ for the festive season.
“We all live quiet lives,” Le’aupepe told NME. “We don’t have our own social media, or anything like that. We’re not interested in the public stuff, and I tend to require a lot of respite from the world. Having said that, we’re all kind of ready for it again now. It’s weirdly exciting.”
Check out the full interview with Le’aupepe below, where he discussed the differences between observational and emotive songwriting, the ongoing struggle with perfectionism and why Gang of Youths continually has to die in order to be reborn again.
NME: Hello Dave. Of all the new material the band has been working on, why was ‘Things Take Time’ chosen as the first single?
David Le’aupepe: “Well, the powers that be chose it – probably because it’s the shortest one! It’s a three-minute song, which is miraculous for a band like ours. It’s also a pop song, which is a form I’ve not really dabbled in much. It was a really liberating song to write – I’ve used that word so many times in interviews in the past, but in this instance it really set me free in a sense. I’m actually singing for once, too. I’ve done a lot of talking that happens to be in tune, or these grandiose fucking yells, but I haven’t really allowed my voice to be free like this before.
“One of the things I really like about the song is that, when it was finished and we listened back to it, it felt like a proper break with the past – and we were OK with that. We’ve achieved great things in the past, and we’re proud of it, but this is the thread we’re following now musically. I was delighted by that.”
What place did the song come from in a lyrical sense?
“It’s about nothing… Well, not nothing. It’s about growing plants. My wife ordered too many tomato seeds, so she went to work growing all of these tomatoes in our house. I go over to record with Tom [Hobden, Gang of Youths’ multi-instrumentalist] at his home studio, and that overlooks his back garden. His wife Emma grows all these beautiful plants in the yard. It got me fascinated with the cycle of growth and death, and being baffled that people can grow things without killing them.
“It’s funny… I feel like death and rebirth are a constant part of our subject matter. We’re always dealing with them in one way or another, so it’s kind of weird that we almost accidentally continued it – even though the song is so different for us.”
How naturally did the musical change of pace come to you? There’s fittingly a bit of a parallel with a song like ‘Tend the Garden’, but even that feels a lot bigger and more layered in comparison to ‘Things Take Time’…
“I came in with the idea one night after dinner, and played the little riff. Recorded it, played a drum part, recorded that, got Donnie [Borzestowski, Gang of Youths’ drummer] to redo it, and voilà. You hear all of us at work on this song. When Tom heard my little ‘doo doo doo’ in the verse, it was his idea to chuck in a horn arrangement to replicate them. Donnie is a world-class drummer, and doing something a bit jazzier was right in his repertoire.
“As for Jung [Kim, Gang of Youths’ guitarist/keyboardist], he always has such a deft hand. He’s always so careful, and so organised with his thoughts. I think that’s why it was funny when I finally sent in my vocal take – after doing like 400 takes, he was just like, ‘Fuck it, I don’t really need to worry about it’. Nothing came easily, but everything just made sense.”
Everything went into radio silence after ‘Angel in Realtime.’ Was there ever a period between that cycle ending and the new one beginning where you genuinely thought Gang of Youths was over?
“Of course. That happens after every album we’ve made. I sit there at the end saying ‘I’m done’, and then enough time passes and I’m up like Leo [DiCaprio] in The Wolf of Wall Street: ‘I’m not fucking leaving!’ Out of all of the cycles, ‘Angel’ was definitely the hardest. I love that album, I really do; I think it’s my best songwriting, but it was this whole family odyssey. The arena thing was so weird, too. We’re an indie rock band – we never set out to play in stadiums, especially when you look at how scrappy we were when the band started. It was just the nature of things.
“If we came back trying to be an arena-rock band? Snoozy as fuck. We’re not in that place anymore. Those songs from ‘Angel’ are everyone else’s now. They don’t really play a role in my day-to-day life, or my inner world. What ‘Things Take Time’ represents is a philosophical freedom from having to write about personal shit. I had to break this cycle of feeling like I have to make opuses that dig into the underbelly of my life every single time. I could just write songs with their own meaning, that are curious and spiritual without having to directly cost me something.”
Was it a process of realising a song could still be reflective of you without having to be very hyper-literally about you, the way a song like ‘Brothers’ was?
“The writing now is less and less about trying to find things within myself to deal with, and more and more about things that I notice and that I contemplate. The new songs are, more often than not, about something I’ve observed rather than something I’ve felt. They’re about the external. There’s another new song we played, ‘YeYu’, and that’s probably the only really personal song out of all of them. That’s a real point of difference for a songwriter like me.”
As you just mentioned, you played your first show in three years earlier this month at a small theatre 90 minutes south of Sydney, with three new songs on the setlist – including ‘Things Take Time’. What did performing on stage again mean to you?
“Loads. It renewed something in me. There was a real warmth and affection there – you always get that with regional audiences in beautiful theatres. I knew some people who were in the front row, and who said hi afterwards. People have gotten married since they last saw us, or had kids since they last saw us. It was nice to see a lot of those familiar faces, and to see how they’re existing and how life is for them now. Hell, it was just nice to see people again. Sometimes, the boredom and the monotony of playing live and touring can wear down on even the most dedicated road dog. We all felt that at the end of the last tour, so there were some nerves in coming back to it. As soon as we stepped out on stage, though, it was like, ‘this is what it’s all about. This is the point of it all’.”
That show felt like a lot of the older material was being reinvented through the lens of the new stuff. You played ‘Magnolia’ solo on electric guitar, and ‘Let Me Down Easy’ was pared back in a really subtle way. Can we expect Gang of Youths’ shows to play out a little differently now that it’s no longer a confetti-cannon arena rock show?
“We haven’t even figured that out yet. This was our first foray into really doing it again, you know? The album that we’re working on has more of a sense of just plugging in and playing – a lot of bare elements of piano, bass, drums, vocals. We want these songs to stand out by themselves, as opposed to needing loads of backing tracks running in order for them to work. That factored into the live show – could we reinvent these songs in a way that makes sense to us? It was about striking a middle ground between giving people familiarity and us not dying of boredom.”
Is the new album done?
“Nah.”
How will you know when it’s done?
“When someone tells me it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever made! With [debut album, 2015’s] ‘The Positions’, I had no clue what I was doing. I just knew we had a deadline to turn everything in. With [second album, 2017’s] ‘Go Farther in Lightness’, I was totally sure about every aspect of that album before we turned it in. All I really know about this one, so far, is that when I got back the masters for ‘Things Take Time’, it felt like I was closer to the end of the album than I was to the beginning. I’ve always cooked the goose too long, I think, and now it’s a process of learning not to.”
‘Things Take Time’ is out now. Gang of Youths will perform at All Points East in London’s Hyde Park with Twenty One Pilots on August 30 before a run of UK and European shows in November and December. Visit here for tickets and more information.
