Monday, November 16, 2020

Sophomore Jinx with Ghost:Hello

It seems only yesterday that Ghost:Hello dropped their first
vinyl LP. Did you check it out? You should have if you have not.

In the meantime, their friends, Night Goat are getting together with them to release a new Split!

You can get all on top of that stuff HERE.

1. There is nothing more awkward than sophomore year of high school. Tell me about your circle of friends.

 Sophomore year, 2001, whew,  We were a super cliche group of misfits, really. 


All of us were discovering our own music to listen it and we’re mostly opposed what each other found, file sharing was huge, Napster, audio galaxy satellite, imesh.. 


Hot Topic was a thing, so we all had ridiculously huge pants & Slayer shirts.  


Honestly, You can probably see a variation of us in any movie that takes place in a school in the early 2000’s. 

Just look for us in the lunchroom scene at the table behind the pop machine in the corner. Probably arguing over how to pronounce the name of that Tool album and if it’s good or not. 


2. By this time in my life, I'd given up on all extracurriculars in my school. Tell me about how you spent your afternoons.


My family bought a grocery store my freshman year, my dad worked for the owners and they wanted to sell,  so at the dawn of my high school career I was a working stiff. As a 14 year old, 20-30 hours a week seemed crazy but I was making money. 


I spent just about all of it on guitars and cds. 


If I wasn’t working though,  it was always music or band related. Early on probably jamming with friends, all playing different songs at the same time, which we did in earnest. 


 Later on printing T-shirts for my band in my parents dining room with “borrowed” silkscreens from the school. 


3. During this time is when I finally discovered Pink Floyd. I had a copy of The Wall on cassette. It was a grey one. That album was my escape. Let's hear about your favorite album from back then. What format was it on?


The big one for me is Type o Negative. I went down the rabbit hole with that one. October Rust & Bloody Kisses took me places. Still, today OR is my favorite record.  


I remember in my early teenage angsty days ( as opposed to my middle aged angsty days)  getting the After Dark VHS and sitting in our camper at the fairgrounds, because it’s summer in Ohio, and I just sitting there the whole week watching it on repeat. 


“Josh still has not shit” flashing across the screen. My very country family coming in & out from showing horses and Here I am just on the floor watching “Christian Woman” or Peter shaking a tackle box full of weird pills.   


I got a lot of weird looks, but I was transfixed from that point onward.  I still have that VHS but these days I’ll pop the DVD in, just in case. 


4. What was the name of your high school and did you have a favorite class? 


The Southeast Pirates. Maroon and gold, which was usually yellow.  


I spent the majority of high school in the art rooms. I took every art class available by sophomore year and a couple that weren’t available anymore so I was the only one in the “class” stuck in a corner of another art class and the teacher would come over and show me a thing or two then go back to her normal class. 


I think that was Paper and Book making class, weird. 


so my junior and senior years I got to just spend whole blocks in the art room. I wasn’t particularly good at anything but interested in everything.  


I actually went to go see Meatloaf with my art teacher. She was a cool lady. She probably still is a cool lady.  Art teachers usually are. 


5. How did your school's football team do that season? 


I couldn’t begin to tell you.


The favoritisms and biases for important athletes by particular teachers, or at very least extreme blind eyes, was maddening. 


I’ve always been a rather “Damn the man” kinda guy. I grew up listening to my dad’s rock and roll records.  Alice Cooper, Neil young, Aerosmith.. and that stuff shaped me as a little kid.  


I hit high school with a guitar and I could play working man by Rush.. all the way up to the solo ... 


Nothing outside of that bubble really peaked my interest. 


6. What instrument were you playing at that time?


I played guitar all the way through high school, albeit not very well. First an Ibanez then on to a Fernandes. 


I started a band with just 3 guitarist my freshman year, another band in my sophomore year that had a drummer; Late in my junior year I started my first band that would write songs and play gigs.  


Sometime in my senior year I started selling candy bars that I got from our grocery store out of a fundraiser box, and T-shirts to kids. Every Friday kids started wearing their D.O.S. Shirts, that was the super original name of my band.  


It got really crazy though with scores of kids wearing our shirts on the same day; teachers were hitting me up to buy shirts for their kids after classes.  


We were saving up to record some songs in Cleveland and we raised over two grand selling candy bars and T-shirts.  


Those were the days.

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