Dwayne Goettel

The Korg MS-20 was Goettel's first synthesizer

Goettel's interest in making music developed when his family moved from High Level, Alberta, where he played trumpet for his high school band, to Edmonton. While there, he learned to play piano and began participating in the local music scene.[4] His first piece of equipment was the Korg MS-20, which he bought for $800. "I didn't even tell my parents. I'm up in my room, my mom walks in and she's like 'What's that!' And I'm sitting there with all these little keys and buttons going 'piszzshew'".[5] He met Darrin and Stephen Huss in 1982 and formed the band Psyche, one of only a handful of electronic acts in Edmonton at the time.[6] He contributed keyboards for the group[7] and joined them for their live debut in December that year.[8] He was also involved with the band Voice,[9] helping them record their debut EP, Anno di Voce,[10] before they changed their name to Office.[11] Goettel formed the band Water with longtime acquaintance Mandy Cousins (also known as Sandy Weir) in 1985. The duo recorded demos in an Edmonton night club called Krieg, but never released their material commercially.[12]

Goettel met Skinny Puppy in 1985 when Water opened for the band as part of their Bites tour.[12] He had impressed founder and keyboardist cEvin Key with his performance[13] and the two befriended each other.[11] Key asked him to join Skinny Puppy when it had become apparent that keyboardist Bill Leeb was uninterested in continuing on with the band.[14] Goettel joined in 1986 during the recording of their second album, Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse, on which he made his first contributions.[15] Goettel's extensive technical knowledge and experience in production helped to bring variety to Skinny Puppy's music[16][11] and steered them away from their synth-pop roots towards a more uniquely industrial sound.[17] He quickly immersed himself into the group and its musical approach, and began applying new techniques in the band's implementation of noise.[18]

Their sound continued to evolve with 1987's Cleanse Fold and Manipulate, which marked the beginning of the group's exploration into more experimental territory.[19] Their follow-up a year later, VIVIsectVI, saw the group touring in support of animal rights.[20] On stage, Goettel assisted Key as both a keyboardist[21] and percussionist[22] while singer Nivek Ogre acted out his elaborate theatrics.[9] While performing in Cincinnati, an audience member mistook a stuffed dog Ogre was dissecting to be a real animal and alerted the authorities. Two plainclothes officers entered the band's dressing room and arrested Ogre, Key, and tour manager Dan McGee for disorderly conduct.[23] Goettel, who mistook the officers for fans and had been rolling a joint in the corner of the room, was able to leave before the arrests were made.[24]

In 1989, Skinny Puppy released the album Rabies which featured Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen.[25] The album was a commercial success for the group[9] but had received a mixed reception from fans.[26] Goettel had initially been happy with the album, saying that he enjoyed working with Jourgensen and that it was his favorite Puppy album to date.[27] "We all like it, and I can see the worry in people's eyes, but it doesn't worry us. We did it, and we like it, and I'm not worried about doing another just like it, you know?"[27] He thought it was natural for Skinny Puppy to team up with Jourgensen and make an album, and believed it was the best option at the time.[28] He later changed his position, telling Alternative Press in 1991 that while some of the material on Rabies was good, the completed product was "less within the Skinny Puppy vision", a sentiment his bandmates agreed with.[5] He told Peter Day of WMXM 88.9 that Rabies was simply the result of a crossroads of ideas:

Almost in a way it allowed us to go back and re-emphasize where it is we're coming from in the first place ... I mean, at the time the way things were going, Ogre was exploring a lot of things and wanted to go out and do things and at the same time, Kevin and myself were doing other projects. It seemed natural, it seemed like the thing that was required at that time ... Skinny Puppy fans were writing us saying, 'What's happened to you guys you guys aren't gonna go all hard core on us now.' Obviously were not going to do a Ministry trip exactly. What good is it if everybody is listening to hardcore guitars right now. Skinny Puppy obviously is going to flirt with it, but that's Al's trip, so he can take it and go wherever that's supposed to go.[28]

Conflict arose within the band, with Goettel and Key often siding against Ogre, whom they felt had lost interest in working with Skinny Puppy and wanted a solo career.[29] Following the production, Goettel and Key took a brief hiatus from the group and moved to Toronto to work on other projects.[30] The duo formed Hilt with Key's longtime associate Al Nelson and released the album Call the Ambulance Before I Hurt Myself in 1990.[31] Goettel said he preferred the atmosphere when recording with Hilt to that of Skinny Puppy, believing it to be more enjoyable experience.[32] Another project, Doubting Thomas, served to showcase the material the duo had written for Skinny Puppy but was considered "too mellow" to make the cut.[30] Goettel also helped with Key and Bill Leeb's project called Cyberaktif, which he said was his least favorite of the side projects.[33] Pleased with the work he was doing, Goettel was unsure if Skinny Puppy would ever return from the fallout of Rabies. "Just the fact that there was so much satisfaction coming from outside Skinny Puppy led to that feeling of 'The End'".[5]

However, the duo returned to Vancouver and reunited with Ogre at Mushroom Studios to produce 1990's Too Dark Park.[34] A year later, the group were recording their final album for Nettwerk Records, Last Rights. The production was "tense and unhealthy" with the band working in shifts; Goettel and Key would use the studio by day while Ogre came in at night under the supervision of producer Dave "Rave" Ogilvie.[35] Goettel and Key had access to new digital editing equipment which allowed them to spend more time on post-production than on previous records. For the track "Download", Goettel spent two months collecting and composing an array of sounds to be used for the song, and with the assistance of Anthony Valcic, edited them together during a 14 hour long session.[36] That same year, Goettel returned with Key and Legendary Pink Dots singer Edward Ka-Spel for the release of The Tear Garden's The Last Man to Fly,[37] having joined them previously for 1987's Tired Eyes Slowly Burning.[38]

Their contract with Nettwerk complete, the band signed to Rick Rubin's American Recordings and moved to Los Angeles to begin recording their next album, The Process.[39][29] Rather than work in shifts as they had in the past, the band decided to record the album together,[40] an idea that was pushed by Rubin.[41] The production was frequently stalled due to fires and floods, as well as by the Northridge Earthquake.[42] Band infighting arose once more and was exacerbated by drug problems, including Goettel's increasing reliance on heroin,[43] a drug he once swore to never use.[44] Concerned with the ineffectiveness of American's producers in getting Ogre to write and sing, Goettel joined Key during band meetings to demand that Rave be brought in to assist.[24] Tensions were fueled further by the fact that when Ogre did write, he preferred to work with Key's demos instead of Goettel's.[45]

Amid the chaos, Goettel found time to work on his more techno driven solo work, which he made under the pseudonym aDuck.[3] To release his work, he and his friend Phil Western created the independent record label Subconscious Communications.[46] Together, they released the aDuck/Philth split twelve-inch single in 1993. Limited to 200 copies, the single featured the aDuck song "Power" on one side, and a song from Western (who used the name Philth) called "My Heart is Being Touched By Christ" on the other. Another aDuck song, "Phenethylamine Backwash", was released later in the year on a techno compilation compiled by Bill Leeb and Michael Balch.[47] That same year, Goettel was credited as a keyboardist on Sister Machine Gun's debut Sins of the Flesh.[48] In 1995, he helped Key establish the band Download as a side project to Skinny Puppy. Their first album, titled Furnace, was released following Goettel's death.[49]

Ogre quit Skinny Puppy in June 1995, prompting Rubin to halt funding for the album.[50] Goettel and Key returned to Vancouver with the master tapes in hand, intending to complete the album there.[29] Following Goettel's death in August, Rubin allotted funds so that Key, with the help of Rave, could see to the completion of the album.[50]