The Audreys’ Taasha on the death of bandmate Tristan: ‘Grief is such a profound experience’
The Audreys guitarist Tristan Goodall died at just 48. His fellow founding member and lead singer Taasha Coates shares the realities of the grief she felt.
SA Weekend
Don't miss out on the headlines from SA Weekend. Followed categories will be added to My News.
I was at a friend’s house for dinner, and someone asked me ‘How’s Trist?’
I replied, ‘Honestly, I feel like, at this point, I am just waiting for that phone call’ and they replied, ‘Oh, that must be really hard’.
I like to put my phone away during dinner. I picked it up afterwards and I saw a missed call from his brother (Cameron Goodall, who was also part of The Audreys original line-up).
I knew what that call was, 100 per cent.
The Audreys founding member Tristan Goodall dies aged 48
When I called him back I could hear it in his voice and I just went and locked myself in my friend’s laundry, my back up against the door.
I was talking to Cam and my friends were all like, ‘let us in’ and I wouldn’t.
Nothing prepares you even though you know they’re dying.
That day was weird, horrible, and then I just went into shock. It didn’t make a lot of sense.
I had never really lost anyone so close to me, grief was not something I was familiar with.
I went home and, at the time, I was living across the road from my dad.
I’d rung him, he was still up, and I went over and just leant on him.
We cried for, like, half an hour. We didn’t say anything to each other.
The Audreys were on tour; Trist died on a Saturday, and I was on stage, here in Adelaide, the following Friday.
Everyone said ‘You don’t have to do it, we’ll just cancel the tickets’, but something in me wanted to do it.
I think I felt that was the way I was going to process (Tristan’s passing), and it was one of the most profound things I’ve ever done.
I got up and played songs that we had written together to a crowd that knew him and knew us in a venue that I was really familiar with (Church of the Trinity).
I didn’t quite make it through the last song … everyone stood and it was this amazing sharing of grief.
I dreamt about him every night.
We’d have these incredible conversations, talking about how he had more time, then I’d wake up and remember we were already out of time, and the grief would hit me all over again.
(Editor’s note: Anna asks if music helped Taasha to heal.
Early on, I found it really hard to listen to music we had enjoyed together but that passed.
Trist was a bit of a facetious a. hole, really.
I mean, I loved him, but he could be really cheeky.
He once said to Cam that Roberta Flack’s The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, was the pinnacle of human achievement.
Yeah, all right. OK, Trist, sure, darling.
Before he passed, Tristan had said to me, ‘I really want you to keep playing the songs’ and I put together a new band (with guitarist Tom Kneebone, bassist Felicity Freedman and drummer Beej Barker).
It was great but on his birthday, 10 months after he died, we were playing in Melbourne and Cam (who has been songwriting and guest performing with The Audreys) and I decided we’d do The First Time Ever … it just seemed like this great idea.
The music started and I had to really rally … I didn’t make it to the end of the song …
Music is a shot in the heart … your emotions can get there very quickly.
(Editor’s note: Anna asks Taasha if she ever feels Tristan’s presence on stage.)
Cam and I wrote most of The Audreys latest record (Ruin & Repair, the band’s first album in a decade) together – as a way for us to talk about Tristan, heal and celebrate his life.
Putting down those songs in the studio, we could feel Tristan … you know, in good ways and bad-good ways, as in, ‘If Trist was here he totally would have blah, blah, blah …’. Ruin & Repair still sounds very much like The Audreys.
It is partly because it is my voice, my words, but, also, it is from making five albums with Tristan and us developing that sound – plus Cam coming in.
I think Tristan would have approved and that makes me really happy.
Cam wrote the track You’re In A Dream, about imagining where someone might be after they have died: ‘My feet are aching / My heart’s like a stone / And all of my best days are done … All of your trials don’t mean a thing / You’re in dream of perpetual spring’.
As in, you’ve laid all your burdens down … it’s that kind of idea. The song I wrote about Trist is called Sober, and it has a beautiful string quartet on it that our bass player, Felicity (Freedman) arranged. It is a gorgeous arrangement and I’m hoping to get a quartet up to play that song with us at The Gov.
You know, 48 is young but Trist had a great life and I love that he is still such a big part of what we do.
I still cry a lot about him, but if I had died and he wasn’t still crying about me … I’d be coming down and having words.
‘He had a knife’: Aussie mum used mind tricks to survive hell
A famous Australian jailed overseas has described her captors’ cruellest form of punishment – and bravely revealed another horror from earlier in her life.
‘I put it down to work stress. Then my world came crashing down’
Emily Perry went from a high flying executive to questioning every aspect of her life. It felt like a switch had been flicked.