Band der Woche: Newborn Ghost

Newborn Ghost wurde 2017 von Bela Fern und Everrett Thompson in Philadelphia gegründet. Heute lebt die Band in Barcelona und wird von Bassist Flügel Josh unterstützt. Ihr Sound verbindet düstere Melancholie mit eindringlichem Gesang und intensiven  Emotionen. Kürzlich ist die aktuelle Single „Life of the party“ erschienen. Ein toller Song, der Post-Punk- und  Darkwave-Einflüsse mit  experimenteller Elektronik  zu einem fesselnden Sound verwebt. 

Im Interview sprechen Bela und Everrett über ihre musikalischen Einflüsse und geben Einblicke in ihre kreative Zusammenarbeit  und ihr jüngstes Projekt mit der Künstlerin  Carmilla Sioux, die ebenfalls schon einmal unsere Band der Woche war (Link Interview). 

Who is behind Newborn Ghost? What made you decide to start the project?
Everrett: Bela and I did a few demos when we lived in Philadelphia. We are a couple and both musicians, so it was pretty natural. I think we were bored. Our neighborhood was not somewhere you could just walk around all the time, so we were kind of stuck in our apartment a lot.
Bela: Our neighborhood in Philly was as real as it gets, so we fed from it. Also, we were a bit poor at the time, and that always makes you more angry and creative. Stuck in a room, getting to know each other musically was such an experience, both joyful and frustrating at times. We moved to Barcelona and the songs evolved when you sit with them for a while. We recorded them in a very DIY way. When we released it, somehow people embraced it.

Can you tell us a few things about the connection between you three and your journey into music?
Everrett: All three of us are from other countries. I am from the U.S., Josh is from Honduras, and Bela is from Brazil. So we have pretty different backgrounds. Josh and I were both raised as Mormons, so we really connected from having that in common.
Bela: He joined the band after our first record was released (post-pandemic) because we were like, “Let’s start playing live.” He is the perfect fit. Strong sounds, a dark sense of humor; he’s our guy.

If you had to describe your music in terms other than music, what would you say?
Everrett: I guess you could compare it to a collage. We like a lot of different things, and our tastes vary quite a bit. I can hear all of these influences in the music. Especially at live shows, I think you really experience our individuality.
Bela: I often hear people say it’s cinematic, but I’m not sure about that. I want structure and melody—that’s all I care about. But I understand that in everything Ev creates, he always wants to tell a story. Sometimes  I wanna talk about love and sex.

What are you looking for in music? What are the boundaries that you look to explore with music?
Everrett: We would really love to do a “proper” record at a cool studio with a budget. I think that’s the big goal for us. At the moment, we are writing a record. We have always done small releases, so the plan is to do a full album this time around.
Bela: We want to do something sentimental. It’s very difficult to do in the right way and to make something people can connect to without getting too tacky.

What is sound to you?
Everrett: This is a question I am trying to answer for myself. I guess the scientific answer is atmospheric pressure, but I remember looking at a CD when I was a kid and wondering how this object could sit across the room from me, out of sight, and do this very special thing to me. I still feel that curiosity quite often when I am really into a song.
Bela: Well, I can only answer what music is for me. It has always been what distracted and saved me from the bullshit of growing up—the anxiety, the depression of being a teenager who didn’t connect with schoolmates, wanting to run away from home because of dysfunctional dynamics. Once I found it, I knew that it was gonna save my ass from a bunch of problems, so that’s the direction I took. Classic story.

What are your first musical memories? When did you first fall in love with sound? How have your early musical influences shaped your current music project?
Everrett: When I was very young, my grandfather got me a Garth Brooks tape. I got really into it, and eventually he got a VHS of a live performance. I would dress up with boots and a cowboy hat and rock out to it. I grew up with country music—the bad kind that they played on the radio in the early 90s. I still listen to Garth Brooks and some Reba McEntire. I really love the storytelling in the songs. I wish I could do that.
Bela: For me, it was Chaplin movies. I’d get really curious about that ragtime sound, and I remember asking my mom what style that was. She showed me a bit more, and the first record I bought was Billie Holiday’s cause I was drawn by the sadness of her voice. My best friend also burned me a tape from her older sister: it was Nina Simone, and I couldn’t tell what it was. Was she a guy, a girl? I also didn’t understand any English. The only thing I knew was that I loved that so much. It was only at a later age that I figured it out, and I treasure it so much till today.

What themes are you currently drawn to in your work?
Everrett: As I mentioned before, I grew up as a good Mormon boy, so religion is one theme that is there. It’s an easy way to get a point across. I think most of our songs have some sort of frustration about human nature in them.
Bela: There’s also a good touch on mental struggles.

A few weeks ago, you released your new song „Life of the Party.“ How does the birth of a new composition happen for you? How does your compositional process work?
Everrett: I just start from the bottom up—a beat and a bass line—and see how it makes me feel, then take it from there. The songs kind of make themselves. You just listen and see what is missing, trying to build that feeling into something more tangible.
Bela: We’d sometimes have some lyrics ready and we’d  kinda mold it with the song, creating more or less of the structure as we go. Verse, chorus, outro, and so on. We’ve also been struggling with some dichotomies in our daily life, breaking old patterns, so if you listen closely to the lyrics of „Life of the party,“ you’ll know what I’m talking about.

What artistic influences, outside of music, have had a significant influence on how you approach your art?
Everrett: What I watch on TV is probably the biggest influence. Film has everything needed to create a whole world and is linear in nature, like a song. It happens moment to moment, so you can learn a lot from movies.

How would you describe the world you are trying to create during your performances?
Bela: For me, I like to think it’s like going  into a cave. It’s dark. You don’t know where you’re stepping, it’s moist, there are weird noises, and sometimes you face a bug or something bigger. You feel very primitive, but also connected with your inner self. The waves of sound in the lack of light are very rich. You might even remember a previous life. Does that still make sense? You get out, and you lose all sense of time.

Recently, you released the album Lumina Obscura in collaboration with Carmilla Sioux under Soil Records. Could you share how this partnership with Carmilla came to be? Additionally, are there plans for future collaborations with other artists?
Bela: We met Carmilla while playing a show where she was DJing and promoting a party here in Barcelona. She saw us and immediately invited me to add vocals and lyrics to her tracks for her new EP. A week later, we already had the first track. It was something very natural and fun for us, but also a different approach from what we are used to doing. New collaborations are coming, but we can’t announce them just yet— we don“t wanna jinx it.Yeah, we are always happy to collaborate with our friends; it’s a real joy to make music with other people. It always pushes us out of our comfort zone, and we end up doing something we probably wouldn’t do alone.

What’s next for you? What are you most looking forward to?
Bela: We are playing with Plastique Noir in June in Madrid, and it makes me especially happy to play with fellow Brazilians. We also have the pleasure of opening for Suzi Sabotage, a female artist who is very creative and political. It will be an honor to share the stage with her.
Everrett: We are gonna play our first show outside of Spain, in Berlin with our friends Ciern. They rock, so that will be really fun and an exciting new experience for us.
Bela: Book us :)

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