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!