Taste Test: Grey Ghost

23 January 2013 | 5:45 am | Staff Writer

Get the lowdown from Grey Ghost.

FIRST ALBUM I BOUGHT WITH MY OWN MONEY
It was Frogstomp by Silverchair. I guess it was the mid- to late-'90s. When I was younger, I was more of a visual artist – I wasn't heavily into music yet, but I remember that the first thing that got my attention was grunge. I wonder if the cover inspired me to buy it, with the green frog on the white background. Killer record. I still love it.

THE ALBUM I'M LOVING RIGHT NOW
Frank Ocean, Channel Orange. That is just an incredible album, and it's a real grower as well. I think Frank Ocean is a really refreshing sound. He's got such a beautiful soul voice. I think soul has had a bit of a dip in popularity – people haven't thought soul is as cool as it used to be, so it's nice to see someone come back and rock it. To me, he's almost a male Amy Winehouse. Lyrically, I think both Amy and Frank Ocean are inspired by hip hop lyricists. They've got a certain edge about their lyricism and their poetic nature. Spiritually, they're more rappers than soul singers, and it's a really interesting new style.

MY FAVOURITE PARTY ALBUM
For me, A Tribe Called Quest, The Love Movement. I've got a lot of friends who love Tribe and really don't like that album, and it really trips me out. You know when you have those albums that just connected with you at a certain time in your life? I was in Year Nine or maybe Year Ten and I was really a new fan of A Tribe Called Quest at that time, so that album… takes me back to a time when I was kind of carefree.

MY FAVOURITE COMEDOWN ALBUM
Air, Moon Safari. I love that album. It's real nostalgic. Something that I realised about nostalgic music is that if you're feeling happy, it can make you feel even happier, but if you're feeling down, it can bring you even further down as well. Moon Safari, for me, is a very nostalgic-sounding record.

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THE FIRST GIG I EVER ATTENDED
When I was about seven or eight years old, I was a really big Prince fan. [My family] went to the Entertainment Centre in Melbourne for the Diamonds & Pearls Tour. I was obviously quite short, and me and my cousin were standing up on our seats, because everyone in front of us was taller and it was the only way we could see, especially because the people in front of us were standing up as well. We had these hecklers behind us who told us to sit down, and because we were just kids, we weren't quite old enough to stand up for ourselves – quite literally. So, we sat down and couldn't see anything… And the next thing you know, my dad was waking me up. We'd slept through the whole gig, and I've never forgiven myself, because I still love Prince.

THE WEIRDEST GIG EXPERIENCE I'VE HAD
Not too long ago, I played in Traralgon at the Saloon Bar. I had my full band there with me for this O-Week uni gig. We turned up a couple of hours before we were set to play, and the place was packed. It's a big venue, so we're talking about thousands and thousands of kids, and they all looked about 18. Every single person was dressed up in a sports outfit, because it was uni games, and they had all been drinking since about 7am. It looked like a scene out of Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas, with all these figures who were just strange and distorted and wasted. They were all dancing to pretty much the worst music I've ever heard in my life – all the classic club tunes – and my music is sort of hip hop and punk. Just setting up for the show was so daunting – I felt like we were on this little island, and there was just a sea of twisted sharks out there. We kicked off and we played our set, and it was pretty much the epitome of 'not my audience', but funnily enough, it was a really great gig. They were all ready to party, and we killed it. It was definitely very weird, that's for damn sure.

THE BIGGEST NON-MUSICAL INFLUENCES
I often feel that my biggest influences come from outside of music. I'd say someone like Michel Gondry, the director – he directs a lot of incredible film clips, like The Hardest Button To Button for The White Stripes, and he also did Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, The Science Of Sleep and Be Kind Rewind. Whenever I see his visuals and his little creations, that inspires me a lot. Outside of music, I direct a lot of music videos – I'm going to shoot one for Pez on Monday. I guess I find when I write music, it's almost like I see the visual as I write it. Michel Gondry is definitely a big influence for me. 

THE COOLEST PERSON I'VE EVER MET
The first band I ever played with supported Dizzee Rascal. He was pretty damn cool – very fresh. It was a while ago, I think he was still only 18 or maybe 19 – he was real young. He's pretty much got the coolest accent of all time – sometimes a little hard to understand, but definitely very cool. And what I remember is, I stole his wheel of brie from backstage. I was drunk and, like, staring at his wheel of brie on the platter, and I remember having a munch on it on the way home. Yeah… Dizzee Rascal was pretty awesome.

THE BIGGEST CELEBRITY CRUSH I'VE EVER HAD
Can I say someone fictional? My first big crush was on Tank Girl, but that was when she was a drawing. She was so cool – she had the sort of mohawk thing, and she was lovely, and had big boobs, and would wear this ridiculous punk outfit. They made the movie and I was a little bit disappointed, because I wasn't as into Lori Petty. But I'm still gonna say Tank Girl was my first big celebrity crush.

IF I COULD HANG OUT IN ANY TIME AND PLACE IN HISTORY
I was sitting next to my auntie-in-law's sister at a Christmas function, and those things can be kind of boring… but we got talking, and it turns out that she was in London and New York in the late-'70s and '80s. She was in a partnership with her husband where they used to make incredible film clips for INXS… And she tour managed Iggy Pop. I was just fascinated by this conversation, because that right there is where I'd want to be. If I could be in 1978 or 1979 in New York, when hip hop was beginning, literally being born in the South Bronx, and then the Bowies and the Warhols, that whole incredible new wave… If I could, I'd go back and that's where and when I'd be, for sure.

IF I WASN'T MAKING MUSIC
I think I'd have a production company covering everything music-related outside of the music itself. I would direct and write music videos and create album artwork… and I'd like to get into feature films as well, and documentary. I'm just as much a visual artist, I think, as a music artist. The thing that I love the most is creating and performing music, but I also love to create visual art, so I think that's very much what I'd be doing.

Interview by Aleksia Barron

Grey Ghost will be playing the following dates:

Sunday 27 January - Annandale Hotel, Sydney NSW