The Ghost of a Thousand put on an unexpected live show in Camden’s Purple Turtle to brighten up my Valentine’s Day.
Tom (centre) and Adam (back right)
My chat with vocalist Tom Lacey and guitarist Andy Blyth was lovely, and I realized that since moving away from my home town I have developed a horrible common accent. Read on for an interesting read from some guys that definitely know their music history.
AA: So how’s 2010 going so far?
TL: It’s kind of been quiet. We’ve just been at home writing, concentrating on getting another record together.
AA: Will you be recording that this year?
AB: That’s the plan
TL: If it’s ready in time, but I suppose it’s going to have to be as we’ve booked time to record.
AA: Were the inspirations behind “New Hopes, New Demonstrations” differ from “This is Where the Fight Begins”?
TL: Yeah, I think so.
AB: I think they were different in that we wanted to put more melody into it, not to try and carbon copy other bands, you know like directly lift stuff, it happened organically as we wrote it. Pelle who produced it had a lot to do with how the record sounded, it’s a lot more punk garage stuff, he did the Hives stuff and that’s why we wanted to work with him. That sort of European rock and roll sound. That’s what we’ve always wanted to be like as a band but it was affording that luxury of a producer that knows how to get that out of a band.
AA: And Tom did you find that what you were writing your lyrics about changed?
TL: Yeah, up till now everything we’ve been writing about has been about growing up and being in a band, which is such a selfish thing to do because there’s quite a lot of other interesting things that come out of being in a band, so it’s a lot more personal. It’s quite weird talking about it actually because we’re writing for the new one now, so all of that’s behind us really.
AA: And would you say this new stuff has taken a new direction?
TL: I don’t know yet, we’ve only got one song with finished lyrics so at the moment it’s pretty different but we’ll see.
AA: What do you think about Brighton’s music scene at the moment?
AB: There’s not been any new bands for a while, that I know of anyway. There’s established acts like Blood Red Shoes who are friends of ours and a great band, the Maccabees who are a great band.
TL: There’s not a lot of up and comings really.
AB: Not really. Well a lot of venues have closed down in Brighton, so Pressure Point closed down, Barfly closed down, the Freebutt’s rubbish now. It’s a weird time for Brighton right now because people still expect it to be the hub of new music but you find that not a lot of people are going to shows anymore.
TL: It’s a weird one.
AB: It needs a fresh start. It needs one new band with a new sound. When the Maccabees released their first album suddenly there were a lot of bands with that busy indie sound and there’s loads of that around and loads of rock and roll hardcore stuff. I think it just needs to start again.
AA: Have you done a lot of European stuff yet or are you hoping to do that this year?
TL: We had a year of it really, playing a lot of European festivals and were on tour for 6 weeks on the mainland. We’ve not ventured much further than Europe yet but I think that’s coming later this year, we’re going to the states and hopefully Australia next year.
AA: Have you been well received in Europe?
TL: Yeah, European kids seem more up for different stuff. We’re kind of Euro-chic anyway, so they’re not bothered by the scene thing over there, which is cool.
AB: They go to gigs to watch the bands over there, rather than going to gigs to go to a gig and hang out with friends. You see those people at English gig texting while stood at the front and it’s like “you paid to watch a band, so watch a band” and European kids do that. They’re keen for new music and appreciate bands taking the time to travel around Europe. It was awesome, we had a really good time.
AA: Good. Okay, and who do you think would play you in the film of your life?
TL: Morrissey for you
AB: He’s getting on a bit
TL: Jamie Oliver for me.
AB: There you go!
TL: Easy
AA: Overall, what do you hope to achieve as a band?
TL: Play the White House
AB: The Royal Albert Hall. No, I don’t think we’ve ever been one of those bands put on a pedestal, I think we’ve worked our way up and we’d like to keep on doing that, just take it as far as we can. If we run out of ideas we’re not going to try and make music anymore.
TL: Yeah.
AA: How would you describe a pit at a hardcore show?
TL: It usually a group of young men with the occasionally a fool hardy young lady pretending to kick box in ever increasing circles around each other which fits in with that kind of fake fighting, and if you get a circle pit it’s like a conga only more so, faster. And if people fall over hopefully they are picked up. People are pretty nice at our shows to be fair
AB: We’re not really…
TL: We don’t really get any MOSHERS
AB: We don’t really get that. If you watch videos of old Minor Threat, people didn’t get hurt in mosh pits, it wasn’t really about violence. People weave and move with each other, it’s more like dancing where as now kids are more intent on doing flying kicks.
TL: You should, for you dissertation go and have a look for a video of a band called Fear on David Letterman, it’s quite a famous bit of footage. It’s this awesome punk band Fear from New York and John McCaye and that guy from Cro mag, John Joseph are in the crowd and it’s just them destroying this set on TV, but it’s really elegant and cool. It’s not like you see in shows any more. You see them hitting each other but you see them turn and stop, because it’s not a contact sport, it’s about missing each other, it’s really cool.
[For the video, which is actually a Saturday Night Live performance by Fear in 1981, click here: http://www.videosift.com/video/FEAR-Saturday-Night-Live-1981-Historic-Performance]
AA: Would you say this behaviour is distinctive of the scene?
AB: Yeah, at indie people just jump up and down
TL: [terrible posh voice] Pogo
AB Crowd surfing at a Feeder show…
TL: I crowd surfed at a Feeder show when I was little when they were on tour with Everglade, it was good!
AA: Would you say the quality of the show is proportionate to the size or intensity of the pit?
TL: When kids go nuts it’s cool, but I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily key. It’s good when people are passionate. I went to see a band called Hope Conspiracy the other week at the Underworld and they’re a really heavy hardcore band but it wasn’t a pit as such, it was people just trying to get the mic and having fun. It was very good natured because it was an older crowd. It seems to be the younger kids whose prerogative it is to beat the fuck out of each other, where as more mature people, especially in Europe, enjoy the music and feel compelled to move rather than that they should and that’s what you do at shows.
AB: I think purely selfish, like, it helps if people are going crazy for us, because there’s a degree of mirroring each others’ energy. If you’re just standing at the bar and you’re not really bothered you don’t really care and visa versa.
AA: At what point do you think a pit or audience become “out of control”?
TL: If people are getting knocked out and dragged away that’s obviously not good and it’s usually rare. Sometimes people get knocked out but that’s purely accidental.
AB: You hear about people getting crushed at festivals and that’s not cool.
TL: It’s weird isn’t it?
AB: I think the majority, it’s consensual and safe but there’s just a couple of people at a show that just take things too far.
TL: Yeah there’s an unwritten code of conduct; if someone falls you pick them up, if someone’s being hurt you stop it and help them get back into it. It’s not an aggressive thing I don’t think, at least not at our shows. But we’re not necessarily hardcore, we’re part hardcore and that’s about it. Go talk to Hatebreed and see what they say.
AA: I actually spoke to Andy Williams from ETID about that and he was voted the second most violent dancer in America!
TL: Andy’s lovely though!
AA: I know right! The nicest guy ever.
TL: He’s hilarious
AB: The thing is, he could just stand there, who’s going to be able to move him? He’d still just be unstoppable.
AA: Exactly. Would you say there are more younger (21 & under) or older people in your audience?
TL: Usually a little bit younger but in Europe a bit older actually, a lot more older punk rockers. Our usual demographic is 18 plus rather than 14 plus.
AA: Is your audience more male or female?
TL: Probably more blokes
AB: It’s a lot of dudes
AA: If there are more females in a pit, would you say that affects the behaviour?
AB: I’d like to think it did, but does it?
TL: I don’t know, I mean out pits are very passive aggressive
AB: Yeah, but we kind of promote nonviolence
TL: Yeah. I think we’re quite happy to wade in and stop things if they’re going too far or pull people out of it onto the stage.
AB: I mean, Fugazi have kicked people out if they’re dancing too aggressively
TL: Yeah Drivers [possible mishearing] had “no moshing” signs all over shows and “no crowd surfing” signs because a friend of theirs died crowd surfing. Some bands don’t like it, some bands in Washington.
AB: Yeah, I think with Fugazi Ian saw his part in all the violence and thought “it’s not about that it’s about energetic youth”
TL: Le Passion
AB: Yeah and it just took a nasty turned
AA: You answered this earlier but can you think of any other unspoken rules of a pit?
TL: Pick people up if they fall over, no groping or hitting women, if people are kick boxing try to stop them doing it, no circle pitting the wrong way, you get morons trying to do that and hurt people, pull them out. Don’t crowd surf or if you are going to jump into the crowd from the stage don’t go feet first, wear good shoes
AB: No DMs
TL: Don’t crowd surf if you’ve got DMs on
AA: Do you have any examples or experiences of a pit that you would like to share?
AB: The last time I was moshed was like 2000, the last time Dillenger played Concorde so 2002, 2003 maybe? There was this one really massive guy who kept close lining me to the floor so I’m a very kind of stand at the back kind of guy these days.
TL: I want to see a German punk band where you could dance to the beat, jump up and down rather than mosh and it was good fun, that was last year.
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