“Sure, it’s frustrating that people didn’t see the band as ‘legitimate’ or whatever even though we’d been around and had paid our dues, but it helped our drive more than it frustrated us."
In the internet age, where music blogs need to tell you at least once every fortnight that a new band's demo tape of mash-ups is the most poignant expression of musicality that you're ever liable to hear for the rest of your worthless life, bands seem to come and go at an alarming rate. Doomsayers might suggest the trend is emblematic of a disposable culture, or a generation's attention span devolving to a new murky depth. Whether or not that's true is arguable, but what's irrefutable is the emergence of the flash-hyped, blogosphere-backed band. Yes, there seems to be scores of acts becoming overnight successes, but The Ghost Inside is not one of them.
The band slogged it out, doing the touring rounds – for a few years and a pair of albums under the moniker A Dying Dream – before switching over to The Ghost Inside and doing another couple of records. Without a label for album number three, the band's hard work caught the eye of seminal punk label Epitaph, and eventually a deal was inked.
“We had finished up our contract with our old label and we really, really wanted Epitaph from the get go. We just felt that we had all been fans of the label pretty much as far back as we can remember, so we all thought it would be really cool to be a part of that label. And so it worked out when Epitaph was interested because that's where we wanted to go. We didn't really go back and forth with other labels because we really wanted Epitaph to work out, and fortunately for us it ended up being this situation where we were able to get what we wanted and Epitaph seemed to get what they wanted,” band frontman Jonathan Vigil says.
For a band who'd been working hard at their craft over the years, not relying on gimmicks like those godawful 'ironic' covers or short-lived internet hype, signing to Epitaph opened a lot of doors. “I think our band was kind of legitimised in a lot of people's eyes when we got signed to Epitaph. Before that I think there were a lot of people who seemed to think, 'Oh, y'know, The Ghost Inside are alright but I don't really know what they can do', but now we're on Epitaph it seems to be people more saying, 'Oh yeah, The Ghost Inside, that band's awesome. They're on a good label so we'll put them on this tour, we'll help them out'. So it legitimised our band in a lot of people's eyes, I guess.”
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That's got to be a bummer though, right? Putting in all that work, releasing great records in 2008's Fury & The Fallen Ones and 2010's Returners, capturing all that acrobatic riffery and songwriting that deftly reworked the metalcore song dynamic, and then having the gatekeepers of the music business brush you off, dismiss you, and basically just not give you the time of day?
“Sure, it's frustrating that people didn't see the band as 'legitimate' or whatever even though we'd been around and had paid our dues, but it helped our drive more than it frustrated us,” Vigil says. “It helped us want to get signed to that great label and [drove] a desire to push as hard as we could, but there have been times where it's felt like we've missed out on some stuff because people didn't see us in a certain light, but we just kept working hard and we've been able to do some pretty cool things in our career, so we're just going to keep at it so we get the chance to do more cool stuff with the band.”
Like their slow ascent to 'legitimacy', The Ghost Inside's approach to touring, especially in Australia, has been an effort of incremental gains and dogged determination. The band were happy to put in the work and slog it out as they worked their way up bills with the crème de la crème of Australian hardcore. Now, thanks to Get What You Give, they've finally found themselves in a headlining slot, which they're liable to destroy, on a bill stacked with the likes of Emmure, Antagonist AD and Hand Of Mercy.
“We've done a lot of really awesome support slots in Australia, and then this is going to be our first real headlining show down there so we really wanted to do something special for the kids who have been there from the beginning and have checked us out before. We've done a tour with I Killed The Prom Queen, we've done a tour with Deez Nuts, a tour with Parkway Drive, a tour with The Amity Affliction. So we've done all these tours with these big bands, so we're stoked to finally get the chance to headline and play all of the songs that we didn't get the time to play on all of those tours. And we thought that we should make that into more of an event by getting a great line-up all around for the show.”
The shows will mark the first chance that Australian fans will get to hear The Ghost Inside work through Get What You Give, an album that the band dedicated to Vigil's brother Ryan who unexpectedly died two years ago. These songs must dredge up a lot of emotions for the singer? Especially White Light, which directly deals with the tragedy.
“Sometimes it can be pretty difficult,” says Vigil. “My younger brother passed away a few years ago, kind of just out of the blue, and we've been playing it [White Light] on this last tour and it's been pretty difficult some nights. Sometimes it can take a lot out of you, getting that emotional in front of that many people. But for the most part our songs are empowering – about being proud of who you are and striving to do the most you can with your life, so not a lot of songs are too emotionally draining on me.
“It's one of our more popular songs. I think a lot of people can relate to that song because they've lost people prematurely and it's been difficult for them, too. So I think it means a lot to those fans who are coming out to the shows to have someone to share that with. To not play it would be a bummer for a lot of kids.”
Talking to Vigil, it becomes apparent that the band's ethos is something like: nothing's easy so you better just get it done. Whether that's tearing your soul out onstage night after night, or dogging it out on the road for years to get to a good spot, the band willingly accept that they've gotta do what they've gotta do.
“We just put everything we have into this band. This is our lives, and our livelihood, so it's nothing that we want to [do] half-arse. We've got to go on stage and play these songs with our heart and soul; really give it everything that we've got. And I think when people see us, they know that we're doing it for the right reasons, and are not just onstage because we want to be rockstars, y'know.”