Ghost
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Ghost

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We kick off discussing their new If You Have Ghost EP, produced by Dave Grohl, an experience “the guitarist Ghoul” says “was very pleasurable, very inspiring, and very cheerful.” Ghoul goes on to explain that the band met the Foo Fighters singer/guitarist when both played on the same festival bill, and got to work together almost immediately.

“It was very spontaneous and very quickly executed,” he explains in a calm, quiet voice quite reminiscent of actor Christoph Waltz. “We met, and one month later we were in the studio. We were lucky in the sense that our time schedules, for once, all of a sudden there was a little bit of a gap that coincided, and we had a very clear idea of what we wanted to do.”

The anonymity is a key factor of the band, with one Ghoul, speaking with Loudwire magazine in early 2013, stated “the idea was always to take away personality or individuality in the modern form of being a celebrity, in order to have people focussing on the artwork itself.”

Balancing the dichotomy of the extreme metal Satanist image with the ‘70s hard rock vibe, Ghoul says the band members’ influences are wider ranging than most. “It is literally everything from ABBA to Venom,” he explains. “Obviously it is leaning towards rock. Most of it is sort of classical rock to hardcore and metal, but also a lot of, I guess, prog stuff, and alternative, avant garde sort of music, a lot of soundtrack music… everything from the big names like Pink Floyd and The Doors to really weird, eclectic, record-collecting stuff. And that mixture and mesh sort of makes our sound.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Ghoul plays down the Blue Oyster Cult influence on Ghost, declaring, “Even though I have their records [and] I am very aware of them, they are not as big an influence as people think.”

When asked if it is possible that any of the band are or were art students, and if Ghost might be an artistic statement of sorts, he laughs again and keeps his cards held firmly to his chest.

“Yes, yes it is [possible],” he says enigmatically, before continuing. “We are very pop culturally oriented, and interested in different medias [including] music and film and art and print and, you know, all sorts of aesthetic expressions, and I think that Ghost is a very good outlet for all of those things.”

Despite Ghost’s Satanic lyrics and imagery, Ghoul says they haven’t attracted an abundance of religious fanaticism in America. “We have, but not to the extent that you might expect,” he starts. “I think that the bands [that] historically have the biggest problems are bands like Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne and Marilyn Manson in the height of their careers.

“I think the only time that we sort of noticed [it] is when the whole burger thing came up,” he says, referencing the placing of a ‘The Ghost’ burger featuring goat shoulder, red wine reduction and a communion wafer on the menu of Chicago heavy metal-themed restaurant’s menu. Catholic institutions demanded it be removed, calling it “tasteless”.

“As much as we’re here to provoke thought,” he continues, finally shining a crack of light onto Ghost’s motivations, “we’re not here to provoke just to provoke – and I think that a lot of people that see us sort of understand that. That we are not eating shit onstage, we’re not just trying to fuck things up.”

BY SHANE PINNEGAR