Interview: GHXST
After playing their last date on their UK tour at The Oakford Social Club in Reading I interview up and coming New York band GHXST who play their own unique brand of grunge inspired music. We talked about their tour, new single ‘Black Camaro’ and where the direction of music is now going.
You’ve been on tour in the UK for the last week, how has that been?
Shelley: It’s been a blast, this has been our second time in London but we also went to Brighton and Manchester which is really awesome and then Reading, so yeah it’s been awesome.
Chris: Some of the shows in London were a lot of fun, we played Old Blue Last and Birthdays which were great, and then we did a stripped back session which was a lot of fun too.
Shelley: We also did an Artrocker radio show which was a bit of a buzz.
For those who haven’t heard you before how would you sum up the sound of your band?
Shelley: We call it ‘deth grunge’ which is kind of like a mixture of 90’s grunge rock and hard rock mixed with synthesised bass and electronic elements, kind of noisey, kind of bluesy
Why did you make the decision to use two guitars and no bass?
Chris: We have bass synthesisers so we do have some bass lines synthetically but with the guitars we do alot of drop tuning too so we have quite a low guitar range and not having a bass let’s you do more with two guitars.
You’re just about to release a new single called ‘Black Camaro’ where can people get hold of that?
Shelley: The video’s already out on vimeo and YouTube the single you can buy that starting Monday (June 25th) on everything, iTunes, Amazon, Soundcloud.
You’ve had a few early releases, how do you feel that your sound has developed to the sound you have now with the new single?
Chris: I guess the sound has become sort of more visceral, we’ve taken out alot of the more reverb feeling so it sounds a little less hazy and a little more heavy I guess…
Nathan: a bit more of a raw sound.
This is the end of the tour for you so what’s next in your agenda?
Chris: Go back to New York, write some more songs, we’ve been writing songs for the past maybe four or five months and maybe start thinking about putting together a proper album and hopefully come back to England again because it’s been great.
Shelley: More videos hopefully, more songs, we really want to come back to Europe again.
For those who missed you on this UK tour, do you know when you’ll be back?
Shelley: We might be back in the fall, for a festival, we can’t say anything yet but hopefully.
Chris: We’d love to come back though, definitely.
Shelley: Yeah we’ll keep you guys updated, it would be awesome, and we’d love to come back.
That’s all the questions I have, unless there is anything you want to add?
Chris: I have a question for you actually, I see you’re wearing a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt, in the last 5 years or so people haven’t been quite as alright with heavy music, where do you see contemporary music will go in the next 5 or 10 years?
I think guitar music has gone down in popularity a bit recently, guitars aren’t particularly seen as cool any more but I do think there is a large following of that type of music, even if underground at the moment. I always go back to Nirvana, even though I was only 2 when Kurt Cobain died I still got into Nirvana when I became a teenager and I feel it’s the same for most generations, I feel due to this heavy music still lives but perhaps not as many people have gotten into it at a young age than there used to, hopefully it may come back into the mainstream.
Chris: I think there is a collective conscienceness, this sort of music can relate to how you feel, especially when you’re young and you feel a huge change of emotion, I think really visceral heavy guitars in the nineties was about possibility and about feeling everything and having angst and being honest about your angst. I really hope in the next 5 or 10 years that people will embrace that more which is kind of what we’re trying to do, we like to bring a little bit of chaos, add a bit of possibility and see what happens, it’s not always comfortable.