Dirty Ghosts
The indelible & illustrious haunting of Dirty Ghosts; photo courtesy of Liz Caruana Photography.
San Francisco’s Dirty Ghosts have triumphantly returned from a national tour, a month plus European run with Kelley Stoltz, and have returned home to the Bay to premiere the flights of fancy filmed road film short “Tour de Floors” along with a listen to the title track anthem “Let It Pretend”. Taken from the album of the same name available via Last Gang Records; our heroes Allyson Baker, Erin McDermott, & Tony Sevener present the result of synthed-out recording made with Trans Am’s Phil Manley where the reverberations of synths and emotion striped shuddering riffs flicker like an incandescent vacuum tube bulb. A ballad that toasts the decline of a failing relationship, along with the freedom flight of their following road video finds Dirty Ghosts making music that rides forth for celestial highways that liftoff from the earthbound roads.
Dirty Ghosts’ Go Pro shot road move “Tour De Floors” serves as a music video that documents their late 2015 tour of the States and Canada in support of Let It Pretend. Watch Allyson, Erin, & Tony traverse the landscapes from Denver to their old stomping grounds of Ottawa having a ball, roughing it by living it up, making new friends, food, caffeine, and shenanigans. “Tour De Floors” is a song that celebrate that road warrior life crashing a new floor or couch (if lucky) every night in a song styled after a band van motor rhythm. Dirty Ghosts edit together a dizzying array of visuals that follow them playing a series of performances, from various venues, road grub gorge sessions, playground pauses, souvenir stops, and more dizzying arrays of stage lights and shots of the road that underscores the frenetic feeling when Allyson sings, “I hope you know the way out, because I don’t.” “Tour De Floors” road visuals depict Dirty Ghosts living up to the tough-as-nails sound and attitude aesthetic that the trio waves like a flag that asks to bring on the good times, while also reserving very human emotional elements in musical motifs and lyrics. Dirty Ghosts show us that while the touring circuits can be draining, there are rewards and excitement that exist out there in the world in the most random of places that you have yet to explore.
Title track “Let It Pretend” is everything you love about Dirty Ghosts. Allyson & company’s in your face honesty that lays out emotion on the line, facing tides of changes and breaks with the head-on confrontational apprehension heard in the chorus of, “Pretender, let it pretend until one of us surrenders.” Echoing the great women who rocked arenas in the 70s & 80s; Dirty Ghosts illustrate a righteous sound that gives us the impression that they really have only just begun. We had an opportunity to catch up with our friend Allyson Baker in our following featured interview.
Give us behind the scenes anecdotes from the collected tour Go Pro footage that makes up “Tour De Floors”.
This tour was different than any other tour we’ve ever done. We really embraced the vacation and travel aspect of it. Tony (Sevener, our drummer) couldn’t do the tour so I called one of my old high school pals Andrew from Toronto, who was really excited about going.
The prospect of being with him for a month straight, combined with the all food tour he had mapped out within our tour meant an onslaught of laughing and snacking. We were all about seeing the town, sampling their eats and playing a high energy show to burn off the cals.
What do you feel are some of the top five most important survival necessities, tips, & tricks for touring?
If you don’t like the idea of being on tour for a month, think of it as a road trip. Thelma and Louse, Fear and Loathing etc… Bring a small dog, to drop off at your mother’s house in another country 10 days into the tour, so you don’t have to worry about your pet. Invite a couple of your friends along and try to do cliche tourist activities to trick your brain, like going to Bourbon Street post show. If it’s a bad show, there’s always Bourbon Street to look forward to. If you’re going to enjoy fine cheeses and spreads in on tour like we did, ya gotta bring a cheese bag. Everyone knows you need a designated driver, but on tour you need a designated driver for the morning after. Every minute of hangover driving feels like an hour, so multiply that by 10 hours that’s a 600 hour drive.
Dirty Ghosts from left, Tony, Allyson, & Erin; photographed by Jenn Hernandez.
After a very eventful 2015, tell us about the making of the new big single “Let It Pretend”, and much the music of The Pretenders might have inspired it, and more.
The Stranglers were probably the band that inspired the album the most. Not being shy about using a four on the floor beat more than twice, having a tough bass sound drive the album, using keyboards for the first time, stuff like that. What I like about the Pretenders, although they weren’t a huge influence musically, is they wrote such great songs and that was something we tried to focus on this time around. Working on writing more honest lyrics, trying to map out songs in a more pop format, all of which was new territory for this band. It was a good learning experience.
Dirty Ghosts’ ‘Let It Pretend’ LP cover; illustrated by Shayde Sartin of The Fresh & Onlys, as well as a prolific visual artist.
What other new directions of sound and styles have Dirty Ghosts been exploring?
Since we made Let It Pretend, we’ve acquired more gear and more production experience. Right now I’ve been having fun playing with synths and drums machines, which takes my brain into different places creatively. We completely abandoned the sampling that we used on Metal Moon, the first record, and there’s something about that I’d like to revisit, but differently, just working on the how and what of that right now. I think with “Let It Pretend” we said what we had to say musically with that one, and now we’re ready to try something different and new.
Next items on the Dirty Ghosts itinerary?
A bunch of west coast dates with LA Witch in March. A split 7″ Converse and Amoeba Records are putting out with our song “Witch Hunt”, which sadly never made it on to our album, so we’re happy its finally seeing a release on vinyl. And a remix coming out soon by a band we love that we’re really excited about, but can’t announce yet.
Current favorite things about the Bay Area right now?
This city’s got a good energy. I definitely feel it when I step outside in the morning. Maybe that’s because I’m living in the Mission for the first time in a really long time so there’s something still new about that to me. Also the burrito to home proximity is unbeatable. And a pile of great bands around right now, Cold Beat, Swiftumz, Cool Ghouls, Genuine Parts, Once and Future Band, too many to name!
Dirty Ghosts’ Let It Pretend is available now via Last Gang Records.
