Interview: Ghostland Observatory

I’m sure you guys have told this story many times before, but you met through an ad in the Austin Chronicle?
I was in a band previous to Ghostland and we put an ad out for an electronic sound-kinda person. We had many responses and Thomas came in and before this he’d never been in a band. When he came in, our drummer left, and the rest of the band took a hiatus for awhile. But Thomas and I stuck together and kept going.

To me, Ghostland sounds very funk and glam rock. I know that Thomas (Ghostland’s producer/drummer) has cited Daft Punk as one of his influences, but what are your influences and where do you draw inspiration?
Well, over the years it’s a different thing. With a lot of what I do, I look up to a lot of performers and entertainers, like James Brown, Freddie Mercury, Zach de la Rocha, people that are really performers. In sports, I like Deion Sanders, you know, show-off performers. So, that kind of style, it doesn’t necessarily have to be rock, but I really love performers.

One thing that Ghostland is becoming known for is giving a great live show, with the lasers, and your engaging stage persona. You’ve mentioned that showmanship and performers are really what inspire you, how much prep and consideration goes into these shows?
I don’t really think about it, it just comes out of me, with Thomas he’s got a past history of throwing raves and stuff like that so he knows a lot about lights and what to do with them and where to place them. But performance-wise, we just practice our songs and we practice a lot, and make sure we’re really comfortable with our songs. When it comes to live time it’s just live, I don’t really have a certain set up of what I’m going to do, I just do whatever I’m inspired to do.

Ghostland is very much a DIY "Myspace band." You guys still manage your distribution and you do your own publicity, and it seems like it’s a great time to make music these days with the accessibility of the internet. Does that have its pros and cons?
I really don’t see anything bad. I guess a con would be stress, having to maintain everything yourself and do everything on your own, and then try to still concentrate on the art, and still try to stay pure in the creation of your artform and not let it get contaminated with the business. I think that would be the only difficult thing, Thomas is the one that runs the label, he’s the mastermind behind the label and he does a very good job of doing both; of staying very creative but still staying very business too. It’s an amazing feat to pull off and I personally could not do that. Having to be a one man type show, having to hold down a record label can be difficult but other than that it all goes your way. I mean, if you’re a band and you’re running everything and you’re pretty popular and you have the fans and the network you’re making all your money, you’re not having to divvy it out to all sorts of people; recording contracts, bullshit like that. You definitely have to want to do it, there are a lot of bands that want to be on labels and not have to worry about [that stuff] too, but I think it’s a lot nicer to have control over what you’re doing and to decide when you wanna go on the road and when you don’t want to go on the road, and not owe anybody money.

Would you say that the ACL Stubbs’ show you guys played this year after the White Stripes cancelled was a turning point for Ghostland?
It might have been a proving ground type thing. We were definitely honored that their first consideration was to get us to come in there to fill the void. That show actually was one of my favorite shows that I’ve played in a long time. That show was on fire. To be the go-to guys, that feels good. So it definitely might have been a proving ground type of thing for people to say “well we know Ghostland’s track record, let’s go to them” so that felt good. That might have been a turning point to prove to people that they can depend on us to pull through

And you guys recently played on Conan. That was pretty cool.
Yeah that was an interesting process

Congratulations on that, what was that experience like?
It was really cool, it was an interesting experience. We’re really thankful for being on there, and it was an opportunity for us to definitely get out there and have more people see what we can do. I enjoyed it, but I actually enjoy live shows better, simply because I like the crowd to be up against me, there was a bit of energy missing between such a long distance between me and the crowd. It was almost like we were in some space station, it was very isolating, but it was really neat to see how the show even happens, how it all goes down. And it went by so fast, it was like something your focusing on, and you’re sitting there like ‘okay, okay, okay’ and then boom, it goes by and you’re like ‘damn, I didn’t even know what happened.’ It was a great experience.

You’re coming out with a live DVD from ACL this month?
Yeah, it’s off the City Limits TV show, it’s our DVD recording there for the TV show.

Are there any cool DVD extras that fans can expect?
Besides what’s going to air on TV, there’s like five or six songs that you’re not going to see on TV that are on the DVD. The DVD is the whole show, it’s got extra songs on there and it actually has two new songs from the new album. The album is coming out in February.

Cool, there’s an album that’s all set to go?
Yeah it’s already recorded and mastered we’re just trying to finish up the art work right now, you should start hearing about it in the next couple of months

We’ll definitely be on the look out for that.
Yeah, it’s going to be pretty cool, all of this is kind of happening, the release of the DVD and the February release of the album so hopefully we’ll get copies out to play at the radio stations.

And what about a music video?
Honestly we haven’t really considered it, just because we haven’t seen anything that we want to work with and nobody has really approached us. Right now, we just don’t know why it’d be necessary, because our thing is we cut the tracks and put them out there so people can hear them and then come to our live show and you listen to the music there as well. I don’t know, we just haven’t put a lot of thought into it, we just don’t feel like we have to have that to be successful. We have an album, that’s in your car, that’s in your head, wherever you want to listen to it, and then you come to the live show and see what it’s like to be inside our place.

So the ghostland experience is more so about the live show and the performance and connecting with the fans that way?
Exactly, and the more and more I go, the more and more I realize that it has a lot to do with the fans, it’s not about us. I mean we’re definitely projecting it but if you’re just screaming out into open space and not getting anything back you tire out quickly. With the fans and with the crowd and the people really loving what we’re doing and really experiencing what we’re doing and throwing it back, that’s a very important thing and I’m starting to realize more and more it’s kind of a symbiotic relationship, it’s very interesting.

Ghostland Observatory and Ceeplus Bad Knives
Friday, November 9, 2007
Warehouse Live: 813 St. Emmanuel Street, between Rusk and Walker
$20, All ages, Doors, 8:00pm
Ticketmaster