Q&A: The Ghost of a Thousand

Currently reaping a pretty positive response for latest album ‘New Hopes, New Demonstrations’, Brighton’s Ghost of a Thousand are certainly one to watch in the coming months. We sent a few questions over to vocalist Tom Lacey, and he kindly took time out of his fairly hectic schedule to answer them.

Rock Blogster: How have things been going? Been busy recently?

Tom Lacey: Very busy, it’s been great although our main focus now in our July Tour in the UK in a couple of weeks.

RB: Some people might start hearing about you for the first time with this album – what kind of band would you describe yourselves as?

TL: I think we’re a black hearted rock’n'roll band that obviously grew up listening to a lot of punk and hardcore. I’m not sure how to describe it in a more concise way!

RB: Your new album is an impressive piece of work. How did you go about putting it together?

TL: We wrote it over 2008 after we stopped touring the first album, and recorded it over 5 weeks in Stockholm with Pelle Gunnerfeldt. It was super fun.

RB: What were the biggest influences on its themes?

TL: It’s all about how as a 26 year old all the things that defined your youth, your parents, partying, thinking you’re going to grow up to be a spaceman/doctor/vet etc etc all get taken away from you and how you deal with these things in a positive or negative way.

RB: The artwork is pretty impressive. Who did it, and how did it come about?

TL: That was me! We did have another guy that was set to do it but it didn’t work out so I decided to go ahead and make it myself. There’s loads of my art on myspace.com/mrtomlacey if anyone needs artwork done for them!

RB: There’s a lot of bands that have suddenly grown very resentful at the world they’re in. What really pisses you guys off the most?

TL: Really? I think a lot of bands are far too complacent about the world we live in. I find bands that bang on and on about their hardcore backgrounds and then write completely ball-less pop tunes quite frustrating.

RB: To combat these complaints, would you like to suggest some solutions?

TL: Ban Black Flag t-shirts, seriously, they’ve been split up for so long there are other bands you could be into too.

RB: What kind of things have you got lined up for the future?

TL: Touring in July is the big one, and then we have the Eastpak Antidote tour with Alexisonfire, Troy and Antiflag in Oct, that will be incredible. I’m doing the artwork for the This City album too which is taking up a lot of my time.

RB: What music have you yourselves been getting into as of late?

TL: The new Crystal Stilts album is brilliant, as is the new Mastodon. Our new record is pretty good too!

Weekly News Roundup – 24th April 2009

Faith No More have surprised many people by self-confirming an appearance at Reading and Leeds. The reformed band, who were previously believed to be using their headlining appearance at Download as their only UK date this summer, have confirmed that they will play the festival on the Friday at Reading and Sunday at Leeds. Whilst it is unknown where on the bill they will perform I am willing to guess that it will be between Kings Of Leon and the Kaiser Chiefs. The organisers, Festival Republic, will announce the first batch of names for the Lock Up Stage next week.

Papa Roach have responded to claims about a fan shitting in a moshpit during a gig in Manchester. Jacoby Shaddix, the vocalist, wrote to Rock Sound saying: “Fucking hell – this story is hilarious. The first we heard about this was when we were asked about it during an interview, the funny thing is that we did an interview before the UK gigs and Tobin said ‘bring your diapers because we are going to rock the shit out of you’. It looks like it really happened!” Well, no shit Jacoby.

In other news:

The splits for the Download Festival have been released. Joining Slipknot, Def Leppard and Faith No More as headliners are six other artists who share the top billing on two other stages. Motley Crue, The Prodigy and Trivium will top the imaginatively titled Second Stage whilst Meshuggah, Anvil and Go: Audio will top the Tuborg Stage.

Mastodon have announced a brief UK tour. The band will play four dates in June in Sheffield, Manchester, Glasgow and London. Full dates are up on their website.

Live Review: Manatees

Live Review: Manatees
Support: Over the Wall, Mt.
Venue: 93 Feet East, London
Date: 9/04/09

A showcase for the impressive variety of artists that have had releases put out by Motive Sounds, tonight’s show promises an eclectic selection of delights. First up is Mt., a band making slow and steady progress to moving mountains, if you’ll excuse the very appropriate, but still unforgivably terrible pun. Unfamiliar with them and their sound at first, the band do a good job of impressing with their just about unique take on the post-rock stable, intertwining textured melodies with the odd bracing round of vocal choruses.

Weekly News Roundup: 17th April

Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction are coming to the UK. Pointless this being here, as tickets are going to sell quicker than a greased dildo being thrown down a water flume. The NIN/JA tour will be coming to the M.E.N Arena (14/7) and the 02 Arena (15/7).

My Bloody Valentine have been announced as curators for this years ATP Nightmare Before Christmas festival. Sonic Youth and a few others have already been confirmed, with a lot more to come over the next few months. The seasonal festivity takes place December 4th-6th at Butlins Minehead.

Record Store Day takes place tomorrow, 18th April. Be sure to check the website for a list of local musical outlets that are supporting the cause, and keep an eye out for the plethora of exclusives that are being released for the event.

Killswitch Engage are planning to release their second self titled new album on June 30th. Apparantly it was too difficult to come up with an original name, so let’s just hope that it’s just because they used up all their imagination on the songs.

Octahedron, the new album from The Mars Volta is due out June 23rd. The first single for the yanks will be ‘Since We’ve Been Wrong’, a title that has been annoying me due to its similarity to a fucking Kelly Clarkson song.

Finally, in an example  of dribbling to put out a forest fire, the founders of torrent website The Pirate Bay are to be sent to the chokey for a year. One of the founders, still defiant even in defeat, Peter Sunde tweeted just before the verdict was announced: “It used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release.” The members are set to appeal the decision made by a Swedish court.

Weekly News Roundup: 10th April 2009

Nine Black Alps, the four-piece grunge rock outfit from Manchester, are back this year with a new album and a new tour. The third album, as yet untitled, will be released sometime in the summer and the band made a taster, Buy Nothing, available for free download on the NME website. The band are also releasing this album independently after parting ways with Island.

Placebo will be playing some warm up shows in May as they prepare for a busy summer of festival action (including Reading and Leeds). The band, who release new album Battle For The Sun in a couple of months, will be playing their first live shows of 2009 in Sheffield, Bournemouth and London as they preview new material. The tour dates in full are all on their website.

Trent Reznor has been taking part in the Digg Dialog series of interviews. The Nine Inch Nails leader answered the ten most popular interview questions voted for by users of popular social bookmarking site Digg and the interview can be seen here. Want to know what the most embarassing song is on his iPod? This might be your lucky day.

Kylesa and Torche will be coming to Europe in the summer, in order to deafen everyone within a five mile radius.

Finally, the entirety of The Beatles‘ back catalogue will be re-released worldwide in a remastered format on the 9th September (incidentally, also the same day when The Beatles edition of Rock Band also hits stores).

Past Glories: Muse – Origin Of Symmetry

Artist: Muse
Album: Origin Of Symmetry
Label: Mushroom

Muse first arrived on the scene in 1999 when they released their debut album, Showbiz. Between 1999-2000 the band were touring themselves to death, playing every country and booking slots at almost every festival imaginable in order to spread the word. Whilst they were touring, the band were starting to get experimental in their songwriting and their live shows were influencing their new material. Their riffs were heavier, the rhythms were faster and the operatics were increasing tenfold.

Album Review: Brides

Album Review: Brides
Album: Ocular.Unveil
Label: Visible Noise

Formed just 18 months ago and following in the footsteps of Architects and the gone-but-not-forgotten Johnny Truant, Brides are shaping up to be the latest band to emerge from the sunny seaside of Brighton with the potential to become The Next Big Thing™.

Weekly News Roundup: 3rd April 2009

The countdown to Reading and Leeds is now on after the lineup was announced on Monday, swiftly followed by the crazy ticket rush. In a departure from their rock-heavy lineups of yore, it has a more indie rock feel to it this year as Kings Of Leon, Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead headline the three days. This change in direction is partly due to the increase of competition from the likes of Download and Sonisphere, who have lured the likes Slipknot, Linkin Park and Nine Inch Nails away. Reading & Leeds runs from the 28th-30th August and weekend tickets plus camping (if you can find them at face value) are £175.

American Idiot to be made into a musical – shocker! Green Day have been unsecretive in their desires for their 2004 rock opera to be transfered into some sort of film or musical but now, nearly five years after its release, their vision is a reality as the play (also entitled American Idiot) will be performed at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California, from the 4th September-11th October. American Idiot, according to the press release, “follows working-class characters from the suburbs to the city to the Middle East, as they seek redemption in a world filled with frustration – an exhilarating journey borne along by Green Day’s electrifying songs.”

In other news…

• Fancy selling your soul being a drummer for the Smashing Pumpkins? Well now you can! Following the exit of previous drummer Jimmy Chamberlain, Billy Corgan is inviting wannabee drummers to audition for the vacant position. Corgan himself is currently preparing to record a new album when he’s not being embroiled in ticket company mergering controversies.
• Narrows (y’know, Botch Mk.II) will be releasing their new album on May 12th. It’ll be called New Distances, and it’ll be out on Deathwish Inc. And it will probably kick arse.

Album Review: Mastodon

Album Review: Mastodon Album: Crack the Skye Label: Reprise/Warner Bros.

Much has been made of the circumstances surrounding Mastodon during the writing and recording of their latest album, Crack the Skye.  While half the band led quiet lives away from the media spotlight, guitarists Bill Kelliher and Brent Hinds found themselves enduring lengthy stays in hospital thanks to alcohol-related illnesses and System of a Down-inflicted head injuries respectively.  As if that wasn’t enough, a recent Grammy nomination for the quartet has made them one of best-loved metal acts in the world, and that rarest of things: a band who have managed to make it big while retaining the adoration of the fans who have followed them since the beginning.  And that’s not to mention that with their last two albums, Leviathan and Blood Mountain, they’ve managed to complete the near-impossible task of making prog rock cool again.  Clearly, the hype surrounding Crack the Skye was always going to be massive; the million-dollar question is “Is it justified?”

Album Review: Manatees

Album Review: Manatees
Album: Icarus, the Sunclimber
Label: Eyesofsound

There’s a surreal contradiction at work on this album. Despite its themes being taken from the age old fable of Icarus flying towards the sun, the music backing the themes sounds as if it was created within the deepest, darkest bowels of the ocean. This is an album so heavy and compressed that it feels like the very walls are crushing in around you. A remarkable juxtaposition to how Icarus must have felt moments before going out in a blaze of foolishness.