Dwayne Rudolph Goettel (February 1, 1964 – August 23, 1995) was a Canadian electronic musician, best known for his work in the industrial music group Skinny Puppy.

Starting his career playing for a variety of acts around Edmonton, he joined Skinny Puppy in 1986 following the departure of keyboardist Bill Leeb.

He assisted bandmate cEvin Key on a number of side projects such as The Tear Garden and Doubting Thomas, and helped form the experimental electronic group Download.

He also created the independent record label Subconscious Communications with friend and colleague Phil Western as a means to release his solo work.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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 ...

[28]Conflict arose within the band, with Goettel and Key often siding against Ogre, who they felt had lost interest in working with Skinny Puppy and wanted a solo career.

[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.

[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.

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.

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.

[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.

[50] Goettel spoke to Alternative Press on how being in Skinny Puppy helped him jump outside the musical boundaries he had felt confined to in the past, saying "[Key] showed me that when you start on a C, you can play more than just these certain notes, that you can do whatever the moment demands of you, instead of looking blindly backwards".

[16] Goettel's experience with the use of the Ensoniq Mirage sampler proved to be pivotal to the band's evolving sound,[13] with Key dubbing him "the master of sampling".

[51]He discovered an interest in synthesizers early in his life and began listening to electronic acts such as Kraftwerk, Devo, Soft Cell, and Yello while in high school.

[52] Goettel told The Tampa Tribune that Skinny Puppy was attempting to "provide something that makes you question the things you sense", and was uninterested in pushing the band's music towards something more trendy.

[42] After Skinny Puppy disbanded, he spent a month in an Edmonton rehab center before returning to the studio to work on the Download album Furnace.

[63] Skinny Puppy Download cEvin Key Doubting Thomas Hilt Cyberaktif Sister Machine Gun Psyche Bibliography