Ink 19 Feature Interview

February 1997
by Anton Wagner

I don't think I've known any other band as long as I've known Ghostbeat. Oh sure, I've known the Beatles since I was three, and the Police since I was fourteen, but not personally, no. The first time I met Ghostbeat (or gostbit, or gohstveet, or...), Ghostbeat was essentially Bryan Tilford, a transplant from Nashville and "the mountains." Bryan had come down to the college radio station where I was interning, and had a couple of songs to cart up - carting being the process by which you transfer your music from a plebeian cassette or DAT format into a more radio-friendly and far superior eight-track cartridge.

It wasn't long before I witnessed one of Ghostbeat's many transformations. A wierdly organic industrial track named "Sam I Am" with lyrics borrowed from Dr. Seuss, as you might expect, was soon receiving serious airplay, and was actually being requested by listeners. You'd have thought it was real music. "Sam I Am," which featured the precocious young voice of Matthew Brown, which combined with a driving beat and a couple of other excesses (Bryan rolls his eyes when "Sam I Am" is brought up) into quite a memorable track.

From about that point, I've known Ghostbeat first as friends then as a band, and though I've been raving about the band to anyone who would care to hear for years, Water, their new CD, gives me the ample reason to feature their talents in print. But back to our story...

Shortly thereafter, Ghostbeat was performing as a duo, with Bryan on keyboards/guitar/vocals/sampler/technology and a singing/chanting frontman named Cutter. The sound was...you could have called it late-80s industrial, but in reality it was Ghostbeat. Bryan's musical tastes, which range from Sakamoto to XTC to Eno, have a tendency to creep in, disregarding boring civilities like an invitation or musical appropriateness altogether.

As the years flew by, Ghostbeat underwent several mutations. Cutter left, and was eventually replaced by "Dark" Joe Lamy, who had previously enjoyed moderate success in Tallahassee's The Pedestrians. A succession of staff changes ensued - mostly drummers - but through it all, Ghostbeat was decidedly evolving, perpetually changing and becoming a more organic unit for performing the bands unusual compositions. The current lineup, however, has been solid for over three years, a fact whose pronouncement is greeted with amazement from Lamy. It looks like this is the permanent Ghostbeat for now. "Yes, it's set in pumice stone," states Joe. "Or until Joe breaks out of the shackles," adds drummer Ken Green.

"We've all got a little co-dependency thing going, like popsicle sticks leaning against each other," explains Joe. "It seems to have worked, because this is the first band I've been in where everybody doesn't hate each other. Though I must say that I think they all hate me and just don't tell me."

"It's Ken's subtle mental manipulations that keep us all in line," confides Bryan.

"I don't hate him that much..." corrects Ken.

Ken is also the capstone to a long succession of drummers. "Um, 'succession" is not the right word to use. How about 'line'?" asks Bryan. "There was a circular queue of drummers, actually" concedes Joe.

And what about the Nashville days? Recalls Bryan, "I was just a wandering minstrel. There was a 'gostbit-ish' like entity that existed. I've read the legends and I remember it like a dream." And this is all documented on tape? "You know - it is. Come over to my house and you'll be sorry you asked. I was influenced by true African tribal music, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto in the really bleepy stage...Japan's very experimental, esoteric, totally off-center beats. Bill Laswell's experiments. Mix all that with even more bizaare stuff: forbidden rituals, excorcism chants."

Which is a long way off from the sounds Ghostbeat produces today. It's hard to figure out how Ghostbeat has managed to change so rapidly without making a conscious effort - there has been no "We'd like to introduce the new Ghostbeat Mark II and their new sound." "It's probably one of those Doppler effect things which you don't notice unless you're not there," explains Joe. "There's obviously a change between Here Now and Field of Wild, and the changes have probably been more gradual since then. Here Now was a notable phase," Bryan clarifies, "The Monkees meet Nine Inch Nails."

For a while, Ghostbeat was Bryan and several chunks of machinery. "Friends of his, including myself," remembers Joe, "came up to him and said, 'Bryan, this is a bad idea, having all these machines up on stage. We recommend you get live people.' So he says, 'Why don't you do it?' That was the first step, turn the machines off. We both had a keyboard that we stood behind. And we thought we were awesome, because we were showing off that we could both play the keyboards and sing, and do a lot of things at the same time while never once looking at the audience."

The fact that Ghostbeat is a trio does not imply that their instrumentation is sparse and rudimentary. While you couldn't call the Ghostgear excessive, it's a fair amount, notable because of the most amazing example of gig-packing I've ever seen. Band transportation consists of a Volkswagen Rabbit, a Honda Prelude, and a Nissan Sentra, all two-door coupes. Into that, Ghostbeat fits: A full P.A. (four monitors and two mains), a drum kit, a couple-three doumbeks and miscellaneous percussion, full-sized keyboard, bass guitar, a big rack full of signal processing, mixers, etc., huge bass cabinet, teeny guitar rig, mike stands, cords, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and the band itself. "Ever seen all those clowns getting out of the car?" asks Tilford. "We put all the equipment on top of them. They were pissed."

But coming back to Ghostbeat's sound: "This is really how it works, this is why the music has that evolution to it." Bryan Tilford is about to release the secret. "It really depends on what I'm listening to and what I like at the time, and I think, 'well, I could do something like that.' Then I attempt to do it, and end up nowhere near it. Whatever it turns out to be though, I'll cling to. I'll want to write something like a Talking Heads song, and I'll try.." "... and he'll play it for me, " finishes Joe, "and I'll say it sounds like .38 Special."

Ghostbeat has never been short for new songs. When asked whether they'd consider themselves a prolific band Joe replies: "Bryan is a prolific band. We're good side hands. I write a song every year and a half." "I just can't stop," explains Bryan. "I feel like I'm wasting my strings - they cost too much."

When do all these songs come? "Anytime. Over the years, I've learned to compose in my head, to hear it, while I was driving, and then when I have a job driving all day, I am able to figure out the songs, then get home and play them. And it's Joe that taught me to do that, and he doesn't even know it."

Joe - "What!? When'd I do that?"

"By doing the barbershop tags." Bryan is referring to some of the short Ghostbeat jingles you'll hear at a live show, and which are tagged to the end of the Water CD. Put the disc on shuffle and you'll get something quite like a Ghostbeat show. Except there's no new songs the next time you play it... back to our regular programming. "Doing the barbershop tags and having to associate the numbers with the actual move, whereas before, as you know, I was never that precise or determined to land in a certain area every time. And when we were doing those tags, it was obvious. Of course, I learned music through theory, but it took years of studying the African stuff to make me forget that, and I successfully did, because now I don't think about it at all. But now, when I hear it in my head, I can actually see the playing of it."

Still, despite the plethora of material, there is mention of some of those early Ghostbeat songs making a reappearance in upcoming sets. "Bryan's a recycler of songs, which is usually a sign that the well's running dry," Joe muses. "I object, your honor," objects Tilford.