Ghost Key is a relatively new band from Peoria, Illinois. Despite their youth, these guys have been busting their collective asses the last couple years, already having completed multiple tours around the U.S. Sonically, older dudes like me will hear elements of classic late-90's/early 00's band like Strongarm, Taken, and Misery Signals; more contemporary comparisons would be bands like Counterparts or Hundredth.
2015 promises a flurry of activity, as they already have a couple tours announced for the first half of the year, and their new e.p. "The Things I Am Not" will surface soon on Vacant Records.
The thing that impressed me most about Austin throughout our conversation was his humility, honesty and sincerity. Expect big things from these kids.
So talk
a little bit about the background of the band. Had you guys all grown up
together and played in previous bands prior to forming Ghost Key, or did things
come together a little more rapidly?
We all knew of each other’s existence through going to shows
and having some mutual friends but we didn't really hang out. Chris and I were
trying to start a youth crew band and needed members when we heard Ryan was
looking for a band. Him and our friend Jeff Stuckel were trying to start a band
that sounded like mid 2000's Deathwish bands (Killing The Dream, The Carrier)
and we sort of combined forces and went down the "melodic hardcore"
path.
Andrew was in a metalcore band full of some of our friends and they were
nearing the end of their run so we snagged him from them. Stephen is the only
member that isn't part of the original lineup. He's from a town called
Bloomington about 40 minutes outside Peoria. He was also playing in a metalcore
band when he saw we needed a guitarist and just hit us up about playing.
The
band played its first practice around four years ago under the name False Light
and the original lineup was myself (Austin O'Brien), Jeff Stuckel, Ryan Murphy,
Chris Bayless, Chris Elliot, and Andrew Buchanan. I'm honestly not sure why
Chris Elliot stopped practicing with us but after him we went through three
other guitarists before Stephen. Tyler Berchtold, Koby Ward, and Sam Pennell
were the other three members.
I
actually used to go to shows every so often in Peoria at this spot called the
Morton Optimist Club because this label I ran back in the day put out a record
for a band from Peoria called Subsist, this was around 1999-2000-ish. Anyway,
how is the scene in Peoria these days? Also, I guess I feel like Peoria is sort
of the stereotypical Midwestern town. How would you say coming from there has
influenced you; both as an individual and in terms of the band as a whole?
As in that Subsist? That's so sick. I never saw them but I always
heard about how tight their shows were and I've watched all the videos. I
started going to shows in like 06-07 when I was 12 or 13 and by that time the
Optimist Club wasn't around.
Peoria has always been up and down as far as the
scene goes. We had a ton of solid bands for a long time. Serpent Son, Black The
Sky, Devil's Pie, Waster, Black Teeth, Hit The Ground Dead, Scout's Honor, Have
Your Say, and the list goes on. I'd say the biggest influence Peoria has played
on us as a band and as people is that growing up we had a lot of sick bands to
look up and when we started as a band our only goal was to be another cool
Peoria band that people looked up to like we did to all of the bands we loved.
The scene has always been solid and we've always been lucky to have some really
great shows. Lots of people taking responsibility to make sure shows keep
happening. Currently there are a crop of young kids who are starting awesome
bands and carrying the torch. Hardcore isn't as popular as it used to be there
but there are tons of talented bands playing all types of music. Drained,
Yusuke, Must Build Jacuzzi, Hope For Now, Howlback, Delta Waves, Time Machine
Guns, and The Oceanographers are some of the ones I can think of. Sorry if
that's excessive haha. We've got a lot of love for Peoria and all our friends
playing music.
Hell
yes that Subsist, haha! So your lyrics obviously address a broad range of
deeply personal issues....from loss ("3:33") to depression
("Past. Present") to loved ones struggling with addiction
("Re-Written"). I'm curious what your writing process looks like in
terms of lyrics and what your goal is when you sit down to write.
With pretty much all of “Winter” my lyrics were written
before the music existed. I wasn't being picky or trying to write music. I was
just writing and then forcing the words to fit over songs once the music was
written. As a band we've all kind of moved past those songs and lyrically I've
moved on from them as well. Those songs were written about 3 years ago before
any of us really knew what we were trying to do/sound like.
Nowadays I usually
wait until a song is fleshed out musically and try and write something that
matches how the song feels. A lot of my inspiration comes in small bursts. I'm
constantly jotting down pieces in my phone (thank you Google Keep!) Sometimes a
phrase comes to mind that I like and sometimes I flesh out a whole piece. It's
also not uncommon for me to wait until we're down to the wire to get inspired
either. Something about pressure motivates the hell out of me. About 80% of "Attention
To Detail" was written while everyone else was recording their parts in
the studio. I've only ever set two goals for myself when writing. One is to
push myself and figure out the absolute best way to convey my thoughts and the
second is to invoke some sort of feeling in people. That's kind of a cliché but
my favorite bands have always had that effect on me and so I strive for the
same thing.
Another HUGE part of my writing process is bouncing ideas off our
producer who is pretty much a sixth member. Chris Galvez is that dude. He
recorded/mixed/mastered the new EP and also did "3:33" and
"Attention To Details”. He always
has a good sense of what I’m trying to convey and really pushes me. He's
definitely been a huge help in making me a better writer.
In "Stones"
you address the issue of faith or spirituality and seem to dismiss belief in a
higher power or any sort of spiritual framework. At the same time, I know some
of your earlier material was promoted by that Faith/Hope/Love promotions group
and you guys have recently played Takehold Fest which is held at a church in
Grand Rapids. I don't know too much about that promo company or the people
behind that fest, but it made me wonder whether or not "Stones" is
meant to be a definitive statement from the band in terms of your feelings on
religion/spirituality or if you guys have a more nuanced stance on those
issues.
“Stones” is a song about my grandmother who I lost when I
was in Jr. High. The day before she died my mom came into school and pulled out
of class to explain to me that my grandma was losing her fight with cancer and
that we needed to go to the hospital to see her before she passed. I was
extremely close with my grandmother and I credit a lot of me being who I am to
her so this was especially difficult to deal with. She was a devout Christian
and always told me about how God had a plan. When her cancer got worse she
would always tell me that if God wanted her she had to go.
When she died, as a
young kid, I was angry because I felt like she'd been stolen from me by the God
she always talked about and that song was a manifestation of the feelings I'd
been holding to for a long time. I actually wanted to revisit Stones on the new
EP so I wrote it from my perspective now, as a young adult. I'm not nearly as
angry as I used to be and that's reflected in the revisited version. I've grown
up a lot since "Stones" and even though that song was written from the eyes of a
17 year old kid who was very much Anti-god, I am no longer that same person.
As
far as our bands view on religion, three of our members consider themselves of
the Christian faith but those things have never been an issue. As a band we
take no definitive stance on spirituality because we are 5 individuals with
different belief systems. We do seem to get thrown onto "Christian"
festivals though and honestly, they are always a blast to play. We have tons of
friends who are at those fests and nothing is cooler than being invited to play
and getting to meet so many new people and here so many people share their
stories. Last summer we played Audiofeed festival in Champaign, IL and it was
one of the best shows we've ever played up until Take Hold Fest in November.
You
guys strike me as a very d.i.y.-oriented band, you have all your material up
for free download which I always think is awesome, That said, you recently
announced a partnership with All In Merch. I have zero experience with those
folks personally, but I feel like I often read things online suggesting they
can be a little sketchy at times (who knows whether that's true or not).
Anyway, I'm always interested in why bands farm out certain aspects of their
operation, be it in terms of merch, booking tours. etc. Why does the
partnership with All In make sense for Ghost Key?
Some bands remain D.I.Y. forever and there's nothing wrong
with that. We've been a D.I.Y. band since we started and it has worked out
alright for us so far. In the past couple months though, with Taylor managing
us, we've had so many avenues open up for us that just weren't possible when we
were taking care of everything ourselves. All-In is a big step for us because
not only do they represent some of our favorite bands but, they make large
merch orders much more feasible since we don't have to pay thousands of dollars
out of our own pockets up front to get everything printed. We're stoked to be
working with them.
The band has definitely been going pretty hard the last couple years in terms of touring; you did a pretty extensive West Coast run earlier in the year...what have been some of the highlights from the road for you personally?
This summer was one of the best tours yet and we had a ton
of cool experiences. Over the summer we swam in Boise, ID in one of the clearest
lakes I think I've ever laid eyes on. We also played that nights show in a day
care. In California we played a bar show and had to lie about Stephen's age to
get him in. A really cool part of touring is honestly the drives. Not only the
conversations with your friends, but seeing all the new scenery is so awesome.
I remember waking up on morning and we happened to be driving on a road that
you could see the Golden Gate Bridge from. Another was rolling into the desert
and watching the sun rise over the sand dunes.
So you
guys recently announced a management deal with Artery...what does that deal
actually look like (i.e. what are they going to be doing for you) and how did
you guys hook up with them?
Artery has been nothing short of incredible to us since day
one. We're being managed by our good friend Taylor Lumley who currently plays
for the band Beartooth. His job is sort of all encompassing. He's been
responsible for us getting the All-In store, getting us on the tour with Beartooth;
he's helping us get a booking agent, and a ton of other things. A manager is
not something we ever thought we'd need but they've been a huge help to us. We
hooked up with them through Taylor. He was offered a position at Artery and the
only requirement is he had to find his first band. He offered us the slot
because he's been following us for a couple years and believed we deserved it.
Definitely thankful for him being such a solid dude.
In
terms of "The Things I Am Not", what elements of your past material
did you want to continue to include and build upon and what was perhaps
different from your previous efforts?
With the new EP we really wanted to refine everything we'd
done before and we especially wanted to build upon the last two songs we'd
released. When we wrote and released “Winter”, we weren't entirely sure of what
kind of band we were going to be. We just wrote some songs really quick,
recorded them in a friend’s basement, and released them because we were just
eager to share the music with our friends. With both "Attention to
Detail" and "3:33" we started writing music that was a bit
heavier sonically and we started to let our love for hardcore bleed through a
bit more than with Winter. We realized with those two songs we had hit the
sound we really wanted to go for so with the new EP we used those two songs as
references. We wanted to keep playing with reverb, delay, and other effects but
we also didn't want to be afraid to just riff and throw in some raw, heavy
stuff.
A huge challenge for me was that after doing several tours I started to
realize that I could no longer yell like I used to. My voice had gotten
significantly deeper and so I had to adapt to that change. I was both nervous
and excited when we recorded because of how different the vocals sounded (at
least to me) when compared to the old stuff. I think the record we've ended up
with is some of our most well written material to date and I hope everyone else
thinks the same.
With
regard to its release, are you guys still gonna do it up D.I.Y. or are you
looking for a label this time around? Is the intent for kids to be able to
physically snag this thing on CD, vinyl, or both?
The record is actually being released with help from a small
label that our friend Josh Epple runs. Josh hit us up around two years ago with
some interest in doing a record for us. He put out a second press of the “Winter”
tape for us and we finally have the new material he was hoping would show up
eventually (Sorry Josh!) The label is a small DIY effort called Vacant Records
that he uses to help out his friends. So Josh is helping us put out the vinyl
version, we will most likely be releasing a digital version for pay what you
want, and I believe we will have a small amount of CDs around the release time.
The vinyl will actually be released on a 12" LP with all four songs on
side A and a beautiful screen print, designed by our friend Troy of New Merit
Designs, on Side B.
What's
the main thing you hope people take away from Ghost Key, whether they are
witnessing you in a live setting, or listening to your recorded output?
Honestly, I've only ever wanted people to listen and take
what they want from it. I didn't always have someone to talk to about the shit
going on in my head and that's kind of why I joined a band. So recorded, I just
hope they listen and if they can identify with it then that's even cooler.
Live, I've always aimed to make people see how we put all of ourselves into
what we do. This band is everything to us and I think seeing us live really
makes people understand that. More than anything though, it's the coolest thing
in the world that ANYONE could even give us a chance so I'm just thankful for
that.
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