Posted on Jul 11, 2007 by DevotedToMusic

Ghosts are an Indie band from London, UK. They are signed to Atlantic Records and are currently touring the UK and playing a range of festivals in Europe. To top this up they have a rocking new album named' The World is Outside' and will be supporting Keane at their London 02 Arena show

I Alexandra McLoughlin was delighted to get the opportunity to interview the lead singer Simon.

Hi Simon…When did you guys first meet?

We first met ages ago, at school - 1993ish! God, we've known each other too long now....

Have you always wanted to be in a band?

Well, personally since I was about ten - a combination of Hendrix and the Guns n' Roses brought the joys of rock n' roll home to me...though i originally wanted to be the silent moody guitar type, not sure quite how I ended up the singer...

Is being in band how you’ve always expected it to be?

Pretty much - I always used to read loads of biographies and stuff like that. What you don't expect is quite the extent of travelling, but right now everything we do and everywhere we go is a first, so its all pretty exciting.

You have become successful very fast and now you are playing many festivals. What are you expectations about that?

It's pretty scary playing the most important gigs of your life without a soundcheck! But they have been everything we hoped - great crowds, great atmosphere, amazing...

Which festival are you most looking forward to playing?

We were most looking forward to Hyde Park Calling, mainly due to our stupidly good position on the bill (main stage, 4th from the end), but apart from that hard to pick one in particular!

Is it hard to choose what songs to perform?

Only when we have to play short sets at festivals, when we have to drop songs! But we don't have a huge back catalogue at the moment or anything so it's not too hard...

How was Hyde Park Calling?

Indescribable really! Hard to explain how it feels playing to over 20,000 people...but I loved every second of it, was the highlight so far - we had the only sun of the whole weekend for our set, so someone was smiling on us that day...

Did you ever go to festivals when you were little?

All the time - starting in 96 i went to most reading festivals. I miss the days when you could call up the day before and get tickets, all the sponteneity has gone now.

Tell me a bit about the latest single ‘The World Is Outside’….

Well, its probably my favourite song on the album of the same name, it was written in Sweden last year and was probably key in getting our record deal. When we wrote it i had it in my head for weeks, it drove me insane!

You have a brilliant video for the latest single. Did it take long to film?

We did it in lisbon over two days in april - the first day was an early start to catch the dawn, the second was a late finish to get the night scenes... it was wicked fun spending two days dropping tvs from cranes.

Is it hard to decide what you want your video to be like?

Sometimes have a vague idea and then we get a load of directors to expand upon it....the rest of the time you havent got a clue so you see what other people come up with, which can be quite interesting. We've had some bizarre suggestions...

On your myspace page it says you sound like ‘Anything and Nothing’…What do you mean by that?

It's actually 'EVERYTHING and nothing'....It's kind of an acknowledgement that we're not doing anything particularly 'new', but also that we're not blatantly ripping off anyone else's sound either. Noone seems to be able to pin us down to a couple of obvious influences, like you can a lot of other bands - the list of bands we have been compared to is near to three figures!

Who are your musical influences?

We're influenced as much by songs as artists. We all love great songs, whether they are written by Kylie Minogue or the Strokes. We're inspired as much by Mozart as we are Aphex Twin...

What sort of music do you listen to?

At the moment loads of dance music - I just got some new headphones So I've not been able to resist listening to loads of Simian Mobile Disco and Chemical Brothers. We also got a remix of 'World Is Outside' done by a guy called Axwell which, on a production level, is seriously spectacular.

I have always been curious as to what bands think of talent shows. Do you watch music talent shows? What is your opinion on them?

I love watching them - when we were writing in Sweden the only english language show on TV was american idol, which they showed everyday. I got totally addicted, which was easy when you don't have to wait a week to get the results every time. But as far as the people who go on them are concerned, they are a complete waste of time. How many pop idol style shows have we had? And then how many viable careers have come out of it? Kelly Clarkson, Will Young and Lemar aside, that's pretty much it. If you're good enough, you don't need to put yourself through that.

Are you brave enough to perform in front of Simon Cowell?

If he came to one of our shows, I wouldn't be too worried! Even if he hated it, it's only one person's opinion.

At Christmas many bands and solo artists write Christmas songs. Have you ever thought of writing a novelty Christmas song?

If you can pull off a christmas classic you can retire on it, so it's tempting. But realistically, it's not gonna happen.

What is your favourite Christmas track?

I don't really have one. For some reason Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys sounds like christmas to me.

Finally…Is there anything else you would like to say?

Our album is out now! Check out www.myspace.com/ghostsuk, and if you like what you hear then you can own 11 slices of ghosts for under a tenner! See you in Brighton Barfly on the 11th....

Taken On:

July 11th, 2007

Interviewees:

Simon- Lead Singer/Guitar

Related Links:

• www.myspace.com/ghostsuk
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosts_(...
• www.ghostsmusic.com

Interviews

Jul 11, 2007