GHOSTFIRE

 ISSUE #6 - MAY 2009

A NIGHTMARE OF STEAM AND SOUND

“In the darkness my story begins…”

The nucleus of Ghostfire came together in late summer 2007. Our drummer, Al, answered an online ad which I was running everywhere I could think of in a desperate attempt to get a group of decent, intuitive musicians together and form a band. I was being driven slowly insane by the endless wash of unreliable musical flotsam which constantly drifted my way, but when I met Al everything changed. He’d played in signed bands and his inherent professionalism was apparent from the start. It immediately raised the ante. I remember thinking, at our initial meeting over a few beers in the Ben Crouch, (as effortlessly steampunk a hostelry as anybody could wish for), ‘this band could actually go somewhere…’

I had a bunch of songs written in a basic format – me playing my beaten up Spanish guitar and singing - but I had a definite vision of where I wanted them to go. I wanted to create a sound that echoed the wildly eloquent lyricism and raw energy of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, but mix it up with the widescreen visuals of Sergio Leone and spine-tingling, atmospheric soundscapes of Ennio Morricone. I wanted to create songs that told compelling stories, while putting all kinds of weird musical images into the listeners’ minds. Like wandering around a Caspar Friedrich painting while Tom Waits is playing on your iPod…

When a song you’ve written is playing in your head so clearly and so completely that it’s like a radio blasting, it’s sometimes difficult to get that vision across to your band mates – usually due to lack of imagination/skill and mismatched musical influences. Therefore it was important to seek out the right players – with similar influences, cohesive goals and prepared to put in the vast amount of work that turns a good band into a great one. With some carefully worded ads and patience, we recruited a promising bassist, who recently left us to medicate the world – and swiftly replaced by awesome chimney sweep Peter. We also scored a bloody amazing singer in the form of Steven – the only vocalist (of many), who turned up to the audition and actually knew the melody lines to the songs! We didn’t fully realise back then what kind of extraordinary performer we’d gotten ourselves into the bargain… Call it providence.

We rehearsed as a four piece for four months – working on arrangements, musicianship, trying not to fall over on the frankly dangerous carpet and building up a cohesive set – all the time searching for a keyboard player capable of supplying the subtle atmospherics and dynamics we needed. Two weeks before we were due to record our first EP – ‘Drunk Lullabies’ – we found Rob. He had a Nord, a Leslie speaker cabinet and by God he knew how to use them! Suddenly we had Hammond !

Ghostfire was go!


“This hellish symphony shall guide you well…”

Have you ever read a novel and been so spellbound by it, so caught up by the action and characters that you never want the story to end? That was ‘The Anubis Gates’ by seminal steampunk author Tim Powers. I read it when I was 20 years old and I’ve never found anything to better it (even by Powers!) Years later I had a similar experience with a book called ‘ London : The Executioner’s City’. Not so unusual you might think - except this was a history book. Actually it was a criminal history book but its writers (David Brandon/Alan Brooke), brought the dusty records, decrepit city slums and barely-remembered miscreants so vividly to life that I felt as though I knew them all personally.

Steven is now writing more lyrics for the newer material, but when I started creating songs and lyrics for the band that finally became Ghostfire, I felt it important to write what I was passionate about. English criminal history has been an enduring passion of mine for years. It’s so richly populated with characters begging to have their stories told, I felt compelled to tell them. Sometimes heavily stylised to be sure, but ultimately it’s those characters speaking and their voices are true. I wanted to bring history to life in a way that would inspire others and, without appearing sanctimonious, open their eyes to the inadequacies and deprivations that inspired and necessitated much of that shady activity.

By fortuitous happenstance, our musical output coincided with the burgeoning steampunk sub-culture – a scene so totally defined by history that to all intents and purposes it was a marriage made in heaven.

We’d found our niche!


“Come in and see the whole nightmare…”

The very essence of Ghostfire is passion. It permeates every chord and every lyric we produce. Each member of this band is passionate about the music we play and the way we perform it. There’s an almost deranged attention to detail because, as everybody knows, the devil is in the detail! If you get it ever so slightly wrong, history has a habit of rearing up and biting you hard on the arse!

Our mission is to incite similar passion in our listeners – to create musical variances that are different enough to suck people into our murky, historic criminal underworld then spit them back out into the 21st century totally invigorated, energised, hooked on the experience and maybe even laughing hysterically!

We want Ghostfire to mean something, because it means everything to us. It’s not about money or fame, rather a real belief in what we’re doing and the fact that music can empower people as well as entertain them. Maybe even educate them? There’s too much pointless, thoughtless crap getting churned out right now, by artists and companies who don’t care about anything except getting rich – and it devalues music in the worst possible way. We’re living in a post-modern world where everything’s been done to death, then done to death again – sometimes with irony; usually not. But that doesn’t make it impossible to be original or unique, it just means thinking outside of the box and believing in your own vision. When you’ve got the entire nasty side of history to draw from, how can it ever get boring?


“Come hear the call, come nail your colours to the wall…”

Steampunk for me personally, in its truest, purest sense, is ‘Dinner at Deviant’s Palace’ by Tim Powers (again). The cover on my paperback version depicts a 1950s Cadillac being drawn by two horses. That’s total steampunk and the book is amazing.

Musically it’s a little more complex. Steampunk to us Ghostfire Brits is less about the whimsical, fantastical side of an alternative Victorian society, more about what really happened back then. For instance, I remember my family talking for years, in hushed tones, about the Hindenburg disaster. It kind of skewed my belief in airships…

We rehearse in a part of London called Bethnal Green – a stone’s throw from Whitechapel where Jack the Ripper committed his most notorious murders. We’re well acquainted with all aspects of Victoriana here in the UK – remnants of it exist everywhere – residential buildings, public houses, road names, tube stations, forgotten coins in the ornamental shoe on your great aunt’s windowsill… It echoes and resonates everywhere you look – if you know where to look.

Steampunk to us is about being true to our nationality, heritage and historic culture while still embracing the creativity and gloriously unrestrained aesthetics of the genre. Most of our great-grandparents were Victorians and I’ve always maintained that Ghostfire represent the dark side of Steampunk – the grotty gin, absinthe and opium-steeped underworld that underpinned and undermined Victorian society. ‘From Hell’ is the perfect visual representation of what our band is about. Unsurprisingly, it’s on the steampunk movie listings…

A simple analogy is this: If you think of Abney Park as the Jack Sparrow of steampunk (fantastic band by the way – we’re supporting them in April here in London ), then Ghostfire would have to be your Jack Rackham. Look him up – his pirate flag is amongst the best known ever, but that’s about his lot…