We caught up with Ghost of a Thousand vocalist Tom before their show in Manchester on their UK headline tour.
R13: You've done a few quite high profile support tours with the likes of Poison the Well & McQueen, what's it like to be out on your own?
T: It's good, we've done four dates so far.
R13: Have the crowds surprised or disappointed you?
T: They've surprised us really, we did the show of our lives last week in Kingston, which was amazing. We've picked up quite a few fans from those other tours, particularly Poison The Well but even McQueen, which is quite funny as we weren't expecting to get any fans from that tour!
R13: How would you describe the GOAT sound to anyone who hasn't heard you yet?
T: I guess we're like a really screamy, rock, hardcore band, we take a lot from bands like Bronx and Bad Religion.
R13: How long have you been together?
T: About 3 years now
R13: How long did it take you to get any recognition?
T: Well it all really kicked off with the record coming out, before that we'd toured quite a bit but they'd been fairly low key support tours. When the record came out a lot of people that hadn't really paid much attention to what we were doing started checking us out. I think people in this country take a while if you're doing something different, I mean we're not doing really heavy metal stuff.
R13: When you started the band did you have an idea of how it was going to sound?
T: Yeah very definitely, Mem & Jag moved down to Brighton with the intention of starting a band doing what we do. We have had a few line up changes and it took a while for the whole thing to come together, they tried out a few different vocalists but I don't think they really figured they were going to go for something quite as hard as we have done. The plan was always to do this though, just the bands we grew up with, there was noone else doing this, certainly not any British bands. We're lucky know that there's a couple, obviously Gallows are doing very well and there's a band from Leeds called Plight that are awesome as well so it's cool that people are taking rock and roll more seriously. There have always been bands doing this though, there was a big Scandinavian scene with bands like Gluesniffer and New Bomb Turks and nobody gave a shit but suddenly now it's the thing to like.
R13: Quite a lot of people have picked up on your lyrics, does that make it harder to write them, in that if people are really paying attention to them I better have something profound to say or do they just flow?
T: I find it quite funny that people are picking up on that, to be honest I try not to pay any attention and start thinking right I've got to write catch phrases, because you end up writing rubbish. We haven't quite figured out what we're going to write the second record about, the first one was always meant to be what it's about and we stuck with it. You have to keep moving on though.
R13: That would imply that it's based around a concept?
T: Yeah, the theme of the first one is very much about our attitude to music and what it's like being in a young person in this country. I think the next one perhaps, a couple of us are quite keen environmentalists and we really put to bed the theme of the first one so we might start writing a bit more about that but we don't really plan too much. I try not pay attention too much though as people can write something nice about you one day and say you're shit the next!
R13: Most of the reviews I've read have been very good, have you had any real stinkers?
T: Yeah there have been a couple, I tend to pay more attention to the bad ones, I don't need my ego massaging but if you read a bad one and they've picked up on something then that's interesting. I read one bad review where they had a go at us saying we'd sold out! I thought that was funny, saying that we were doing this music because it's trendy, well it wasn't trendy three years ago! It's the guy that puts out some of the Gallows seven inches so I think he had a vested interest in slagging us off.
R13: The album is pretty short, was that intentional?
T: Yeah, it was always meant to be short, I don't particularly like long heavy records and especially with the first one it was meant to be just in and out.
R13: Did you record more songs in that session?
T: No we just did what we wanted to do, we went in and recorded ten and that was it, there was a point where we toyed with doing a couple but we got to the point where we got it like we wanted it to sound.
R13: Will there be any single releases from the album?
T: Not a single but we might do a video for 'Black Art No1' but it's just finding the time at the moment, if we stopped touring then we might be able to squeeze a video in!
R13: Have you played outside the UK yet?
T: No not yet
R13: Any plans?
T: Yes, there's a few people in Holland and Belgium that want to organise a tour and we're talking to them at the moment. Poison the Well are talking about taking us over to the States next year as we got on really well with those guys. It's going to happen but Jag and Mem only just got their British passports sorted out, as they're form Indonesia, so it wouldn't really have been possible before that.
R13: What about festivals, any lined up for this summer?
T: We're playing the Full Ponty in Wales, which will be cool, we're playing the same stage as Paramore, which is quite funny but there are loads of bands I'm looking forward to seeing there. I've never actually seen the Lost Prophets so that should be a good show. We're gunning for Download but we're waiting on that one, fingers crossed, we're gunning for Leeds and Reading as well.
R13: Brighton seems to be a hotbed for bands at the moment, yourselves, Zico Chain & McQueen are all making waves in your respective fields, is the scene there as healthy as it appears to be?
T: It is good but it's tough because there are so many people that want to be musicians.
R13: Is that partly because of the music college down there?
T: Yeah, I mean I've never been there but McQueen are all from there as far as I'm aware. The thing with Brighton is that you have to be really good to make any impression because there are so many good bands and everyone is a bit too cool for school and just stands there with their arms folded and you have to shake them up a bit to get any reaction. It can make it tough but it just makes us better because we know everytime we play Brighton we have to do the best show.