Lobsterfest 2014: Ghost Stories
By Colin Roose, Reviews Editor
With Athens being Athens, bands come and go at a breakneck pace, and bands earning dedicated fan bases in their sophomore year is a fairly tall order. But not for Ghost Stories, a pop-punk band with a tangible dose of earnestness to its music. And the band doesn’t whine. That's always a good thing.
ACRN had the privilege of interviewing the group around a year ago, where they were referred to as "spring chickens" of the Athens music scene. Since that time, the band has toured and released its debut EP Dumb Luck last May, which found success as a cassette release. Despite the members maintaining college careers at OU, they have toured all throughout the eastern U.S. and have even received favorable reviews as far away as Great Britain.
They grow up so fast, don't they?
In honor of the group's performance next Thursday at Lobsterfest 2014, ACRN sat down with Eric Bishop and Charlie Walden to talk about their burgeoning success.
The first time I talked to you guys, it was about a year ago, I think, and you guys had just kind of started out and now you have over 1,000 likes on Facebook. What happened?
Charlie Walden: We recorded an EP probably two months after we talked to you, and then we released it and we've done two tours since then. We play a lot of shows. Since we talked to you, we probably played 30 or 40 shows. That's not bad for a band for a year when we're in college.
Eric Bishop: Playing outside of Athens more kind of helped with the networking aspect of just gaining more fans that we wouldn't have gained from Ohio or Athens. So venturing out and then venturing out on the Internet and just getting in touch with people definitely, definitely helped us gain a little more popularity within in the last year.
How far have you guys gone away from Ohio?
CW: Obviously we've played Ohio.
EB: In general, the farthest would probably be Georgia?
CW: But we played like Brooklyn, New York, we played New Jersey, we played Virginia Beach a few times in the last year.
EB: So East Coast going down south.
CW: We've played pretty much--except north of New York and south of Georgia--we've played like the entire East Coast. We haven't gone west at all though.
EB: Not yet.
CW: And we've played a little in like the actual South. We've played Nashville, cities like that.
EB: The other plan is to do a little more East Coast this summer and then make our way to Chicago.
CW: Yeah, we're going to do--next month--we're doing four or five shows in Ohio or Indiana, and we've never played Indiana before even though it's close. And then, he's going, where are you doing an internship? In Ireland?
EB: June 22 to August 2, I'm going to be in Ireland.
CW: When he gets back, we're doing a two-week tour, with 12 different shows.
Who organizes these tours for you?
CW: Me.
Oh, you guys?
CW: Mostly me. (laughs) I just book 'em.
Do you have a lot of contacts?
CW: Definitely. Like, just having an Internet presence, kind of. And yeah, I booked all our tours through the Internet. And the more we play out, it's just like an exponential thing. Like, the more you book tours, the more people you know, the easier it is. Like this one I'm booking right now, it's been the easiest time I've had so far.
EB: Because somebody knows somebody who knows somebody.
CW: Yeah.
EB: It kind of comes back full circle.
CW: Basically. And I keep getting contacts further and further away the more we branch out.
Does Either/Or [Ghost Stories’ label] help you with that at all?
CW: No.
EB: No, it's basically just us. It's all us, really. 'Cause, like, we like it that way.
CW: They don't help us, per se, but there's people, like bands on Either/Or that are connected to us that we'll hit up to play in their cities. So I guess in that way they help us, because we've played with a lot of the bands on our label.
EB: If it wasn't for that, we wouldn't...
CW: Have time, probably. It helps us, but they don't book it for us, if that makes sense. It's more than a label, that label is like a collective-type thing. It's like a family of bands. I mean, there are physical releases and everything, but as far as tours go and stuff like that, it's all the bands doing it together, pretty much.
EB: Yeah. A lot of younger bands, early 20s, teenagers.
CW: Late teens, early 20s, like us. We're both 20 years old.
I saw you guys announce that you had two songs on a split this month?
CW: They're coming out either this month or next month.
Will they be a departure from what was heard on Dumb Luck?
CW: Yeah, in a way, just because when Dumb Luck...we've had a lot of member turnover in the last year, I'd say. Like, how many people have played with us in the last year?
EB: Five?
CW: At least five. From the first time you talked to us, me and him are the only two from back then that are still in the band.
EB: We're the foundation of the band, I think. Because we started it, and Charlie books tours, writes lyrics. I write most of the music, and we're really lucky to pick up Harold [Bon] at the beginning of the year.
CW: He plays drums.
EB: And he's awesome. He's good at drums. And he's definitely a full-time member. But I think the band kind of stems from me and Charlie.
CW: And we have a kid playing guitar for us right now, he's not really a full-time member, he's probably like 70% of a member, I'd say.
EB: He's a member with benefits, kind of.
CW: Like, we're not going to make him do things, but anytime he wants to.
EB: We're not going to have him pay for recording. He plays in Method Air, Sam Stansfield. But we're both comfortable with it at the moment, because he doesn't know if he's going to move or something, and he has other opportunities.
CW: And it's kind of just a mutual thing, Eric played with his band last night.
Do you think you're going to hire another member if he decides to not play anymore?
CW: If Sam doesn't want to play anymore, we can find somebody to play with. We have a lot of people that can play the parts, and that's what it comes down to. But Sam has helped us create a lot, especially on those last two songs.
EB: He hasn't just been a fill-in, he's been a creative force.
CW: He's like a member of the band, like he recorded with us.
So, are both of you committed to seeing this through as far as it'll go?
CW: Yeah. I'll do it as long as I can, really.
EB: Me too, I would say so. I've always wanted to do this. Growing up, and playing bands in high school and whatnot, and having older brothers play in bands and friends play in bands, I've always looked up to it and it's something I'd love to do. We both love to play music, we love traveling and playing live. It's an unconventional lifestyle but it's…
CW: It's cool, I mean I'm not doing anything cooler than this right now, that I would rather do.
EB: Yeah. And, like, we're both really young, so I don't see why we couldn't do this for a little bit, and just experience it, so…
CW: We're still in the dorms, like we haven't really…
EB: We're not dropping it anytime soon.
CW: We have more time to make it happen before we really have to decide what happens, you know what I mean? Because we've got two years before we graduate, so we have a little time to figure everything out. If we graduate and this is something we want to pursue, definitely, we'll do that. And if we'd rather start professional careers, we'll do that. But right now, this is the biggest thing going on for me, at least.
What do you guys do outside of the band, like, major-wise or other activities?
CW: I'm a Comms major.
EB: Charlie is…I wouldn't say you're too big on school.
CW: Nah, I don't really care about it that much, to be honest with you. I do all my stuff, and I have a solid GPA, but when it comes down to it, it's not something that’s that important to me.
EB: Charlie's too smart for his own good. Like he can do anything. He could be a biomedical chemist if he wanted to. He's really smart.
CW: I just don't care about it that much, though. It's something that I obviously have to do, and I'm probably going to get my degree, but it's not something that's on the forefront. It's not something I think about.
EB: I try to take college a little serious, just because…I mean the music thing is something I'd really like to do, but I also have a lot of hobbies, a lot of interests, a lot of other stuff I'd like to do, and I'm a media student, so I want to do video, but whatever I do, I think I want to integrate it with like music. Whatever it is, you know what I mean? Because I also have to pay for my own college, so I take it a little serious. But, I'm not that good of a student. I'm very lazy. And the band is a big time commitment too.
Does the band help you guys get through school?
CW: Not actually.
EB: Yeah and no.
CW: It makes you want to not go to school.
EB: Well, it's a stress reliever. If you're having a bad day, and you're like "fuck dude, I just want to play guitar and go home," all your stress is gone.
CW: You could even do that without a band, you could just go play guitar.
EB: Yeah. But you know what I mean. Like it is and it isn't.
CW: It's like a blessing and a curse. It's cool that you can be in a band and go to school, but at the same time you could do so much more if you weren't going to school.
EB: It's like the theory that you could have a social life--what is it?--like a good college life and a good girlfriend. It's like pick two. You know what I mean? Or sleep. And you have to pick two. And then it's like that, like all the stuff you have to deal with in college. So it's a time [issue].
CW: We're definitely both really busy. Because we both work, too.
EB: Yeah, we both work, so it's like another part of the equation.
CW: And like I said, even though school's not something that's that important to me, I do take it seriously. My grades and everything, I turn all my shit in. I didn't want to paint the picture--if this is printed and my parents were looking at it or something--like "he doesn't give a shit about school." [both laugh] I take easy classes. Comms classes, like, aren't real.
That's very impressive, all the stuff you do. Going back to touring, how have you guys been received outside of Ohio?
CW: Pretty well, honestly. It's been really cool each time. We've had two or three bad shows, probably. Two or three shows that were just bad, but other than that…
EB: We expected that, because we're a small band.
CW: And just wintertime, one of the times the shows was bad, it was like three degrees. So nobody came.
EB: The polar vortex situation.
CW: We toured this winter from December 28 until January 10 and it was just cold as fuck. Even in the South. Every day we we went, and we would hear somebody talk about, "Oh, coldest day in 33 years," something like that, and we're like, "Jesus christ, dude."
EB: It was bad. But like, the shows, there would be a couple kids show up and there would maybe be two or three kids that knew the lyrics. And that would be wild. That's a really, really, really cool thing to have happen. But that doesn't happen all the time. Like I think for the most part, we were playing those shows to gain fans, and so next time we come through the city, maybe they'll come back and maybe they'll know us or whatever.
CW: That's what we noticed too when we played Virginia Beach for the second time, it was the only city we'd ever played twice, outside of where we're from, because Virginia Beach is pretty far. But there was so many more people there than the first time we played it. Which it was a good show, the first time we played. And this time there was like…
EB: The next level.
CW: Yeah, it was like one of the biggest shows we've ever played, honestly. There was a ton of people there. It was pretty tight. It's been great for the most part.
I know about your lineup changes and stuff. Did the tour go ok after that happened?
CW: The tour was great, yeah. We just had to make some adjustments. The kid we had fill in guitar helped just because he plays guitar in Armslength, but he's just unbelievable.
EB: He's a machine. He just doesn't mess up.
CW: He played the songs probably better than we did.
EB: He's one of those kids that like started really young, and he's just a prodigy. He just doesn't mess up.
CW: We practiced one day before the tour? Or two? One or two days before the tour.
EB: And we didn't have to worry about him messing up or anything.
CW: Yeah, he didn't mess up. Not even a single time that I can think of.
EB: We messed up a lot more than he did.
CW: It was different for me because I sang before but like I had to sing so many more parts. When Sam (former guitarist/vocalist) quit.
EB: Yeah, me and Charlie both kind of took on the role of vocals and sing a lot more, we're going to continue doing that. So that's going to be a new dynamic change with the new songs, but the songs are a lot better. They're a lot more meaningful and catchier.
CW: Yeah, these two songs are the best…
EB: They blend better.
CW: Really cohesive.
EB: We're excited.
About Dumb Luck, I was really impressed with the clarity of the production. Did you guys have a hand in that.
CW: Yeah, we were there for the entire, for that release and the release we're about to put out. We recorded at the same place, and we were there for obviously the tracking of it, but we were there for recording, mixing and mastering, we were there the entire time. I mean, the guy we did it with is really good at what he does and he definitely did it, but at the same time we were there, and it sounded like how we wanted it to sound at the time.
EB: As production goes, I would say, we didn't really know tones, or whatever, because we were kind of naive.
CW: The thing about Dumb Luck is like...
EB: It sounds weird in a way to us, looking back, it's just kind of like…
CW: Was that the first thing you ever recorded on guitar?
EB: Yeah.
CW: It was the first time I've ever recorded anything. In a band. Anything in that setting, where it wasn't just on a Macbook or something like that. It was the first time he'd done it on guitar, we'd recorded drums before. And the kid in the band at the time, three of us recorded that, because we had another member shift right before recording too.
EB: That might be why the production…it's fun to listen to. Because the quirks of the drums and guitar kind of matching. It's because everything's in my head. But I think production-wise or sonically, it's going to sound a lot warmer and better and clearer coming up because we know the tones that we want, and the sounds that we want.
CW: Because a lot of Dumb Luck was just us trying shit.
EB: It was just us plugging in and like, "Hey, does this sound good?" [Charlie laughs] Like, "Sounds good to me! Let's record it!" But yeah. We just recorded with the same guy, though.
CW: These two songs we just recorded, we came in, we knew exactly what we wanted it to sound like, pretty much.
EB: A lot more thought into it.
CW: And they sound how we want them to sound. We're really excited about putting them out. They're going to be on a split with the band we toured with this winter, Armslength.
Was there a reason why you guys decided to release [Dumb Luck] on cassette?
CW: Somebody Eric knew, I didn't know him before, he pressed the cassette with Sean Clark. He just contacted us and said, “Hey, I'm starting a tape label. If you want, I will press 100 Dumb Luck cassettes.” And how many did he give us? He gave us 65 or 70 of them, and then he kept 30 that he sold to break even on the project after the EP came out. So yeah, that's pretty much how it happened.
EB: It was like, why not?
CW: Yeah, we're really excited about it.
EB: I don't have tapes, I don't collect tapes, but some kid does.
CW: I don't really collect tapes either, I probably have 10 tapes.
EB: People still collect tapes, we can't afford vinyl. [laughs] Tapes are so cheap to make, really cheap to make. I think it's just a cool novelty to sell besides like a t-shirt.
CW: It's just a cool thing to have.
EB: Yeah, it's something else to have on the table.
CW: We sold most of those tapes for, like, three bucks.
EB: There's like two left, in my dorm…
CW: That we're probably just going to keep.
EB: Might sell them on eBay in a couple years. [both laugh] I don't know, we'll see.
I've seen tapes be a big thing among DIY bands.
EB: Probably economically.
CW: And it's just cheap.
Last thing I have to ask is--this is just kind of a random thing--but I've noticed there's a wishbone theme with your merchandise.
CW: On one of our shirts, yeah.
Is there a story there?
CW: It's just complicated. We were going to get this merch done for this weekend we were going to do in November, but we didn't end up doing it. And we didn't end up printing the merch. And then we had a lot of shit going on, we were really busy and it was like probably three weeks before our tour and I was like, "Oh shit, we don't have shirts." I went on Thanksgiving break over to my buddy Brennan's house and he just had a bunch of things that he'd drawn up, and I just picked out a few things, and we just printed them.
EB: It's kind of ironic that it was a wishbone on Thanksgiving.
CW: Yeah. But I didn't really ask him what it meant, I just liked the look of it, and yeah. It was a kid I went to high school with, he does really good stuff.
EB: There may or may not be a correlation between Dumb Luck and a wishbone.
CW: There could be. You can make it mean anything.
EB: It's a cool logo. We need to like…we'll talk about this later. We need to get images, or a logo or something. But we're working on it. We're still a work in progress.
