Written by: Tom Wilson @thetomwilsonexperiment - Sense Music Media | Wednesday 22nd June 2022

Melbourne Doom Crew Give You Some Grief

Combining lumbering riffs the size of weather formations with the scything vocals of black metal, GHOSTSMOKER’s new EP Grief is a harrowing experience. We spoke to vocalist Nathan about working with Goatsound’s Jason Fuller, lyrical inspirations, and what’s coming next…

I’ve just been cranking Grief … Ugly, bleak, unpleasant … but enough about Jason Fuller, let’s talk about the EP.

[Laughs]

Did you like that? I’ve been working on that line over dinner.

[Laughs] It’s true though. Nah, he’s a beautiful man. He’s a very handsome man, and I won’t have anything else said about him.

How did you meet Jason?

So early on, when we started the band, we just wanted to get something out there, and we decided to look around different Melbourne recording studios, and came across Goatsound, listening to the WATCHTOWER record. I didn’t know Jason was in charge of Goatsound, but I sent Jason an email anyway, and asked how much it would cost us to do a couple of days in there, just to rush out an EP. Got on the phone with him, and yeah, booked it and went in, and that was the first time I met Jason. But I knew of him from his BLOOD DUSTER days and things like that.

So what was it like recording with the fourth most talented member of BLOOD DUSTER?

[Laughs] Still probably more talented than any of us, so it was pretty surreal. Sixteen-year-old me loved BLOOD DUSTER. Ben, our guitarist, spotted the Cunt guitar at the studio and actually bought it off Jason, so it was wild, man. The EP recording was almost secondary for a little while. It was awesome.

What are some of your vocal inspirations? I hear a bit of black metal in your vocals.

Yeah. So, initially, I was looking at joining a black metal band, or a post-black metal or whatever you want to call it, so I was listening to a lot of DEAFHEAVEN, a bit of BATHORY, DARKTHRONE, a bunch of different black metal and blackgaze, post-black metal stuff, and basically I can’t really do … I can’t sing. [Laughs] I’m not very good at gutturals and stuff like that, so it was kind of my only option at the end of the day. It seemed to work OK.

It fits! It gives it a great texture. What were some of the songwriting inspirations that went into Grief?

Musically, just being as dissonant as possible, but keeping it very riff-focused, so a lot of CONAN and VOW and bands like that. Lyrically, a few things happened in my life, with the passing of a parent, and that sort of affected me for quite some time, and I didn’t even realise it. I just started writing lyrics, and decided that the grieving process was the theme for the songs, basically.

What were some of the most challenging parts of putting this thing together?

Definitely COVID. So we formed during the lockdowns, I can’t remember which one, I think it was the third one or something, and we were just talking back and forth on Facebook and throwing around riffs, and recording stuff in our own homes. It’s difficult to sort of collaborate in that sense. We’d formed, and we hadn’t even had a rehearsal or anything for months. I think we formed in July last year, but didn’t have a single jam until September. So I guess it was more frustrating than anything. Having these songs kind of fleshed out, doing demos and things like that, but not actually knowing if we could actually pull it off together live.

What have been some of the live experiences like so far, with GHOSTSMOKER? How’s it gone?

Yeah, really well. We’ve all got a bit of experience in past bands and things like that, but I had not been on a stage in, like, ten years, and that was in Perth, so doing it in Melbourne is slightly different. But yeah, each gig I think we’re getting a little bit better, a little bit tighter. I wouldn’t say we’ve had a bad gig. Maybe a couple where the turnout wasn’t so great, but we’ve done things like the Sunburn Doom Festival in Canberra to a full room. The last four of our shows have been full rooms, and it’s just a lot easier to feed off that energy and perform. Last gig was a couple of weeks ago at the Bendigo Hotel for Doom in June, and we got a lot of positive feedback, so I’d say it’s going pretty well.

What are some of the bands in the Melbourne area that you really look up to, and why?

Oh, there’s heaps. I’d probably say, first and foremost, especially after seeing them at Sunburn, WHITEHORSE. Massive, massive sound. KVLL, for me, anyway, one of the first Melbourne doom bands I actually heard. RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCE … more newer bands as well, BOG MONSTER, BEGGAR, ASTROFUZZ, bands like that who are really impressive, and just really good people as well.

What are your plans for the rest of 2022, after the release of Grief?

We’ve got a few shows coming up, including a mini-tour to support the EP. Coming up, we’ve got August 20th for Sunburn Lite. They’re bringing Sunburn to Melbourne, but just a bit more of a smaller lineup over two nights. So we’ll be opening up that one. We have September 16th at the Bendigo Hotel. The lineup for that is under wraps at the moment, but that will be the start of the Grief tour. We will be in Wollongong on September 30th with OAR, FOOTHILLS, and we’ll also be playing with them in Sydney on October 1st at Frankie’s Pizza, and October 29th at the Old Bar with OAR and KVLL … I think that’s it for the rest of the year, and then we’ll focus on recording a follow-up album, I think.

You reckon you’re going to go the LP route?

Yeah, I think the intention is to go in there with about six or seven tunes. We’ve got two written at the moment, and it’s just a lot heavier than what we’ve got at the moment, which is cool. But yeah, I think the aim is to have six or seven in the pocket, and go in there and record all of them. If they all pan out, then full-length. If not, EP.

Grief is out now.

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