Ghost Town

I wanted to start doing interviews on this thing – Here’s the first one.

Ghost Town.

Ghost Town are a hardcore band from the Gold Coast. They’re heavy. Sometimes they’re fast. Sometimes they’re slow. They’re the bastard son of bands like Converge, Trap Them and Give Up The Ghost. If you like bands who tend to play each show like it’s their last, listen to them, check them out at a show, and read this interview with vocalist Sam Saljooghi.

Hi Sam. Calamities is out now. Are you happy with it? Is there anything about it that is bugging you already? Have you had good feedback?

It feels great to finally have it out seeing as we recorded it in September. I am definitely happy with, but there will always be things that you look back on and wish you could fix but having those things in a recording isn’t necessarily a bad thing,we wanted this album to be as real as possible, so we sound like an actual band on recording not like the garbage that bands are putting out these days that has no substance or life to it, it’s just fake bullshit.

We have received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback which is incredible as our music and the recording is quite harsh to listen to so we didn’t think many people would be into it.

You put it out through Dead Souls records. Which is ran by Marty of Carpathian.. Carpathian are obviously on Deathwish and they get some really good oppurtinities. Is there any doors in particular that you hope could be opened for Ghost Town through your relationship with Dead Souls?

Deathwish is a label that we think very highly of and any opportunity to work with them would be incredible. Marty has helped us out quite a lot already and we are planning some great things this year, some of which wouldn’t be possible without him.

Is there a way you feel you can sum up the intention of Ghost Town as a whole? Like, what type of band would you like to be remembered for and on what scale in regards to Australian metal/hardcore?

It’s hard to sort of sum up are intentions in this one answer, we didn’t start the band with any other intentions but to create music that we want to make to the best of our ability which will always be our intention but now we have started to do a bit of touring, even going to other countries, hopefully we can keep doing that.

I haven’t really thought of how I would like the band to be remembered, I feel as though the journey has just begun

Can you try to explain to me how you felt just as you were about to walk out onto the stage at the Hi Fi knowing that two hours later Converge would be playing the same stage?

I’ll be completely honest here, I can’t remember being that nervous before a show for a very long time haha. We started Ghost Town because of Converge, so having the opportunity to play with them was insane.

The “scene” you guys are involved with on the Gold Coast seems to divide opinion to an extent. Gaining praise for being built and mantained by such an enthusiastic group of younger dudes. There’s also the side you and I have discussed before, where people tend to steer clear of the shows down there due to people have pegged it as a very “Boys club” type affair with some bad attitudes. I always found myself indifferent to a lot of things I had seen/heard from the bands associated with the Shed, but after having met a few dudes involved I’ve seen it’s really just an incredibly tight knit group of friends who manage to still let others in, whilst still seeming incredibly selective about who is befriended. What are your thoughts on this, and do you think there is anything i’ve said that is far from the truth?

I got asked similar questions like this all the time, the shows I used to put on at the shed were open to everyone and anyone, I was putting on the shows because no one else was but we had all these greats bands just rotting away so we decided to create a hardcore scene. A lot of the “violence” that people talk about came about I guess from Hardcore and Punk being too safe and watered down and we wanted to bring back the rawness and intensity that Hardcore was suppose to be. I can see why people interpreted that the way they do but most of the rumours came from people that had never actually attended a shed show or even spoke to any of us before, I think you will find that we never had a gang mentality, we wouldn’t fight people for no reason or anything like that, we wanted people to come to our shows and listen to our bands. I hope that clears everything up.

You spent your whole life on the Gold Coast, yeah? Now, I’m pretty sure it’s like the fastest growing city in the country, and you have mad cunts like Sharky… But your lyrics tend to deal with massive amounts of isolation and frustration towards what’s around you. You don’t seem to be the most negative guy. Where do you pull all this from? Would you say that writing and creating something is the only outlet where you can truly express certain things you think and feel?

Yeah I have lived on the Gold Coast my whole life, most people that live here say they hate it, but I like living here, of course it has it’s down sides and bad people but you get that everywhere, but in reality I am so lucky to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

I would definitely say creating music and writing is my only outlet for negativity, I’m not really a negative person but everyone has their problems and music would be my way of dealing with those problems, as cliche as that sounds.

You dudes have managed to tour a lot for dudes of your age. What have been some of your best shows/stories/places you’ve visited? Tell me about South East Asia.

Yeah it is has been great the places that we have travelled to. Singapore is a really nice place and I would like to go back there, New Zealand is also a great place that I want to explore more, hopefully I can go to where Lord Of The Rings was filmed, listen to Amon Amarth and have an epic battle, but for some reason I don’t think that will happen.

We have played some great shows with some amazing bands. Trash Talk on the Gold Coast was possibly one of the most wild shows I have seen/played, the shows we played in Singapore and Malaysia with Gold Kids and More Than Life were also crazy.

How long have you all actually known eachother? And what type of shit did every band member grow up listening to? I know you’re nuts about AFI, is everyone else in the band?

We have all known each other for a while, we have all been in bands together before. I grew up listening to AFI and they are still my all time favourite band, Crash Love is amazing. Everyone in Ghost Town grew up listening to stuff like Iron Maiden, Metallica, AFI, Thursday, Tool, Slayer and The Misfits.

You guys are a pretty intense live band. I know that personally, after some shows and I can shut right down and I actually start to think about everything I write about and analyze everything and wonder if I’m doing the situations/stories/emotions I’m trying to deal with creatively any justice with the music I’m involved in. Is playing a show a cathartic experience for you? Is there a mindset you find yourself in before or after each show?

As I said earlier, creating and writing music is my outlet and the lryics in my songs are quite personal so I do have to get in the right headspace before we play otherwise it’s just fake.

When was the last time you cried? Seriously.

Wow, what a question, I am trying to think of when it was, it was fairly recently, maybe a couple of weeks ago. I am not going to get into why.

When was the last time you were in a fist fight?

A couple of months ago, at Snitch (what a suprise) I was helping out my friend who was fighting some drunk guy.

I understand you have drinkers and non drinkers in the band, and everyone is vegetarian, right? Does living meat free, or drug/promiscuous sex free lives influence any aspect of the band musically, at all?

Nah not everyone is vegetarian, Jackson is Vegan. Daniel, Chris and I are all vegetarian, Shaun isn’t. Our lifestyles haven’t really ever effected our music, some of my lyrics do touch on the subjects of anima liberation but we wouldn’t ever put one of those labels on our band as we feel it would create limits.

Who are some of your favourite Australian bands and why? What bands do you seem to share an affinity with?

Some Australian bands that I am into right now are I Exist, BLKOUT!, The Abandonment, In Trenches and Abraxis. Some bands that we are friends and totally back are The Hollow, I Exist, The Abandonment, The Dead Ends, Word Up!, Marathon, Earthlings and The Broderick. Everyone should listen to all the bands I just mentioned.

If Ghost Town broke up tomorrow. Would you be ok about it? Would you feel like certain things you need to get across have been put across throughout all the shows you’ve played and your recorded output?

I definitely wouldn’t be ok about it, bands breaking up sucks, I would like to keep the band going for as long as possible. I think we have already accomplished a lot but as I said earlier, I feel as though the journey has just begun.

Have you ever read the Anti Matter Anthology? That book is a collection of all four issues of a zine that a dude called Norman Brannon (Ex Shelter, Texas Is The Reason) did and he had some incredible interviews in there with bands like Judge, Sick Of It all, Samiam etc. He really intended to get under people’s skin and it’s an incredible read. That book is basically the reason I wanted to start interviewing bands and asking questions about them crying and what really goes on in their head. This is kind of a pointless question, sorry.

No I haven’t read it, though it sounds great and I would definitely like to check it out, I am sure Ryan Sim would have a copy, I will have to hassle him for one. I love reading books like that, it’s so interesting to see how Punk, Hardcore and even metal has changed for good or for bad over the last the 30 years.

What’s one thing you could change about yourself, the world, and people’s perception of Ghost Town?

I wouldn’t change anything about Ghost Town, The world and myself however, I just wrote a whole album about that haha.

Thanks for answering the questions dude.

Thanks for giving me an interview that I actually really enjoyed doing.

Listen to Ghost Town here.